Today, October 11th, is National Coming Out Day, and the pod is celebrating with a *truly* delightful conversation with mental health therapist and writer, Parisa Akhbari! Parisa had an abstract fear of lesbianism throughout her early adolescence; enough so that she asked her mother at the age of eight if lesbians were "good people." But when her older sister came out a few years later, Parisa felt a huge sense of relief that "oh, it was HER the whole time - it wasn't me!" Parisa continued to...

Netflix's Sex Education recently dropped its final season, and with it came a new asexual character who - while groundbreaking - has proven to be quite divisive within the ace community. To that end, it seemed like the perfect time for Lauren to have a conversation with asexual activist Marshall John Blount, known online as the Gentle Giant Ace! Marshall was homeschooled by his mother from third grade onward, so he didn't directly experience the social pressures of high school dating. Even...

Lauren has a beautiful conversation with singer-songwriter Irina Rivkin, who identifies as "a lesbian queer femme dyke with disabilities" as well as ambiamorous, which for her means "my heart is capable of loving more than one person...but also doesn't mean that I *must* be in multiple relationships." Irina's family had to flee Russia in the '70s, and subsequently settled in the U.S. as refugees when Irina and her twin sister were just five years old. But despite being in a safer country,...

Tera Wozniak Stortz, founder of the Queer Divorce Club, remembers one fleeting moment in high school when it ever-so-briefly crossed her mind that she might be a lesbian. For the most part, though, Tera thought that her lack of attraction to men simply meant that she was "broken." Like many in her position, Tera ended up in a long-term heteronormative marriage, and kept herself moving at such a breakneck pace that she never had time to truly examine her identity. But when Tera and her husband...

"Long-time listener, first-time guest" Amanda Slawinski's coming out journey began with a covert kiss behind a purposefully-closed door at the tender age of five...but then didn't pick up again until eighteen years later. Amanda identifies as queer, demisexual, and a "recovering Catholic," so it's no surprise that sex of any kind was NOT discussed in her family home (even the Gilmore Girls were frowned upon). Ironically, though, an unscripted moment during Catholic Mass the Sunday after...

Musician Jupiter Zirkua (she/they) describes her story as "a lot of bleak stuff," but with "a bookend to it that's really sweet," and she delivers on both promises. Raised in rural Florida by a single mother, Jupiter's first introduction to the idea of gender nonconformity was a kindergarten teacher at a Tampa Catholic school. But while Jupiter was aware of the pansexual aspect of her identity from a fairly early age, it would take years before she felt secure enough to truly begin engaging...

If you're an old school listener of the pod, then over the years you've probably heard Lauren and Nicole mention their SINGLE GREATEST SUCCESS STORY* as podcasters, which is the marriage of Episode 25 guest Vanessa Ravenscroft. Well, get ready for a lovey-dovey episode, because today Lauren and her guest co-host Vanessa are talking to the woman who made it all possible: baker, artist, and Vanessa's wife, Sarah Ravenscroft! Sarah hit the ground running by living every lesbian's dream (i.e.,...

At sixteen years old, Jenn Levine sat in a room with her mother and was told by two doctors that she had an extra chromosome, and that because of that extra chromosome, she would never be able to have children. But that wasn't all: they also said that she shouldn't tell anyone about her "birth defect" because people wouldn't understand, and then closed out the conversation by saying "you'll probably never meet anybody else like you." What Jenn *wasn't* told that day was that she was intersex;...

Lauren sits down with voice actor and romantic/erotic audio narrator Dianna Conley, who identifies as bi/pansexual ("I saw The Mummy, and my answer was 'yes'"), agender, and neurospicy! Dianna's first kiss with a girl was in high school, but since she knew she was definitely attracted to boys, she was left more confused by the experience than anything else. That is, until she learned the word "bisexual" from a formative character on The O.C.! Dianna shares how, for her, "all clothes are a...

Lauren is joined by her friend and co-facilitator, Maggie Tielker (Episode 165), for an in-depth conversation with Lane Willis, whom Lauren and Maggie both know from the L.A. LGBT Center's HERstories group! Lane (they/them) is a *phenomenal* kindergarten teacher, who hopes their students will always remember them as "that one that wore the rainbow shoes." Lane knew that they "adored girls" as early as five years old, and also strongly identified with both Twiggy and Elton John. But a rushed...

For her first episode all by her lonesome, Lauren wanted to bring on "a guest who felt like home." Enter Brooke Berry, Lauren's BFF from college, whose incredible life experiences run the gamut from starting an AIDS coalition with a nun at the age of twelve, to living in South Africa, to working with Angelina Jolie (DON'T FREAK OUT, NICOLE!). Even *more* impressive than these achievements, however, is the fact that Brooke was literally in the room for Lauren's first ever girl-girl kiss, which...

So, okay; here's the deal: we talked SO much when we recorded Nicole's farewell episode that we ended up cutting almost half an hour from the version that we released last week (classic #workwives!). We ultimately decided that this particular twenty-four minute chunk didn't serve the true purpose of that ep - which was celebrating Nicole, our partnership, and the version of the pod that is "Coming Out with Lauren & Nicole" - but we also felt that the tangential discussion we'd had was...

The moment is here, y'all: it's our final episode as Lauren & Nicole. So grab a glass of red wine and/or bottle of sparkling mineral water, and strap in as we take an equally hilarious and tearful stroll down memory lane; from the original tiny closet that we crammed Stephanie Beatriz into, to our posh podcasting studio, to our respective hot, sweaty closets that we've been recording in since we went virtual! Nicole shares what she's learned, what she's grateful for, and even a few things...

This is Nicole's penultimate episode of the podcast, so we knew our guest had to be someone extra-special! For over a decade, this incredible human being has been extremely close to Nicole and her family; so much so that he performed Nicole and Gustav's wedding in Scotland, and Nicole's sister's Memorial Service. Now, after *countless* mentions on the pod over the years, we finally sit down with the man, the myth, the legend, the REVEREND: Mark Montgomery! Mark discusses his small town South...

We laugh our goddamned asses off with standup, writer, and biomedical engineer (yes, really!), Pallavi Gunalan, who wins Lauren over in the first sixty seconds by stating that she "would die for Pierro." Pallavi grew up in an Indian family in Utah, and only started coming to terms with her queerness in her late 20's ("I had just started wearing crop tops; I didn't know you could do that without a sari"). Pallavi made the bold choice to incorporate her newfound identity into her comedy almost...

When Tembe Denton-Hurst's fiancée gifted her a writing class, Tembe had no idea that the short story she turned in would eventually become "Homebodies," her debut novel that was published in May! A consummate writer, Tembe shares a hilarious rollercoaster of a coming out story that includes an "earth-shifting" look she exchanged with a friend's younger sister, and a highly-relatable series of "deeply one-sided, ill-fated crushes." Tembe also discusses how, at just twenty years old, she and...

We're closing out Pride Month in a big way with Emmy-nominated actress, writer, and producer, Rain Valdez (Razor Tongue; Transparent)! Rain, who describes herself as a heterosexual transgender woman, was born in the Philippines, and initially raised by her incredibly affirming grandparents. Things only changed when she moved with her mother and stepfather to Guam, and discovered that the people there were considerably less accepting than those in her home country. At the age of nineteen, Rain...

Holy hell, do we have a PIPING HOT EPISODE for you! When previous guest Avgi Saketopoulou and her partner Ann Pellegrini (both practicing psychoanalysts and faculty members at NYU) received an award for an academic article they co-authored, they were thrilled to find out that their paper would be published in a prestigious journal. They spent the following year working closely with the editors to revise their article for publication...only to be told at the last minute that they would be...

Therapist and advocate Briana Mills was born with an extremely rare form of muscular dystrophy, and from a very early age, everyone but her mother reinforced the ableist idea that the world would never expect much from her. Throughout her youth, Briana didn't want anything to do with her disability; all she wanted was to fit in. But her participation in a youth leadership forum for marginalized students not only changed the way she viewed herself, it made her want to educate others. Briana...

WE MADE IT TO PRIDE MONTH, Y'ALL! For our first episode of the *actual* happiest season (sorry, KStew), we're rejoined by comedian and podcaster extraordinaire, Carolyn Bergier, who was first on the pod all the way back in Pride of 2019! When we last spoke with Carolyn, she was two years into her second marriage, and described herself as a "serial monogamist." Well, suffice to say there's been a big change to the latter half of that sentence, because two years ago, Carolyn and her wife...

Hot on the heels of her newly-released debut comedy album "Off-White," we talked to Nicaraguan-American comedian and writer, Cat Alvarado! Growing up in a mostly Spanish-speaking household, Cat always felt more Latina...and yet more often than not, she was perceived by her own community as "a white girl." Needless to say, Cat's dawning realization that she was bisexual only enhanced her experience of straddling two different worlds. Cat describes the dismal Vegas wedding she went through with...

Actor/singer-songwriter Holly Cinnamon (Succession, Daredevil) recently released the single "Small Town Queer," and in a true case of impeccable timing, we just so happened to catch her while she's briefly back in her rural Canadian hometown! Holly (she/they) weaves a tale that has it all: a childhood obsession with Barbra Streisand! Coming to terms with your sexuality on a camping trip! Making your pregnant high school biology teacher a Feist mixtape! Holly also shares how they processed a...

Lauren talks to her CHARMING AND HILARIOUS friend Shenuque Tissera, a New York-based actor and standup who identifies as a genderqueer pansexual! Shenuque (he/they) grew up in a Sri Lankan Catholic family on Staten Island, and remembers the concept of masculinity making him uncomfortable as far back as childhood. This didn't get any easier when he started attending an all-boys Catholic high school, and so Shenuque learned to just keep his head down, and try to blend in with the machismo...

At long last, Episode 40 guest Martha Marion is back to talk about her all *new* set of identifiers, which include "solo-poly-my-way" and "Everybody from Ted Lasso can get it!" Martha discusses the excitement she experienced getting to be "a publicly queer person," and shares how she felt like, in coming out, she escaped a straitjacket, only to discover "there's twenty more straitjackets on under here?!" Martha also describes her quest to replace the relationship escalator with a playground,...

If you're a long-time listener of the pod, then you probably remember alllllll the way back in Episode 17 when Nicole's mom joined us to tell Nicole's coming out story from her own point of view as a parent. Well, it took us four-and-a-half years and 230 more episodes, but we've finally got a matching set of Pacents: today's guest is none other than Nicole's DAD! Paul Pacent discusses his Italian-American Catholic(ish) upbringing on Long Island, and how having (closeted) gay friends in the...