Hear the voices that documented, shaped, and celebrated queer life in the Bay Area, from Stonewall through the AIDS crisis.
Queer Power Hour host David Boyer welcomes pioneering broadcaster Randy Alfred, producer and host of The Gay Life; radio producer Chana Wilson, host of Radio Free Lesbian on KPFA; and broadcast journalist Eric Jansen, lead producer and co-host of Out in the Bay. Through audio excerpts and live conversation, they reflect on how queer people used radio to find one another, document their communities, challenge mainstream narratives, and create a public record of lives too often left out of history.
Out on the Air celebrates Revisiting The Gay Life, a new documentary series from KALW's Queer Power Hour. Produced in collaboration with the GLBT Historical Society and Randy Alfred, the series revisits The Gay Life, the groundbreaking program that aired on KSAN from 1977 to 1984 and became the first regularly scheduled LGBTQ-focused show on commercial radio in the United States.
Drawing from newly restored archival recordings, the series offers a vivid portrait of LGBTQ life in San Francisco during the years between Stonewall and the AIDS crisis. Listen to stories from the city's gay underground of the 1950s, the origins of the Imperial Court, conversations with influential queer writers, and voices from LGBTQ activists, judges, filmmakers, and leaders. The recordings also capture some of the earliest radio reporting on the mysterious illness that would later become known as AIDS.
