QueerAF | Inspiring LGBTQIA+ stories told by emerging queer creatives

Recorded in February 2026 at National Student Pride, a live recording of the QueerAF podcast, hosted by Juno Dawson, with guests Munroe Bergdorf, Zelah Glasson, Lars Fellows and Fizz Sinclair - the panel explores Trans 2030, what life is like now and how Trans+ lives have changed. Without National Student Pride, QueerAF wouldn’t exist. We began as a podcast with them, mentoring early talent and student audio professionals to help them kick-start their careers. The event, which ran for 21 years, helped thousands start their working life, with their careers fair and pride of conversation - setting the tone for the pride season ahead with critical conversations, alongside running campaigns that changed laws, notably changes in Sex and Relationships education. Amid a changing context, this year the event announced it was it’s final edition - at least in the form that we know it as, the largest gathering of LGBTQIA+ students in the UK. Over the years, we’ve recorded a number of stunning live podcast episodes, including with Ian McKellen, Courtney Act and Olly Alexander - and for the final event, we were back as media partner one last time, recording with guest host Juno Dawson. This podcast was recorded before the implementation of the EHRC code, and the day after a High Court ruled that its previous interim guidance was lawful - a decision that allowed it to plow ahead. Episode Credits: With thanks to National Student Pride, its production team, and volunteers for producing the event. Hosted by Juno Dawson, with editing by Jamie Wareham.

The north of England has a long history of welcoming migrant communities, despite a growing far-right movement growing in the region. Indeed, immigration is an integral part of the history of the UK. While that’s in part due to a horrific colonial past, today we would hardly be anywhere without it. The well-loved national dish of Fish and Chips was brought over by Spanish and Portuguese migrants, and popularised by the Jewish migrant community in the mid-1800s. The iconic mini cooper was invented by a Greek engineer, who came to the UK to study. Chicken tikka massala, development of Marxist theory, 4am shawarma after a night out. Adrian Collins heads to Bradford, to speak with Trans+ refugees and migrants to find out what it's like on the intersections of being Trans+ and a migrant.Episode Credits: This episode was produced by Adrian Collins. Mastering and executive production by Amber Devereux, with additional executive production by Jamie Wareham. Music: “Echoes”, “Dandelion” and “Earth” by SyncMusicTracks, vocals by Ivan Fryman from Manchester Central Library archives. Thanks to interviewees Amelia Pearson, Ayman Eckford, Mya Skylar and “Hazel” from Rainbow Migration. An additional thanks to the help of LASS (Lesbian Asylum Seekers Sheffield) for their collaboration. This episode was produced as part of QueerAF's Trans+ History Week mentoring programme with thanks to Trans+ History Week's Creative Talent Sponsor, Publicis Groupe UK.

Allyship, solidarity. They’re words that are banded around a lot. Allies often ask how to show solidarity, and marginalised queer and Trans+ folks try their hardest to give ever-increasing practical insights. But what do those words, really mean? How do you do justice to the work?Only by truly understanding a community - including by learning its history, most difficult moments, and its joy and impact on society, can we use that to create a foundational shift in the way we show up - with solidarity This week on QueerAF, we look at the solidarity campaigns - that understand this work, because awareness and solidarity play their part in an ecosystem of change - but in what role?This episode is made possible thanks to Trans+ History Week’s Creative Talent Sponsor, Publicis Groupe UK. Episode Credits: Produced and hosted by Jamie Wareham, with thanks to Trans+ Solidarity Alliance, Not A Phase, Not In Our Name and Publicis Groupe UK, with clips from L With The T, Trans People Are Loved, Focus Features and Trans+ History Week.

Rachel Taylor MP told the UK Parliment, "waiting times for gender affirming healthcare are nothing short of a national scandal". Speaking, using almost word for word our reporting in the Gender Clinic Files - an investigation into the length of waiting times for NHS gender identity clinics (GICs) - she set out how 48,000 adults remain on waiting lists, with an average waiting time of 25 years. In one clinic, we found a 224-year wait if you joined the list in March, three times the average UK life expectancy. More than a lifetime of waiting.This week on the QueerAF podcast, Ludovic Parsons looks back at the joint investigation we did with Claire's Trans Talks and What The Trans?! to ask, has anything changed - and more critically, what would a gender healthcare system built for Trans+ people, not cisgender doctors, even look like?Dive deeper, with our investigations and long-reads into UK Trans+ Healthcare:The Gender Clinic Files - the full investigative seriesWhat would a healthcare system that works for Trans+ people look like in the UK?A brief history of how the UK’s broken Trans+ healthcare system only serves its cisgender doctorsThe clinical symposium where cisgender doctors formed the UK's gender identity clinic

Our show began as a collaboration with National Student Pride, where we worked with budding students, building audio production careers and giving them their first published work. The organisation, which ran for 21 years, had it’s final event this year in February. We were back, as the event’s media partner, to help them ring the bell on it’s format as a pride of conversation with panels, a careers fair, and the largest gathering of LGBTQIA+ students in the UK. Like all the years we’ve worked together, we were on stage recording our podcast, including an upcoming episode in the season.Over the years, we’ve had Courtney Act, Olly Alexander, Dustin Lance Black, Lady Phyll, and this year the team very kindly allowed us to run this gorgeous interview you’re about to hear. The last time he was at National Student Pride, it was for a recording of the QueerAF podcast - interviewed by Evan Davis in an interview that made headlines all over the world, and won us our first British Podcast Award. So it is touching that for the final event, he was the final speaker - in what was an interview too wonderful to be lost as a moment in time. So please enjoy, author and screenwriter Juno Dawson, in conversation with Sir Ian McKellen, as he returns to the QueerAF podcast feed one more time - for the last ever, National Student Pride. 

News overwhelm is an increasing issue, making more and more of us switch it off - four in ten of us now say we selectively avoid the news. But this is at a time when we need to be even more keyed into what's happening - so we know how to fight back against it. QueerAF founder Jamie Wareham sits down for a fireside conversation with Ludovic Parsons (QueerAF's lead investigative journalist) and Ruby Rare (Author, broadcaster) to talk about how we can use the news in the Pride season ahead to advocate for better for our LGBTQIA+ community for Indie News Week, with thanks to a micro-grant from the Public Interest News Foundation. Episode Credits: This episode was produced and hosted by Jamie Wareham. With thanks to our shout out tickets Queer Kent Life and Trans Club Margate - the Public Interest News Foundation's Indie News Week micro-grant that funded our venue, CAMP, photographer David Tovar, guests Ludovic Parsons, Ruby Rare and to Margate Pride for collaborating on the event with us.

This week, on QueerAF in an episode from our mentoring programme for Trans+ History Week, we’re going to trace back in recent history where body standards for both gay and trans men come from, how they show up, and challenge labels from drag acts to gym bros. It’s a nuanced discussion, especially when we think about how the labels we use in the queer community - often mean different things, depending on where we live, what scene we’re engaging in, and that's before we think about any other personal baggage we’re bringing to the equation.Episode Credits: This episode was produced by Otis Grieve and Batstone. With thanks to guests Zelah Glasson, Castor Von Curse, and Marc Thompson. Executive production by Amber Devereux and Jamie Wareham. This episode was produced as part of QueerAF's Trans+ History Week mentoring programme with thanks to Trans+ History Week's Creative Talent Sponsor, Publicis Groupe UK.

In 1870, Fanny ‘Fredrich’ Park and Stella ‘Ernest’ Boulton were arrested at the Strand Theatre by three undercover policemen and prosecuted for violating the Offences Against Persons Act of 1861 – aka, Solicitation for Sodomy. They also left behind rare visual sources of their cross-dressing, which are managed by the national archives. Alongside their letters and the trial where they were found not guilty under a defence that argued that they were so 'outrageous' they couldn't be sodomites trying to hide their lives - their story is an important history lesson. Their case predated a story we all know better, Oscar Wilde's, with their case setting a precedent that went on to be used against the author.Episode Credits: This episode was produced by HRH Aphrodite I. Executive production by Amber Devereux and Jamie Wareham. This episode was produced as part of QueerAF's Trans+ History Week mentoring programme with thanks to Trans+ History Week's Creative Talent Sponsor, Publicis Groupe UK. Additional thanks to the National Archives of Great Britain. Music: “Estimations”, “Lambent (Arr. Gabel)”, “Fortis”, “Buried in the Dirt”, “Progression”, “Desert Hideout”, “Missing Memory”, “Partners in Crime”, and “Crescere” all by Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen. Licensed under Epidemic Sounds. National Archive references are KB 6/3 and DPP 4/6.