I'm from Los Angeles. So when I picked up Dr. Terrell Winder's Shameless: The Making of Black Gay Identities in LA, it read like a love letter to a home I'm watching change—and a map of how young Black gay men build family, selfhood, and joy inside all that change anyway. This week, Dr. Winder—sociologist and urban ethnographer at UC Santa Barbara—pulls up to the classroom to teach us unspoiling: his framework for refusing shame and rejecting the burden of stigma outright, no matter what it costs. We get into the affirming spaces that keep our babies alive and why they're under attack right now; why intersectionality can't keep being told to wait its turn; and what Noah's Arc's first-ever Emmy nomination means in a season when Black and Black gay stories are being pulled off shelves. Because when you take these spaces away, Dr. Winder is clear about what we lose: lives. Go get the book, sit with it, and then go build a room where somebody can put their burden down. About the guest Dr. Terrell J. A. Winder is Associate Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Barbara. A Baltimore native, he earned his B.A. in Comparative Ethnic Studies from Columbia and his Ph.D. in Sociology from UCLA (2017). His research spans race and ethnicity, sexuality and sexual health, qualitative methods, and education. Key ideas & theory Unspoiling — Dr. Winder's framework: a stigma response that centers the stigmatized person rather than the comfort of the stigmatizer; refusing shame instead of managing it.Spoiled identity / stigma — Erving Goffman's foundational concept, and the classic responses of passing and covering that Dr. Winder argues break down for people carrying more than one stigma at once.Intersectional stigma & "intersectional recovery" — holding race, sexuality, and gender together rather than deferring one for later; recovering the full selves of figures history flattened."Visibility is survival" — his argument that ethnography documents threatened histories and everyday Black LGBTQ life.People mentioned Erving Goffman — sociologist, Stigma and the "spoiled identity."Dr. Marcus Anthony Hunter — sociologist and chair of African American Studies at UCLA; credited with first posting the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter (August 2012); the BLM movement/network was later co-founded by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. Co-author with Dr. Winder of "Space, Place, and Urban Future."Bayard Rustin — Black gay civil rights strategist, chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington.George Washington Carver — scientist cited as an example of a flattened, partially-told legacy.Patrik-Ian Polk — creator of Noah's Arc.Organizations & spaces Better Brothers Los Angeles / The Truth Awards. Native Son.Hilltop Coffee + Kitchen (Issa Rae's LA spot) and Bricks & Scones (Larchmont). Media & culture Noah's ARC — Patrik-Ian Polk's groundbreaking series, the first scripted show centering Black gay men; Noah's ARC: The Movie (the 20th-anniversary reunion) earned a 2026 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Choreography, the franchise's first-ever Television Academy recognition.Pose, Insecure — referenced in conversation and This or That.My Best Friend Rodney — Rodney Chester's interview podcast.Anita Baker & Luther Vandross — the This or That showdown.Further reading — Dr. Winder's scholarship Shameless: The Making of Black Gay Identities in LA (NYU Press, 2026)."Unspoiling Identity: An Intersectional Expansion of Stigma Response Strategies" (Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 2023)."Visibility Is Survival: The Chocolate Maps of Black Gay Life in Urban Ethnography."Marcus Anthony Hunter & Terrell J. A. Winder, "Space, Place, and Urban Future," in Research Handbook on Intersectionality (ed. Mary Romero, Edward Elgar, 2023)."The Discursive Work of 'Bottom-Shaming'" — 2024 SSSP Outstanding Article co-winner.Connect with Dr. Winder Social: @BmoreTerrell · Web: terrellwinder.com Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/teach-the-babies-w-dr-david-j-johns--6173854/support.
