From OUT Cast to Outsourced: Keeping Queer Spirits Visible

The OUT Cast Radio collective closed in 2022. As a result, the air that Queer Spirit inhabited ran thin. In its place a question arose: how could these queer lives and experineces with the sacred remain visible when the radio waves ceased?

In 2023, Marvin and Tamara approached Mark Bowman at the LBGTQ Religious Archives Network (LGBTQ-RAN) about hosting Queer Spirit and giving the voices that were represented in these interviews a national (and international) platform. 

With Mark’s strong support to take next steps. Marvin and Tamara submitted a funding proposal to the Eleanor Haney and Deborah Leighton Fund, a small funder that supports faith-based and community justice projects in Maine. Once financial support was secured, Marvin and Tamara were able to contract with LBGTQ-RAN to mount an online exhibit of the Queer Spirit podcasts and enlist Kristofer Stinson to design and implement the project. 

By joining with LBGTQ-RAN, the Queer Spirit team hoped to encourage at least four applications of the podcasts for multiple audiences:

1. Above all, Marvin and Tamara hoped to make Queer Spirit more visible and more readily accessible to queer folks and their allies who were hungry for this kind of life-affirming, life-transforming resource. In that vein, Marvin and Tamara hoped that if all went well, the show might inspire others to replicate this kind of community radio series in their own locale. [See "Sharing Your Queer Voice" in this exhibit.]
2. For those teaching academic courses in queer theology and religious traditions, the podcasts sought to provide contemporary examples of queer life and religious identity. In doing so, Marvin and Tamara hoped the series would serve as a bridge between lived experience and academic study. A teacher could assign one or more podcasts to students and ask them to reflect on their own identities and spiritual journeys in relation to those they’ve listened to or, as a parallel exercise, conduct their own interviews. This hope took on the form of teaching resources that are central to this exhibit. 
3. For the United Church of Christ Open and Affirming movement and similar denominational groups, these podcasts sought to be an accessible source of queer voices and perspectives as congregations proceeded in their own discernment process about becoming ONA. Additionally, Marvin and Tamara believed that pastors and persons in discernment would also find these podcasts useful.
4. For those teaching the Our Whole Lives (and similar lifespan) sexuality curricula, these podcasts provided a diversity of queer voices that adults and young adults could listen to and learn from.