Religion has a terrible track record when it comes to queer members and topics: condemnation, rejection and often, in the case of the Catholic church, exploitation and ultimately excommunication. While not all religions are anti-LGBT, most everyone I interviewed for Fruitbowl had negative experiences with their faith, especially in their  coming of age years when we didn’t have the agency to decide for ourselves if religion was something we actually wanted to participate in. Instead, it was thrust upon us and, as a result, many queer people became disenfranchised and suspicious of faith based institutions and the many self-righteous followers who feel empowered to judge us.

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To be trans in America right now is to live day to day knowing that your very existence is considered a provocation, a threat. But for the next hour and 13 minutes, I invite you to leave all the chaos and vitriol of our current political climate behind and listen to these trans and non-binary interviewees share some of my favorite Fruitbowl stories about identity, community, sex and intimacy. Not just trans stories. Human stories. Just listen and I can guarantee you’ll find something you identify with.

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College is often the first opportunity to separate ourselves, both geographically and psychologically, from oppressive families or communities. It's a chance to examine stifled urges and investigate sidelined feelings in an environment that includes others seeking similar experiences. When you combine this newfound sense of self with a bit of confidence and some good old fashioned young adult hormones, it's no wonder so many of us find ourselves falling in love for the first time at college.

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College is often the first opportunity to separate ourselves, both geographically and psychologically, from oppressive families or communities. It's a chance to examine stifled urges and investigate sidelined feelings in an environment that includes others seeking similar experiences. When you combine this newfound sense of self with a bit of confidence and some good old fashioned young adult hormones, it's no wonder so many of us find ourselves falling in love for the first time at college.

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This episode is the first of a three part series about first love. Specifically, the messy, inconvenient, heartbreaking chaos that first love often inspires for people in high school as well as all the sweetness, optimism and exciting feelings of discovery both about ourselves and that special someone. Mix in the big feelings of emerging sexuality and you can understand why so many of these interviewees remember this time in their lives like it was yesterday.

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Enjoy this bonus episode of the podcast series Nuances: Our Asian Stories. 

Hosted by Lazou, Nuance's latest season is titled Queering Premodern Asia and each episode explores different aspects of sexual diversity in premodern Asia with commentary and personal stories from guest scholars and artists. 

Lazou reached out recently and, because our podcasts have a lot of themes in common, we decided to share an episode of each other’s pod with our listeners. 

Just so you know, Lazou’s structure of the episodes: first a guest scholar talks about some really interesting queer history of ancient Asian cultures and then, after that, a guest talks about their own personal history and experiences. As you may have guessed, this is my favorite part of the episode.

This first episode of the Queering Premodern Asia series is titled “In search of Prince Charming…and his King!” and the first half is full of swoon-worthy love stories of gorgeous male lovers of kings and saints!  Then there is a conversation between Lazou and guest Edmond Chan, a native of Texas who is also a professional musician and scholar. Edmond's conversation with Lazou is really real and raw and it sounds a lot like a Fruitbowl interview so check it out and, if you like the show, subscribe to their feed!

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