Out in the Bay

Photojournalist Kristin Lyseggen profiles nine current and former inmates in her new book "The Women of San Quentin: Soul Murder of Transgender Women in Male Prisons ." Surrounded by convicted murderers and rapists, she writes, they are often forced to fight for their lives on their way to womanhood inside some of the world’s most dangerous prisons for men. She and Daniella Tavake, one of those profiled in the book, share intimate parts of their stories with host Eric Jansen on this week's...

With recent gay rights gains, why is it still difficult for young people to be lesbian, gay, bi, transgender or “queer,” even in the San Francisco Bay Area? The Pacific Center for Human Growth, an LGBT counseling and community center in Berkeley, reports that many queer youth feel unsafe at school every day .

Blackmail, My Love, is a noir murder-mystery novel set in San Francisco, 1951 - "The Dark Ages of Queerdom," as author and illustrator Katie Gilmartin puts it - when cops raided gay and lesbian bars, beat up their patrons, and demanded "protection" money, and when lesbians and gay men were so afraid of exposure they were easy blackmail targets.

Lesbians and their friends take over the stage at Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse in Berkeley Friday, Nov. 13, in a concert benefiting Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which has defended the rights of LGBT people in many recent legal cases and political battles.

Halloween not enough? The gory, century-old Grand Guignol theatre style is recreated in Thrillpeddlers' Shocktoberfest 16: Curse of the Cobra , playing through Nov. 21 at the Hypnodrome in San Francisco. And Theatre Rhinoceros, the nation's longest-running LGBT theater company, presents Shakespeare Goes to War at The Thick House.

Dedicated to capturing the oral history of queer San Francisco, Out In The Bay host Marilyn Pittman interviews one of the legendary figures of the 60's, 70's, and 80's: former Cockettes member, Dolores Deluce. Her memoir, "My Life, A Four-Letter Word: Confessions of a Counter-Culture Diva," made Amazon's Top 20 and is an intimate, honest look back at life in the city during its radical heyday. Friends with Divine, Sylvester; lover to many gay men, witness to the devastation of AIDS,...

Out in the Bay ventures into outer space 7pm Thursday with cast members of Star Trek Live , a comedic gender-bending homage to the hit '60s TV show, now on stage at Oasis Night Club in San Francisco.

Chana Wilson grew up in the 1950s with a suicidal mother. She learned in adulthood that her mother had been a closeted lesbian given psychiatric treatments - including electroshock - to “cure” her. Mother and daughter developed a deep bond when both came out as lesbians in the women’s and gay liberation movements of the late 1960s and ’70s. There's much more to this touching, fascinating story in "Riding Fury Home," Chana’s memoir. Marilyn Pittman hosts. Thursday, October 8, 2015.

As preparations for Sunday's Castro Street Fair wind up, 20 bronze sidewalk plaques are in place to guide pedestrians on a stroll through queer history. The Rainbow Honor Walk is a growing monument along the streets of San Francisco honoring LGBT pioneers. Rainbow Honor Walk co-founder David Perry is Eric Jansen's guest on Out in the Bay, 7pm Thursday . We also hear Steven Short's feature on “The Queer Past Becomes Present,” an ongoing exhibit at the GLBT History Museum on 18th Street,...

Judy Grahn's "Common Woman" poems in the '60s and '70s inspired a generation of lesbian feminists. Her 2012 book, "A Simple Revolution: The Making of an Activist Poet," is part history, part memoir and a brilliant read.

Contrary to popular mythology, the LGBT civil rights movement did not begin with the June 1969 Stonewall Rebellion at New York's Stonewall Inn. Eric Jansen's guests this week on Out in the Bay (7pm PDT Thursday) are Max Wolf Valerio, essay contributor to, and Adrian Brooks, editor and multiple essayist of the new anthology The Right Side of History: 100 Years of LGBTQI Activism .

Making a baby isn't easy if you're two gay men. But that's what author Joshua Gamson and his husband, Richard, set out to do. Twice. Those stories and four others are what makes up his new book, "Modern Families: Stories of Extraordinary Journeys to Kinship." Marilyn explores with him the complexities, physically, legally, and politically, of what these parents went through and why. Thursday, September 3rd, 2015 at 7pm Pacific at kalw.org, 91.7fm in San Francisco.

Famed mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade sings in this weekend’s Bay Area performances of Street Requiem, a choral contata to call attention to the plight of people living on our streets and in other insecure conditions around the globe. On this week's Out in the Bay ( 7pm Thursday ), Australian co-creators Andy Payne and Kathleen McGuire – conductor and artistic director of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus from 2000 to 2010 – play selections from Street Requiem’s World Premiere in...

Why do tens of thousands of people trek to a temporary camp city in a remote Nevada desert every August? Is Burning Man worth the heat and dust storms? What's queer about it? On Thursday's Out in the Bay (7pm PDT 8/20) Eric Jansen's guests are Jennifer Raiser and Sidney Erthal, writer and photographer, respectively, of the book Burning Man: Art on Fire ; and Foxy, past mayor of Camp Beaverton , the main lesbian camp in Burning Man 's "gayborhood." (This interview first broadcast Aug. 14,...

State Senator Mark Leno is the first openly gay man to serve in California’s Senate. A champion of LGBT rights throughout his career, Leno is far from a ‘single-issue’ politician. As he approaches his last year in the Senate — he’s termed out in 2016 — hear Leno chat with Out in the Bay host Eric Jansen about his political priorities, his thoughts on what’s next for LGBT rights and, after representing San Francisco for more than a decade, his views on the state of our city and how we can...

The June 2015 SCOTUS ruling on gay marriage changed consciousness. But right wing zealots keep practicing 'conversion therapy' on minors, trying to make them not be LGBT. Marilyn Pittman takes a look at this unethical and dangerous practice with activists Joe Rodriguez and Jim Walker. Just when you thought gay rights was over! Thursday, August 6th, 2015 at 7pm, the award-winning show, "Out In The Bay."

How has the growing acceptance and visibility of LGBT people affected how straight Americans view sexuality and gender – including their own? How has it changed the way all of us think about sexuality and gender? This week's guest is Sonoma State University sociology professor James Joseph Dean, the author of Straights: Heterosexuality in Post-Closeted Culture.

Just as the June 2015 U.S. Supreme Court marriage equality decision changed consciousness, so did Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected politician in America.

Find out how the rainbow came to be a worldwide symbol of the gay rights movement. Why was it so hard to find pink flag fabric? What do the colors stand for? Marilyn interviews Gilbert Baker, the creator of the Rainbow Flag which was created for San Francisco's 1978 Pride Parade when Harvey Milk was leading the way. 7pm Thursday July 16th, 2015 at kalw.org, 91.7fm San Francisco.

Its creators call Baloney “San Francisco’s First Gay All-Male Revue,” but this weekend in SF, women join the cast. Choreographer Rory Davis and writer and director Michael Phillis play clips and tell the tale of this sexy, humorous, thought-provoking show on this week's Out in the Bay (7pm PDT Thursday). Baloney plays this Thursday - Saturday at Oasis in San Francisco. You'll also hear a clip from Phillis’ short film “ Mini Supreme ” about a 32-year-old man who enters a beauty pageant for...