With the inability to visit out centers, things can be particularly challenging for members of the LGBTQ+ Community. Mary Jo, the Executive Director of the Outcenter, talks with Stephanie about some upcoming virtual events you can be a part of which you can find more out about by visiting outcenter.org and by following their facebook page to find some great resources that can help. These virtual events allow you to connect with other people from the community and is a great way to keep conversations flowing if you don’t have many people to talk to right now. Also, Join the Cast & Crew from Queer As Folk in a live stream 20th anniversary reunion event in support of LGBTQ+ community centers that are providing essential services. They will also be Helping to raise funds for CenterLink, the community of LGBT Centers. Check out the interview here for more info.

There’s a lot happening at The OutCenter in Benton Harbor on a normal basis. Even though everything has changed recently with the way we are staying connected to each other, The OutCenter has many ways for LGBTQ+ members to virtually be together and has plans to get through this rough time. Check out the interview between Stephanie & Mary Jo Schnell, The Executive Director of The OutCenter.

In this episode, we discuss issues that LGBT+ couples deal with when it comes to wanting to start a family. Whether that being law related or deciding on ways to have a baby, we go through the options for conception and adoption for these LGBT+ couples.

Being part of the LGBT+ Community makes you think about and remember how you grew up. Maybe it was a good experience or maybe not but because there is still this stigma associated with the community, some parents are trying to introduce things to their kids at a younger age. Although this is something many of us in the community have been wanting for years, there’s still a line you should probably wait to cross over until your kids reach a more mature age and are actually able to understand what you’re telling them about the community.

Many people who are part of the LGBT+ Community struggle with finding the right place to go to in order to practice the religion they believe in. This usually happens because we do not feel accepted at a place that should be our safe haven but rather, we feel rejected by the religious community in general which seems contradictory to what religion is supposed to be about. We discuss the most popular religions in America and some of the problems the LGBT+ Community deal with in trying to be a part of these religious groups.

In the first season, we discussed the school environment and issues people of the LGBT+ community may face while trying to get their education. Now, we’re going to take a deep dive into navigating around school and what the LGBT youth may deal with when working their way through all different grades and levels in school.

It seems like when you’re talking to many people outside of the LGBT+ Community, the first place their minds go are right to sex. So, let’s get into it! Let’s talk about sex! There are plenty of us who are still not fully educated on various safe sex practices both in the community and outside of it. Linh and Stephanie discuss how to practice safe sex and to help ensure you and your partner(s) are safe.

Coming out is not an easy process for many people who are part of LGBT+ community. There are a lot of struggles we all have face on a daily basis that may have a great effect on our mental health. If we are not okay with ourselves or we worry constantly about what other people may think of us if they knew how we identify, we ultimately just feel consistently stressed. Linh and Stephanie talk through some of this process and describe some of the challenges they have and still face today.

Drag queens and even kings have been around for a long time, but you may not know much on how they originated and how they have become a big part of the LGBT+ culture today. We’re going to dive into this part of the LGBT+ community, all the way back to when Shakespeare was around.

Being a person who is part of the LGBT+ Community, you have your doubts and fears about how people will treat you at school or at work. It can be a scary thing depending on where you live, because in so many places in the world, there is still so much discrimination present in school and work environments. It’s unfortunate, but we don’t always have the support of other staff members when all we want to do is feel comfortable in our every day lives.

There is a lot to learn about the T in LGBT. Transgender is a term you probably have heard but may not understand much about people who identify as trans. With the help of our guest, Liz, we dive into this topic by discussing transgender health & awareness, gender identity and what people who identify as trans deal with on a daily basis, mentally, physically and emotionally.

It has taken a long time to get representation of the LGBT+ Community in the media and even with more characters being introduced into shows and movies today, the portrayal of our community isn’t always done in the most accurate way.

We tackled a lot of the main historic topics that occurred in LGBT history in the first episode. Now let’s get to the time when some of the biggest progress was made over the last decade, where things actually start to change for the better!

Linh Hatch (age 17) & Stephanie O’Sullivan (age 28) are two women who are both part of the LGBT community and like many other people who identify with them, they’ve both dealt with struggles in learning to accept themselves for who they are while also having to battle the outside world and the negativity in society against the community. LGBT is an acronym you’ve probably heard many times by now. It’s time to dive in and find out just what those individual letters stand for and travel back in time to a place where the LGBT community was either disregarded or discriminated against more than we see today. It’s not a place we like to visit but it will help to educate us of the past and see how far we’ve come up to this point.