episode library
(new episodes January 2025)
EP. 59: Navigating Biphobia and HIV Stigma
September 5, 2024
September is Bisexual Visibility Month, and I’m excited to kick it off with this week’s guest, Steve Spencer (he/him). Steve is award-winning bi+ and HIV advocate, researcher, and consultant. Steve is a bi, HIV positive man who is doing so much work to advocate for bi+ visibility and action against HIV stigma, and I was eager to have him on to give voice to all of this…
EP. 58: Creating Spaces We Didn’t Have Access To
August 22, 2024
This week’s guest is Tyler Tetreault, MD (he/him). In this conversation, Tyler shares with us about his journey as a transgender man who transitioned during his residency, and how his personal experience has lit a fire to create more space for LGBTQ+ folks within orthopedic medicine. I was so touched by Tyler and his story and the work he’s doing now, and am excited to invite you all into the conversation.
EP. 57: Trying to Conceive as Queer Prospective Parents
July 25, 2024
This week’s guest is Morgan Henry Kerr (she/her). Morgan joined us to talk about all things ups and downs of being a queer person trying to conceive. Morgan shares her own personal journey creating her family, and shares about the work she's doing to support other queer people through the Trying to Conceive (TTC) process. This conversation is particularly helpful for those of you with birthing bodies, interested in navigating this path to parenthood, but I also found this chat to be super helpful for all queer people interested in pursuing parenthood…
EP. 56: The Joy and Grief of Finding Ourselves Later
July 11, 2024
This week’s guest is Archie Arnold (he/him). Archie has a powerful story of being someone who just recently in his early fifties came to full understanding of his identity as a gay trans man. Archie lets us into his own story of uncovering his true self during the COVID pandemic and what his process has been like to deconstruct and reconstruct his experience of identity. We talk about the complicated dialectic of holding both envy and joy for other LGBTQ+ folks who have experiences we didn’t or don’t, the healing work of reconnecting with our child self, and…
EP. 55: Healing the Shameful Differentness Our Younger Selves Internalized
June 28, 2024
This week’s guest is Rohan Shirolkar (he/him). As a husband and new father, Rohan’s story has taken him to a place he didn’t see possible at its beginning, growing up as a gay boy in India in the 1980s/1990s. On this episode, Rohan shares with us his story and journey of navigating and understanding his identity, confronting and healing from anti-queerness, and eventually getting to the place of feeling such sense of freedom today.
EP. 54: Navigating Internal and External Conflict on the Path to Ourselves
June 13, 2024
This week’s guest is artist and actor, Mod Becher (he/they). I actually met Mod out in real life while being a patron at his workplace, which we go into, and it eventually led to me sharing about the podcast and unbeknownst to me Mod was navigating a pretty pivotal time and would go on to become a listener of the show and eventually wanted to come on to offer their own story as a way to help others who have been navigating their own tumultuous…
EP. 53: The Symbiosis of Individual and Community Liberation
May 23, 2024
This week’s guest is diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging leader and practitioner, SJ Janjua (they/them). In this conversation, SJ leads us through their own personal journey and how this has led them to doing the work they are doing now to create spaces that their younger self needed.
EP. 52: The Layers of Shame We Heal
May 16, 2024
This week’s guest is artist Alonso Yáñez (he/him). Alonso shares with us about his own continuous journey of reckoning with and healing from the layers of shame that have existed and taken shape for him. He highlights the shape-shifting quality of shame, the tendency for queer people to develop various kinds of strategies to counter shame and gain value and validation elsewhere, and so much more.
EP. 51: Helping LGBTQ+ Elders Thrive and Feel Seen
May 2, 2024
This week, we dive into a conversation about the experience of LGBTQ+ elderhood in the United States with two women who work with SAGE, the world's largest and oldest organization dedicated to improving the lives of LGBTQ+ elders and their caregivers: Sadiya Abjani (she/her), Director of Training and Instructional Design for SAGECare, and Darcy Connors (she/here), Executive Director of SAGEServes.
EP. 50: Working With Our Younger Selves to Deepen Queer Healing
April 10, 2024
What does it mean to "work with our younger selves," and why even bother? In this solo episode with me (host, Adam James Cohen, LMFT!) we will cover this and more. We ALL carry the wounds of our younger selves. And, like ghosts with unfinished business, the wounds of our younger selves - if left untended - can remain within us, like toxins, and come out in ways that interrupt the life we want for ourselves. Actively working with our younger selves is…
EP. 49: Recovery from the Trauma of Conversion Therapy
January 25, 2024
This week’s guest is writer Jared Dixon (he/him). Jared is a conversion therapy (CT) survivor and this conversation is all about his experience with CT. Jared lets us in to his personal story. We hear about his experience growing up, discovering his queerness, being sent to conversion therapy, and what healing has meant for him. Something so powerful about Jared is how he has used his experience as a CT survivor to really turn it into purpose, through both his award-winning debut novel, Corrupted: The Truth Shall Be The Nail In Your Coffin, and the work…
EP. 48: Bi+(In)visibility
January 10, 2024
This week we have two guests joining us, Meg O’Neill (she/her) and returning guest to the pod, Gender Specialist therapist and educator Rebecca Minor (she/her). They are the women behind bi+(in)visibility, a community and supportive space for folks who are discovering their biness and queerness later in life. In this conversation, we chat about their group, Meg’s own personal story of understanding her bi identity in her late thirties, and about the wide variety of experiences folks can have when uncovering and integrating their biness into their lives, including:
EP. 47: Support Groups & Group Therapy for Queer Healing
December 21, 2023
This week’s guest is Leah Goodman, OTD, OTR/L, MSW, CYT (she/they). Leah is a therapist and education manager at The Expansive Group, a collective of queer and trans affirming therapists, led by Casey Tanner (also known on instagram as @queersextherapy). At The Expansive Group, Leah runs a support group for LGBTQ+ folks who are coming into/discovering their identity in adulthood (essentially going through their Second…
EP. 46: The Identities We Adapted to Defend Against Shame
December 7, 2023
This week’s guest is Nathan Serrato (they/he). Nathan is a Trauma Informed Yoga and Breathwork Instructor, and PCC Certified Life coach. Nathan helps queer folks overcome and heal from shame and religious trauma. In this conversation, Nathan and I chatted about so many aspects under the greater…
EP. 45: Finding Your Style as a Purposeful Tool for Queer Healing
November 30, 2023
This week's guest is queer style coach, Tess Clabby (they/them), and wow - this was such a fun, playful, and meaningful episode. At its core, this episode with Tess is an invitation for all of us to get more attuned to our most true and free self. Tess talks with us about how fashion and style can be tools for us to intentionally explore and uncover who we are and heal from internalized anti-queerness and anti-transness. Tess shares with us about what it means to be a queer style coach, where to even begin when wanting to explore finding the style that feels most right for us, common blocks that get in…
EP. 44: The Nonlinear Path of Queer Healing
November 22, 2023
This week's guest is writer Khalid El Khatib (he/him). I originally invited Khalid onto the show after a tweet of his was sent to me that so embodied the healing process in Second Adolescence, and I'm so glad I did. Some of you may know him and his story as the person who went viral with his mom for her 'home for the holiday' food plan. We do get a fun behind the scenes of this experience (appearance on the Today show included!) but also Khalid comes onto the show to share about his own personal journey of navigating identity, coming out, and the messy, growthful process of finding ourselves.
EP. 43: The Power and Multiplicity of Queer Joy
November 16, 2023
On this week's episode we have artist and founder of The Queer Joy Project, Aimy Tien (she/they).
The Queer Joy Project is a multimedia project that celebrates queer stories: daily lived experiences, moments of happiness and serenity — each a form of resistance against today’s political climate. Through interviews with LGBTQIA+ subjects around the world and archival research, creator Tien reminds us not only of the world we are trying to build, but the community and happiness people find, even in the margins.
EP. 42: Supporting Ourselves and Our Community Through Social and Political Stress (and more)!
November 9, 2023
Today's guest is Eli Lawliet, PhD (he/him), known by many as The Gender Doula. This is the conversation to listen to for any of you who may be feeling some stress, anxiety, and fear in response to the continuously challenging political landscapes of our work. Anti-LGBTQ+ legislation is being proposed, passed, and upheld all throughout the world, and here in the United States we are anticipating a 2024 Presidential Election year. Eli grounds us all with…
EP. 41: Healing the Trauma of Chronic Shame
October 26, 2023
To start off Season 5, we have a solo episode with host, Adam James Cohen, LMFT. Today's topic is on the unique experience of shame that queer people who grew up in an anti-queer world know intimately. Adam talks about what Chronic Shame is, the impact this had on our younger selves (and still on our current adult selves), why he considers this an experience of complex trauma, and how we begin to heal.
EP. 40: Second Adolescence as…the Giving of Grace to Ourselves and Our Timelines
April 27, 2023
This week’s guest is Tony C. (he/him). I loved getting to chat with Tony and was touched by his intention for wanting to come on the show, which in his words was because it might "be helpful to some of the listeners to hear from someone who hasn’t totally gotten their life together and is still in the middle of growing up.” We talked about a shared love of queer YA content, and the power that engaging in these stories has on us, his experience…
EP. 39: Second Adolescence as…the Integration of Body and Self
April 6, 2023
This week’s guest is Aubri ('Data') Drake (they/them). They are a long-distance backpacker, hiker, and ultramarathon runner working to help those spaces become more inclusive. Aubri shares with us about how their Second Adolescence took place on trail, thru-hiking the 2189 miles of the Appalachian Trail over 4 years, and how engaging in movement in nature became the container for the powerful process of finding…
EP. 38: Second Adolescence as…the Trusting of Our Authentic Desire
March 23, 2023
This week’s guest is Chris Curia (he/they). I loved getting to chat with Chris for many reasons, first being that we connected over the profession of psychotherapy as he is currently a psychotherapist in training, but I also SO appreciated them coming onto to share their story because they are someone who began really discovering their queerness recently within the COVID-19 pandemic…
EP. 37: Second Adolescence as…the Empathic Telling of Our Story
March 9, 2023
This week's guest is writer Lamya H (she/they). Lamya is the author of the recent debut memoir, Hijab Butch Blues (The Dial Press, Penguin Random House). I cannot recommend this book enough, it was such beautiful and powerful book, and I was so excited to talk with Lamya all about it! On this episode, Lamya shares about the process of writing the memoir, both structurally how they decided to put it together and emotionally what it was like for them…
EP. 36: Second Adolescence as…the Exploration of Our Possibility
February 23, 2023
This week's guest is Rebecca Minor (she/her). Rebecca is a Gender Specialist therapist and educator who uses her platform to further the conversation, education, and support surrounding the experience of trans and gender nonconforming youth. In this conversation, we talk about her work as a Gender Specialist and also dive into her own experience of discovering and navigating the identities she holds and how…
EP. 35: Second Adolescence as…the Movement Through Continued Layers of Growth
February 9, 2023
This week’s guest is Shlomo Satt (he/him) who works within the Jewish Non-Profit Sector and is based in New York City. Shlomo shares with us about his experience growing up within Orthodox Judaism and what it was like to navigate that community and their limiting beliefs around queerness queerness, depression, and others. He shares about his experience being sent to Conversion Therapy and then recovering from that experience, and then later walks us…
EP. 34: Second Adolescence as…the Integration of Our Fullness into Our Work and Life
February 2, 2023
This week's guest is Lindz Amer (they/them). As some of you may know, they are the founder and creator of Queer Kid Stuff, an entertainment company that brings LGBTQ+ and social justice media to kids and families. They also currently host of the queer and gender afifirming parenting podcast, Rainbow Parenting. Their book, Rainbow Parenting: Your Guide to Raising Queer Kids and Their Allies, publishes on May 30, 2023…
EP. 33: Second Adolescence as…the Advocation of Change
January 26, 2023
This week's guest is Chip Hall (he/him). Chip is a US Coast Guard veteran and shares with us his experience of being a queer person in the Coast Guard while the anti-queer Don’t Ask Don’t Tell legislation was in full effect. He also, as he shares, was a leader in bringing internal change to the US Coast Guard and Coast Guard Academy…
EP. 32: Second Adolescence as…the Becoming of Who Our Younger Selves Needed
January 19, 2023
This week's guest is Kami Brannon (she/her). Kami is a therapist based in Columbus, OH. In addition to her therapy practice she and her wife are also working to create a queer campground in Hocking Hills, OH (so cool!). On this episode, Kami lets us into her experience growing up as a Black girl navigating anti-queerness with her family system and religious community…
EP. 31: Second Adolescence as…the Carving Out of Space for All of Us to Thrive
January 12, 2023
This week’s guest is Jake Federowski (they/them) who I believe is changing the running industry with their advocacy work for non-binary inclusion in that sport (they created incredible resource: The Guide to Non-Binary Inclusion in Running). And this conversation isn’t just for runners or people who sign up for 5ks, half marathons, marathons (though if you are then you’ll absolutely want to listen!).
EP. 30: Second Adolescence as…the Validation and Celebration of Our Queerness
November 10, 2022
This week’s guest is sex educator and sex science communicator, Eva Bloom (they/she). In this conversation, Eva shares about the journey that led them to the work they do in the world now. Along the way, Eva lets us into their own personal journey. They share with us about being a queer person who didn’t have conscious awareness of their queerness until after adolescence. As with others with a similar story…
EP. 29: Second Adolescence as…the Ongoing Giving of Space to Explore Our Fullness
November 3, 2022
This week’s guest is Khye Tyson (they/them), who is gosh, so many things. They are reproductive rights activist, birthing worker, and founder of Kuluntu Reproductive Justice Center. On this episode, Khye talks about their work and the experience that many queer and trans folks can have when navigating the birthing world, and also let's us into their…
EP. 28: Second Adolescence as…Letting Ourselves Finally Understand it All
October 27, 2022
This week’s guest is Jen Isher-Witt (she/her). Jen was so generous with her personal story which was such an example of what it means for us queer people to navigate through Second Adolescence. We talked everything from middle school, anxiety, those first indicators of queerness and our dread that can come in response to internalized queerness…
EP. 27: Second Adolescence as…the Living With Purpose Now After the Struggle of Then
October 20, 2022
This week’s guest is community organizer, Jordan Killebrew (he/him). Gosh, I LOVED getting to sit down with Jordan and was truly so affected by his story, and feel just immensely honored he is inviting all of us in as witnesses, too. On this episode, Jordan let's us in on the journey he’s traveled since growing up within a context that was quite oppressive to…
EP. 26: Second Adolescence as…the Bringing Together of All Our Parts
October 13, 2022
This week’s guest is Patrick Carlos Olsen (he/him), who is the person behind the gay surfing magazine, podcast, and Instagram account, Surfer.Gay. In his work, Patrick is creating inclusion of queer people within the sport of surfing, which has been historically not too welcome of a place for LGBTQ+ people…
EP. 25: Second Adolescence as…the Doing of It All for Our Younger Selves
October 6, 2022
This week’s guest is queer, non-binary artist and writer, Nat Urban (they/them), who is currently working on a badass project on queerness and girlhood which you’ll hear them talk about towards then end of this episode. Nat brings such an interesting and important story to this show and I feel so grateful they wanted to let us all into it…
EP. 24: Second Adolescence as…the Joy and Grief in Late Blooming
September 29, 2022
This week’s guest is Nicole Liv (she/her), host of Late Bloomers Clvb podcast. The Late Bloomers Clvb is a community and podcast for other Late Blooming Queer folks who identify as having come out later in life and find themselves later blooming into their most true queer selves and I just cannot recommend this community and Nicole’s work enough. Today,…
EP. 23: Second Adolescence as…the Knowing of It Never Being Too Late
September 22, 2022
This week’s guest is Christos Papaioannou (he/him). On this episode, Christos shares SO many things representative of the Second Adolescence experience that many of us will likely relate to. We talk everything from Heartstopper and young queer contemporary media, to growing up dealing with and trying to overcompensate for shame, efforts to turn…
EP. 22: Second Adolescence as…the Taking Back of Who You Are
September 15, 2022
This week’s guest is José Morales (he/him). José shares with us his experience growing up in a very religious home and context, that ended up being quite oppressive to him and his budding queerness. He shares about having an upbringing that was marked by a lot of people policing his masculinity and his identity, having the experienced of being…
EP. 21: Second Adolescence as…the Flourishing of What Was Stunted
September 8, 2022
This week’s guest is Caleb Irwin (he/him). Caleb came out two years ago at age 33 which marked the beginning of his Second Adolescence. He so generously lets us in to his experience growing up in Australia in a very religious community that viewed being gay as a mental health issue that one needed to heal from, and how he too operated from this…
EP. 20: Second Adolescence as…the Holding Firm to Who You Are and What You Need
July 14, 2022
This week's guest is Tanaya Joshi (she/her). This was SUCH an incredible and powerful conversation! I am so appreciative for Tanaya coming on to let us into her story. She came out 7 years ago, and now has such a happy ending but had quite a challenging journey getting here. She grew up in Mumbai and then moved over to the US at age 11. Navigating…
EP. 19: Second Adolescence as…the Affirming of Who We’ve Always Been
June 30, 2022
This week's guest is Finn May (they/he). Finn shares with us about their experience being genderfluid and what their journey has been to understanding and validating their identity and having this validated back to them. He talks about his own experience moving through transphobia and internalized limiting constraints around identity, and what their…
EP. 18: Second Adolescence as…the Stepping Out in Your Full Vibrancy
June 23, 2022
This week’s guest is costume designer, Saawan Tiwari (they/them). They share with us their experience navigating gender and sexuality, as a queer Indian kid born into a body of male sex within a community that was predominantly white and conservative. They share about their little kid self identifying with the label of “tomgirl,” which began their…
EP. 17: Second Adolescence as…the Journey from Repression to Liberation
June 16, 2022
This week's guest is librarian and mental health advocate, Fae Sturniolo (they/them). Before this conversation I knew librarians were incredible but, holy moly, I truly think its going to be queer librarians who are going to save this world because I felt so inspired and invigorated by Fae and the work they do as…
EP. 16: Second Adolescence as…the Reunification of Our Romantic and Sexual Selves
June 9, 2022
This week’s episode is writer, Brian Watson (he/him). Brian brought to this conversation his experience growing up as a gay man born in the 1960s, navigating the underground gay hookup scene in the late 70s during the beginning of his sexual awakening, coming out and navigating life as a gay man amongst the aids crisis, and so much more…
EP. 15: Second Adolescence as…the Drawing of Our Own Blueprint
June 2, 2022
This week’s guest is artist Brandon Rumaker (they/them). In sharing their individual story, Brandon highlights so many gems about the greater collective queer experience. They share about their challenging childhood and adolescence, illustrating the different contortions and acts of assimilation our younger queer selves do to hide marginalized identities…
EP. 14: Second Adolescence as…the Liberation of One’s Younger Self Through Abolition
May 26, 2022
This week’s guest is writer and screenwriter Hari Ziyad (he/they). They are author of the incredible memoir Black Boy Out of Time which explores Hari's experience of healing from anti-blackness, anti-queerness, and the carceral dissonance that separates black people from their childhood selves. In this conversation, Hari shares about the book, their writing of…
EP. 13: Second Adolescence as…the Learning Through Experiencing
May 19, 2022
This week’s episode guest is writer Garret Schlichte (he/they). Garrett recently had published on the New York Time’s Modern Love podcast their essay entitled "Confessions of a Late Bloomer" which literally before you listen to my conversation with Garrett you should go listen (here on Apple Podcasts, or here on Spotify) because it was such a…
EP. 12: Second Adolescence as…the Integration of Our Identities
May 12, 2022
This week's guest is Noris Chavarría (he/him/él). Noris is someone who has dedicated his adult life to serving others, particularly LGBTQ youth through his work in the non-profit sector, and today he’s further contributing to our community by sharing his own story. On this episode, he shares growing up in Queens, New York with his mother who had
EP. 11: Second Adolescence as…the Getting Back to Who Was There From the Start
May 5, 2022
Welcome back after a break! This week's guest is Nikki Hiltz (they/them). Nikki is a professional runner and major advocate for the greater LGBTQ+ community. Fun fact: Nikki and host of the show, Adam, knew each other when each were in their respective closets and chat a bit about this on the show. Nikki goes on to share about their experience of
EP. 10: Second Adolescence as…the Growing Through the Firsts
March 17, 2022
This week's guest is Michael Constable (he/him). Michael hosts the podcast Reaching Out on which he interviews queer people about their coming out journey, and today he’s sitting in the guest chair to share about his own story. He shares about growing up in the midwest and within the culture of football and traditional masculinity, and how his…
EP. 09: Second Adolescence as…the Opening of Possibility
March 10, 2022
This week's guest is Molly Fosco (she/her). Molly is a queer writer in a polyamorous triad with her two partners, one male and one female. She shares about growing up in a queer supportive context but how she never even thought about if she identified as anything other than straight in adolescence despite having attraction to other girls. She goes on to share about the differences between romantic identity and sexual…
EP. 08: Second Adolescence as…the Integration of Gayness Into Our Identity
March 3, 2022
This week's guest is a Zach (he/him) who is a real life friend of host, Adam James Cohen. In the conversation, Zach shares about his experience as a kid and the very different feelings he had towards boys and girls, the meaningful romantic relationship he had in high school with a girl before understanding his gay identity, his own process of gain…
EP. 07: Second Adolescence as…the Power of Finding Queer Community
February 24, 2022
This week's guest is DIY queer creator Becky Blanco (she/her) aka @becky.with.the.good.repair. On this episode, Becky shares about her experience growing up in Miami, FL to Cuban immigrant parents and within the Southern Baptist church. She shares about being a child that didn’t fit into the limited box of what she was told being a girl was,…
EP. 06: Second Adolescence as…the Deviation from the Path Not Yours
February 17, 2022
This week's guest is age activist Ryan ‘twinkle’ Backer (they/them). Ryan talks with Adam about a range of topics including the power of nicknames, their experience being a little kid uncertain of their gender, navigating identity exploration in first adolescence with a parent going through their own Second Adolescence, the importance…
EP. 05: Second Adolescence as…the Returning to What You Love
February 10, 2022
This week's guest is snowboarder and filmmaker Jack Hessler (he/him). In the episode, Jack talks about what it was like to put out into the world the recent article he wrote for OutSports.com about his experience navigating being gay within the sport of sport of snowboarding. Jack goes more in depth into what it was like for him growing…
EP. 04: Second Adolescence as…the Integration of Sexuality and Spirituality
February 3, 2022
This week's guest is Jon Carl Lewis (he/him), who is a spiritual director and writer focusing on the intersection between spirituality and sexuality for queer folks. Lewis shares about his childhood and adolescence, and what it was like for him to discover his gay identity and then later come out amidst the AIDS pandemic of the 1980's. He…
EP. 03: Second Adolescence as…the Development of Our Romantic and Sexual Selves
January 27, 2022
This week’s episode features a conversation with Davey Feder (he/him). Davey shares about his own experience of growing up being unconscious to his romantic and sexual identity in adolescence and how he utilized perfectionism as a tool for gaining and maintaining value and safety. He shares about how an impactful time studying abroad…
EP. 02: Second Adolescence as…the Inhabitance of Your Full Self
January 20, 2022
This week's episode features a conversation with Sarah Meyer Tapia (she/her). We hear Sarah share about growing up within the True Love Waits and Purity Culture worlds and how this upbringing came into opposition with what she would later discover felt most true and authentic for her. Sarah goes on to talk about her own Second…
EP. 01: Second Adolescence as…the Deconstruction & Reconstruction of Belief Systems
January 13, 2022
Welcome to Second Adolescence! This first episode begins with host Adam James Cohen, LMFT sharing the backstory behind Second Adolescence. Then, we hear the first guest's story! Ish Ruiz (he/him) talks with Adam and shares about his experience growing up in Puerto Rico and within the Catholic Church, and…
EP. 00: trailer - what is Second Adolescence?
December 23, 2021
Launching January 2022! Host Adam James Cohen, LMFT shares about what Second Adolescence is and what this show is all about.