The best podcasts are all about authenticity. If you find one hosted by someone who knows how to be entertaining while being true to themselves, it can become your new favorite binge. That’s the goal of journalist LZ Granderson on Season 3 of his podcast, Life Out Loud. He discusses family and parenting in the LGBTQ+ community with guests including his son LZ “LZed” Granderson; interior designer and TV personality Vern Yip (Design Star); RuPaul’s Drag Race star Eureka O’Hara; journalist/author Jemele Hill and BET executive Tiyale Hayes. LZ spoke to The Root about why he wanted to center the conversation around families and showcase the full humanity of the community and not just focus on trauma.
“Queer people are just beginning to be talked about in a holistic way. I’m not suggesting that we haven’t had our people in public before, but generally speaking queer representation…mainly has been used in pop culture as comedic relief or to talk about AIDS,” he told The Root. “And then every now and then, we’ll talk about hate crimes. We’re just getting to the point in which we’re beginning to talk about ourselves, our communities, without focusing on trauma, or without being the props for somebody else. With that comes these conversations like parenting that are just beginning to emerge a little bit more as it pertains to the LGBTQ+ community. For so long the idea of us being whole people was foreign in a lot of ways in popular culture.”
It was vital to LZ that the season be about the love and joy of family and not focus on the negativity in the world right now. However, as anti-LGBTQ+ laws sweep across the country—and become increasingly cruel—this season does take on a deeper meaning. He feels it’s important for these families to let everyone know that there are real people and real consequences to this hateful legislation.
“If you don’t tell your story, then the people who are telling the story get to shape the entire narrative without your participation. So as these anti-LGBTQ+laws have been introduced, it’s up to queer families, queer uncles, parents of LGBTQ+ kids,” LZ said. “It’s up to all of us to share our stories, because that’s the only way you push back against these narratives about groomers or pedophiles or any of these other horrific terms that are heaped on us in this echo chamber of hateful policies, politics and legislation. We need to step up and say, ‘What the hell are you talking about? I’m out there slicing oranges, and getting ready for soccer practice just like you.’”
He continued,”But I do think it is important that as these policies are being proposed, and some are being signed into law, that the general public is aware of the fact that we’re real people. We have real families and that there’s love here and that these laws aren’t simply happening in a vacuum but that they’re impacting our children.”
In the third episode of the season, he talks with Jemele Hill about growing up in the same part of Detroit and how they were shaped by the situations they survived. The old friends also discussed the process of unpacking the emotional trauma that Black people and queer people often ignore because life doesn’t allow you the time to properly deal with it.
“We spend a lot of time just talking about navigating the trauma that we’ve experienced, that we’ve compartmentalized, put up on the shelf and just push through,” LZ said. “This sort of approach to life, in which Black people in particular—but certainly this can be true for queer people as well—we’re so accustomed to the slights of America, to the pain that can come in microaggressions that we deal with on a daily basis. We talk about trying to figure all that shit out as adults, recognizing that we’re very privileged to be able to do so because many of the generations before us didn’t have the luxury of therapy or unpacking pain and looking at how it impacts our lives because we’re too busy just trying to survive. It really explores that part of intersectionality.”
Life Out Loud with LZ Granderson is available on all podcast platforms, with new episodes premiering every Thursday.