Proudly Said

John Hyland
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Proudly Said is about being LGBTQ+ in the UK without compromise. Hosted by John Hyland (he/they), a Liverpool-born activist and advocate, the show brings real conversations to the forefront. No studios, no scripts - just people, where they’re most at home, speaking in their own words. Each episode centres voices you don’t hear enough, talking about what it means to live out loud, hold space, and just live. There’s no performance. Just queer stories, proudly said.

  1. 5d ago

    Ep 70: Nikias Tomasiello said

    🎙️ What’s This Episode About? Nikias Tomasiello is an online personal trainer, certified nutritionist, and trans man who moved from Italy to Portsmouth, then Brighton, then Liverpool, which he and his partner both loved immediately and stayed. Episode 70 of Proudly Said, filmed on a very sweaty day in late July. Nikias joins John to talk about a fitness journey that turned out to be about a lot more than fitness. Growing up in Italy with no awareness that trans men existed, Nikias spent his teens being bullied for his weight, developed anorexia, and only began to understand why when he noticed that his experience of having the condition looked completely different to everyone else around him. It was that realisation, years later, that helped him put the pieces together about who he was. It's an unusually thoughtful route into a conversation about identity, and Nikias tells it with real candour and a very dry sense of humour. The conversation then moves into what Nikias does now and why it matters. Working as an LGBTQ+ focused personal trainer, he talks about the barriers trans and non-binary people face when it comes to fitness: gym anxiety, safety, being handed programmes that don't reflect who you are or what you actually want from your body. He talks about how he approaches things differently, starting with questions rather than assumptions, and the clients whose lives have shifted through the work they've done together, one of whom went from training at home for three years to walking into a gym for the first time. It's a warm, thoughtful conversation about body, identity, and what it means to help people feel at home in themselves. If you're interested in working with Nikias, you can find out more at fittotransformtraining.com and follow him on Instagram @nikias_fittotransform 🗣️ Why Listen? If you’re seeking genuine conversations that reflect the diverse experiences within the LGBTQ+ community, Proudly Said offers a platform for those narratives. 📣 Connect with Us – ProudlySaid.co.uk Subscribe: Stay updated with new episodes. Share: If this resonates with you, share it with others who might find it meaningful. Feedback: We value your thoughts. Reach out with comments or suggestions. Support: Join The Front Row for less than £3 a month, supporting a local queer creator, or buy us a bespoke coffee or three! :)

  2. Sep 24

    Ep 69: Jay Mitchell said

    🎙️ What’s This Episode About? Content warning: this episode contains adult themes, explicit discussion of sex work, recreational drug use, online harassment, and mature content throughout. It is intended for audiences aged 18 and over. Jay Mitchell describes himself as Liverpool's number one OnlyFans creator, and in this episode he sits down with John to talk about pretty much everything. They cover how Jay got into content creation, going from a shy lad who only felt comfortable after a few drinks to someone who has built a career being unapologetically himself on camera. Jay talks honestly about the realities of the industry, including what it actually pays versus what people claim it pays, the business of collaboration with other creators, and the constant battle with Instagram's algorithm and shadowbanning. The conversation gets into chemsex and drug use within gay spaces, what consent and safety look like in less regulated corners of the industry, and why Jay prefers the freedom of independent content creation over studio work. They also talk about the growing tension between platforms trying to restrict adult content creators and a community that sees sex work as legitimate work, as well as what viral hate looks like when a post escapes its intended audience and lands in the wrong algorithm. It is funny, frank, and at times surprisingly thoughtful. Jay is exactly as unfiltered as you would hope. Find Jay on Instagram at @jay.mitchellx and on OnlyFans at Jay Mitchell. 🗣️ Why Listen? If you’re seeking genuine conversations that reflect the diverse experiences within the LGBTQ+ community, Proudly Said offers a platform for those narratives. 📣 Connect with Us – ProudlySaid.co.uk Subscribe: Stay updated with new episodes. Share: If this resonates with you, share it with others who might find it meaningful. Feedback: We value your thoughts. Reach out with comments or suggestions. Support: Join The Front Row for less than £3 a month, supporting a local queer creator, or buy us a bespoke coffee or three! :)

  3. Sep 17

    Ep 68: Janethan said

    🎙️ What’s This Episode About? Janethan Jeffery is a Manchester-born musician, content creator and self-described 'spicy Jonathan'. His name is January and Ethan put together, and yes, he has to explain that constantly. He joins John at Brewers in Manchester's Village, recorded on quite possibly the hottest day of the year, with cold drinks that were definitely not helping. Janethan talks about growing up as a quiet, timid kid in Manchester who didn't actually like music until his early teens, joined the glee club mainly to get out of PE, and then became so obsessed with understanding how the voice works that he spent years quietly building a skill nobody knew he was developing. By his own account he wasn't particularly good for a long time, and his Caribbean mum made sure he knew that. He got there in the end. The conversation gets into how Janethan built a following on TikTok through comedy covers of viral British cultural moments, and how that audience then discovered he is also a genuinely serious musician making original music, which people find slightly confusing. He talks about navigating a creative life with autism, the way hyperfocus can disappear you from the world for two weeks while writing a song, and why running a social media account is, for him, one of the hardest things he does. There's also a really enjoyable thread about the state of the music industry, what it actually takes to build a career as an independent queer artist of colour, and what Janethan wants his future to look like. He wants to be on all the stages. He means it. This conversation is a very good sign that he will be. It's chaotic, funny, surprisingly candid, and a great deal of fun from start to finish. Follow Jonathan on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/itsjanethan 🗣️ Why Listen? If you’re seeking genuine conversations that reflect the diverse experiences within the LGBTQ+ community, Proudly Said offers a platform for those narratives. 📣 Connect with Us – ProudlySaid.co.uk Subscribe: Stay updated with new episodes. Share: If this resonates with you, share it with others who might find it meaningful. Feedback: We value your thoughts. Reach out with comments or suggestions. Support: Join The Front Row for less than £3 a month, supporting a local queer creator, or buy us a bespoke coffee or three! :)

  4. Sep 10

    Ep 67: Theo UK Rose said

    🎙️ What’s This Episode About? Theo UK Rose is a professional dancer and performer currently touring the UK in The Bodyguard. John catches him in a dressing room at the Liverpool Empire, squeezed in between a matinee and an evening show, which is exactly the kind of chaotic scheduling that makes touring theatre what it is. Theo talks John through how he got here: growing up dancing to the Wiggles, training from the age of 11 at the Hammond in Chester before moving to Laine Theatre Arts in Surrey, and landing his first professional contract before he'd even finished his final year. He is candid about what life on a touring production actually looks like day to day, the logistics of shared accommodation, napping on dressing room floors with a foam roller as a pillow, the strange rhythms of two-show days, and the cast bonds that form when you spend a year living out of a suitcase with the same people across the country. The conversation takes a more honest turn around body image and the pressure that comes with performing in costumes every night, sometimes feeling great in them and sometimes not, and what it takes to fuel a physically demanding show without tipping into patterns that don't serve you. Theo is refreshingly open about it, including the times it has gone wrong. There's also the bigger picture: a growing TikTok following built on just being himself, ambitions around TV work, a future fashion brand he can visualise clearly but hasn't quite figured out yet, and a very firm declaration that he would absolutely do a gay Love Island. He's warm, funny, and genuinely good company, even when the room is 30 degrees and there's another show in two hours. It's an easy, enjoyable conversation about what it really takes to build a career doing what you love, and what keeps it worth doing. 🗣️ Why Listen? If you’re seeking genuine conversations that reflect the diverse experiences within the LGBTQ+ community, Proudly Said offers a platform for those narratives. 📣 Connect with Us – ProudlySaid.co.uk Subscribe: Stay updated with new episodes. Share: If this resonates with you, share it with others who might find it meaningful. Feedback: We value your thoughts. Reach out with comments or suggestions. Support: Join The Front Row for less than £3 a month, supporting a local queer creator, or buy us a bespoke coffee or three! :)

  5. Sep 3

    Ep 66: Dr Christopher Owen said

    🎙️ What’s This Episode About? Dr. Christopher Owen is a Canadian-born, Manchester-based liberation coach, consultant, trainer and activist, and the founder of Coliberate. He holds a PhD in intersectional systemic oppression, has worked with organisations including Starbucks EMEA, Hilton Worldwide and Booking.com, and was named a Northern Gamechanger in 2024. He is also, by his own admission, a raging homo from a hockey town with one set of traffic lights and four churches. Recorded at the Molly House in Manchester's Village. Christopher joins John to talk about growing up queer in rural Ontario, where same-sex marriage debates were happening in classrooms when he was eleven years old, and where the messaging from his Christian community left him telling himself, as a teenager, that it was better to be good than to be happy. He traces the journey from that to a PhD in oppression, which, he is at pains to point out, is really fun stuff, and eventually to the founding of Coliberate, which exists to help individuals and organisations figure out not just that change is needed, but how to actually make it. The conversation gets into the real substance of what Christopher does and why: the gap between academic theory and lived experience, the difference between the invisible ways we are harmed and the invisible ways we cause harm, and why so many professionals who want to do something good feel helpless and don't know where to start. It's a conversation that takes systemic thinking and makes it feel genuinely actionable rather than abstract. There's also the personal story of moving to the UK to do a PhD because a leading expert in his field was based here, building a life in Manchester, working with LGBTQ+ youth and writing a handbook whose profits go entirely back into supporting young queer people, and why he left academia feeling like the institution was more interested in theory than in actually changing anything. Thoughtful, warm, funny at all the right moments, and genuinely one to make you think. It's an unexpectedly joyful conversation about oppression, liberation, and why doing things differently is the only way anything actually changes. Find out more about Dr Christopher Owen at https://coliberate.co.uk 🗣️ Why Listen? If you’re seeking genuine conversations that reflect the diverse experiences within the LGBTQ+ community, Proudly Said offers a platform for those narratives. 📣 Connect with Us – ProudlySaid.co.uk Subscribe: Stay updated with new episodes. Share: If this resonates with you, share it with others who might find it meaningful. Feedback: We value your thoughts. Reach out with comments or suggestions. Support: Join The Front Row for less than £3 a month, supporting a local queer creator, or buy us a bespoke coffee or three! :)

  6. Aug 27

    Ep 65: KY Kelly said

    🎙️ What’s This Episode About? KY Kelly is a live vocalist, comedian and drag performer who has spent years building one of the most recognisable presences on the UK cabaret circuit, with residencies across Manchester's Village, gigs up and down the country, and a name that has a very good reason for existing. John catches her at Brewers in Manchester, recorded on one of the hottest days of the year, with a gig at Bar Pop and Via to follow that evening. Very much business as usual. KY traces the whole journey from the beginning: the drag DJ era powered by Virtual DJ and sheer chat, to landing a Sunday service residency at the Eagle that she describes as her drag university, to touring as first cover Hugo in Everybody's Talking About Jamie alongside Kevin Clifton, John Partridge and Darren Day. She talks about what it actually took to get from doing £30 gigs to being the kind of act that venues book without needing to see first, and why treating every room like your living room is still the best tactic she knows. The conversation is also a love letter to the Manchester scene and the venues and queens who gave her a chance when nobody was watching. KY is candid about loyalty, about being a girl of a certain age who has done the working men's clubs and got changed in toilets and knows exactly what all the years of grind were for. She also has a lot of very strong opinions on celebrity casting in musical theatre, which she shares with absolutely no hesitation whatsoever. There is also an album. A recorded one. Finished and ready. And a very funny story involving Twitter, a late night train from London, and some looks from passengers that KY would rather not revisit. It's loud, warm, utterly unfiltered, and the kind of conversation that leaves you feeling like you've had a proper night out before it's even started. Follow KY on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/kykellyofficial/ 🗣️ Why Listen? If you’re seeking genuine conversations that reflect the diverse experiences within the LGBTQ+ community, Proudly Said offers a platform for those narratives. 📣 Connect with Us – ProudlySaid.co.uk Subscribe: Stay updated with new episodes. Share: If this resonates with you, share it with others who might find it meaningful. Feedback: We value your thoughts. Reach out with comments or suggestions. Support: Join The Front Row for less than £3 a month, supporting a local queer creator, or buy us a bespoke coffee or three! :)

  7. Aug 20

    Ep 64: Just Minnie said

    🎙️ What’s This Episode About? Minnie is a Welsh-born, Cardiff-raised, Liverpool-adopted drag queen, host, DJ and bingo caller, who goes by Just Minnie, formerly Mini Cooper, before a certain Australian Drag Race contestant made that slightly complicated. Recorded between gigs in her sister Simone's flat, with Dream Boys to follow shortly after. Minnie joins John to cover a lot of ground at pace, beginning with the early Cardiff days: coming out at 20, starting drag almost by accident at a fancy dress night, winning a bottle of Prosecco in a pub competition, and gradually working her way up from doing hen parties in galley kitchens to a decade-plus career across the UK circuit. She talks about what she learned doing Dream Boys shows, why a room full of middle-aged women is her ideal crowd, and the very particular skill of singing an ABBA megamix while small children do cartwheels in front of you at a Haven holiday park at 11pm. The conversation gets into what it means to build a name on the Liverpool scene, move from Cardiff wanting to be known, and then find yourself having to introduce yourself all over again to a new generation of twinks who have absolutely no idea who you are. Minnie is honest about the strange feeling of being slightly disconnected from the scene she helped build, while also being genuinely happier for it, with a day job, a friendship group, and a hiking picture on her Tinder to prove it. There's also the name change, the drag career timeline that spans Wales, the Midlands, a brief 17 days in Gran Canaria, and eventually Liverpool, and a conversation about pride, recognition, and what it looks like when a career settles into something that actually suits your life. It's gloriously chaotic, very funny, and exactly the kind of chat you'd want to be having between gigs on a Saturday night. 🗣️ Why Listen? If you’re seeking genuine conversations that reflect the diverse experiences within the LGBTQ+ community, Proudly Said offers a platform for those narratives. 📣 Connect with Us – ProudlySaid.co.uk Subscribe: Stay updated with new episodes. Share: If this resonates with you, share it with others who might find it meaningful. Feedback: We value your thoughts. Reach out with comments or suggestions. Support: Join The Front Row for less than £3 a month, supporting a local queer creator, or buy us a bespoke coffee or three! :)

  8. Aug 13

    Ep 63: Warren Allmark said

    🎙️ What’s This Episode About? Warren Allmark is a founding member and chairperson of Chester Pride, a drag artist known as Wanda Why, and the driving force behind the Rainbow Tea Rooms, Chester Pride's own LGBTQ+ community café in the heart of the city. He has tried to leave Chester Pride twice. He has not succeeded. Recorded at the Rainbow Tea Rooms, where a memorial to The Vivienne adds to the atmosphere and a homophobic squatter interrupts briefly. Warren joins John to tell the story of how Chester Pride came to be, from a simple ask by the late landlord of the Liverpool Arms to help book some acts, to 15 years as the last surviving founding member of an organisation he has shepherded through financial difficulty, a cancelled year, and a political landscape that has only grown more hostile. He talks frankly about what it actually costs to put on a Pride event in 2026, why the idea that Pride should always be free has become increasingly disconnected from reality, and what rising artist fees are doing to smaller Prides across the country. The conversation covers a lot of ground: the Gender Blender nightclub nights he ran and eventually walked away from without a second thought, the Rainbow Tea Rooms and why a community café outside the nighttime economy matters more now than when they opened it, and Chester Pride's decision to ban national political parties from marching while keeping the door of the Tea Rooms open for surgeries and accountability. Warren is also candid about the community's internal fractures, the LGB without the T argument, and why he thinks solidarity is not optional right now. There is also a genuinely moving thread about what it means to be part of something for 15 years, to have built something that belongs to a whole community, and to not quite be ready to hand it over yet. Funny, opinionated, completely direct, and very good company. It's an hour that goes past quickly, a conversation about community, pride in all senses, and what it actually takes to keep the lights on. Find out more at https://chesterpride.co.uk 🗣️ Why Listen? If you’re seeking genuine conversations that reflect the diverse experiences within the LGBTQ+ community, Proudly Said offers a platform for those narratives. 📣 Connect with Us – ProudlySaid.co.uk Subscribe: Stay updated with new episodes. Share: If this resonates with you, share it with others who might find it meaningful. Feedback: We value your thoughts. Reach out with comments or suggestions. Support: Join The Front Row for less than £3 a month, supporting a local queer creator, or buy us a bespoke coffee or three! :)

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Proudly Said is about being LGBTQ+ in the UK without compromise. Hosted by John Hyland (he/they), a Liverpool-born activist and advocate, the show brings real conversations to the forefront. No studios, no scripts - just people, where they’re most at home, speaking in their own words. Each episode centres voices you don’t hear enough, talking about what it means to live out loud, hold space, and just live. There’s no performance. Just queer stories, proudly said.

Information

  • Creator
    John Hyland
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    71
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2025 Proudly Said
  • Show Website
    Proudly Said