Oct 27, 2026 · 1 hr 5 min · 12 segments
🏳️🌈 HERE. QUEER. & AIN’T GOING NOWHERE. | MEDIUM ROAST PODCAST S2E9 ☕️🔥Black queer stories aren’t new — we’ve always been here. In our families, churches, HBCUs, communities, and culture. And now…
Galen J. WilliamsGuest
Lakara FosterHostYeah.
So my, I feel like my, my journey with faith is, is of course ever going and ever evolving.
Um, and, and throughout my, honestly throughout my teens and adolescence, like my relationship with faith and with Christ and religion, it was very, uh, it was very, it was, it was a bit traumatic in a way of that, like, you know, um, my family wasn't really very accepting when they found out that I was, that I was gay.
And, and, and a lot of it, a lot of the reception to it, of course, came with, you know, like the abominations and the hellfire and all these things.
So there was a lot of, I think there was a lot of fear-based connection as it came to religion and, you know, like in my early development, like in my teens and whatnot.
But then one of my mentors, I love her, Dawn Axum, she is very spiritual and she is one of the main influencers that sort of freed my mind to this idea that me existing as I am wasn't going to damn me to hell.
if my presence and my being is so morally wrong and so morally corrupt, why am I still living this beautiful life? And so it took, it took a few years and a lot of deconstructing and a lot of unlearning to come to the, uh, to the knowing that, uh, me showing up authentically and being who I am, who I know and my soul to be is never going to work against me.
And so my relationship to religion has really, it had its religious roots, but then it grew and evolved into more of a spiritual
place.
And
um and you know and like even my journey with like church and things like it's been um i found that like sometimes i felt that the black church felt performative at times and so um and that kind of disconnected me in a way and but that disconnection did not ever turn to disbelief.
You know, there was that, yeah, that, yeah, that disconnection never turned into disbelief because it was just like, If anything, then I started to just try to find, I started to focus on my personal relationship
Yeah.
So my, I feel like my, my journey with faith is, is of course ever going and ever evolving.
Um, and, and throughout my, honestly throughout my teens and adolescence, like my relationship with faith and with Christ and religion, it was very, uh, it was very, it was, it was a bit traumatic in a way of that, like, you know, um, my family wasn't really very accepting when they found out that I was, that I was gay.
And, and, and a lot of it, a lot of the reception to it, of course, came with, you know, like the abominations and the hellfire and all these things.
So there was a lot of, I think there was a lot of fear-based connection as it came to religion and, you know, like in my early development, like in my teens and whatnot.
But then one of my mentors, I love her, Dawn Axum, she is very spiritual and she is one of the main influencers that sort of freed my mind to this idea that me existing as I am wasn't going to damn me to hell.
if my presence and my being is so morally wrong and so morally corrupt, why am I still living this beautiful life? And so it took, it took a few years and a lot of deconstructing and a lot of unlearning to come to the, uh, to the knowing that, uh, me showing up authentically and being who I am, who I know and my soul to be is never going to work against me.
And so my relationship to religion has really, it had its religious roots, but then it grew and evolved into more of a spiritual
place.
And
um and you know and like even my journey with like church and things like it's been um i found that like sometimes i felt that the black church felt performative at times and so um and that kind of disconnected me in a way and but that disconnection did not ever turn to disbelief.
You know, there was that, yeah, that, yeah, that disconnection never turned into disbelief because it was just like, If anything, then I started to just try to find, I started to focus on my personal relationship
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