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 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! :)

  2. 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! :)

  3. 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! :)

  4. 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! :)

  5. Aug 6

    Ep 62: AJ West said

    🎙️ What’s This Episode About? A.J. West is a Sunday Times bestselling author, award-winning former BBC journalist, and, as he puts it himself, the world's foremost queer bookshop historian. He joins John at Liverpool Central Library, just ahead of a sold-out evening with the Proud Readers Book Club, to talk about his new nonfiction book, How Queer Bookshops Changed the World. And they did change the world. AJ makes a compelling case from the off: it was a queer bookseller who organised the first Pride march, another who orchestrated the Stonewall uprising, and it was Gays the Word in London that took on the government and helped change obscenity laws. The rights many people take for granted now were won, in no small part, by people selling books. The conversation covers all of this with genuine warmth and infectious enthusiasm, taking in stories from 1700s London all the way to the queer bookshop renaissance happening right now. But there's also a much more personal story here. AJ talks about growing up bookish and lonely in a football-dominated school that didn't exactly encourage ambition, finding his way into journalism, and the period he spent as a contestant on Big Brother, which he describes with great candour, including the housemate he slept next to who turned out to be Andrew Tate, and what it felt like to come out of that show with his relationship in tabloid headlines and his life in pieces. It was rock bottom that gave him the push to finally write. The conversation ends up somewhere genuinely moving: about chasing dreams when you have nothing to lose, the quiet bravery of people who build spaces for others without ever wanting the credit, and why queer history is still so worth telling. Also, John says "projectory" three times and AJ cannot let it go. It's warm, funny, brilliantly nerdy in all the right ways, and a proper treat of a conversation. Check out AJ's website HERE. 🗣️ 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. Jul 30

    Ep 61: Skarlett Skandal said

    🎙️ What’s This Episode About? Skarlett Skandal is a Carrickfergus-born, Liverpool-made bearded drag queen and DJ, currently making her way back home to Northern Ireland after eight years of nights, stages and dance floors across Merseyside. She calls herself the Bearded Bratz Doll. She is not wrong. Recorded backstage at Heaven prior to Big Gay Cabaret, Skarlett joins John for a conversation that covers a lot of ground at pace, which is exactly what you'd expect from someone who openly credits ADHD for how her brain works. She talks about coming from Carrickfergus, growing up in a mixed Catholic and Protestant household just a month after the Good Friday Agreement was signed, and how Liverpool felt like home from the moment she arrived for university, where she was, by the way, studying zoology. They get into how Skarlett fell into drag during lockdown, built a reputation on the Liverpool scene as one of the few drag queen DJs working the circuit, and why having a niche matters more than ever when the nighttime economy is under pressure and the market is saturated. She talks about reading a room, building community with other queens, and the moment she very reluctantly agreed to become a drag mother to Pumpkin Skandal. There's also the next chapter: a Belfast debut she is equal parts excited and terrified about, a potential future as a literal zookeeper, and the kind of honest, chaotic, very funny chat that happens when two people are clearly just enjoying themselves. It's big energy, total chaos, and genuinely brilliant craic. 🗣️ 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. Jul 23

    Ep 60: Mac Wynter said

    🎙️ What’s This Episode About? Mac Wynter is a musician, animator, freelance illustrator, event organiser, teacher, and the founder of Stripped MCR and QuAC, a UK-based queer arts collective. He also used to go by Mickey Taylor, but Mickey's dead now. He said so himself. Mac joins John ten years after their first on-camera conversation, and wastes no time catching up on a decade of reinvention. From a former career in the adult industry and touring music to going back to university at 29 to study animation, Mac talks about what it looks like to genuinely start over, the skill sets that travel with you whether people respect them or not, and why he still thrives on pressure even when it probably shouldn't work. They get into the creative world's darker side too: the mental health toll of pouring yourself into art, the threat of AI to a generation of animators, and what it means to keep building when the industry keeps shifting under your feet. Mac talks about his children's books, his autism diagnosis, and how working in animation led him back to teaching kids the things he didn't have growing up. There's also the queer arts scene in Manchester, the nudist cabaret niche he somehow spotted and ran with, and a lot of unfinished business he fully intends to come back for. He's chaotic, hilarious, and exactly as much as he was ten years ago, in all the best ways. 🗣️ 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. Jul 16

    Ep 59: Ruby Boy said

    🎙️ What’s This Episode About? Ruby Boy is a Yorkshire-born, Doncaster-raised drag queen, DJ, host and event producer, who relocated to Liverpool in early 2025 and has been quietly building something rather brilliant ever since. Recorded at the Epstein Theatre bar straight after a brunch show, with Proseccos already well underway. Ruby joins John to talk about her journey from selling shots at 18 in Lincoln, through five years of residencies across the Midlands, to arriving in Liverpool and starting from scratch all over again. She's honest about what that actually looks like: cover shifts, patience, travel that costs more than it pays, and the slow work of building a reputation in a city where the gig economy for drag queens is tighter than it looks from the outside. A big part of Ruby's story right now is Big Gay Cabaret, the Liverpool show she co-produces with drag partner Carmen Sutra. What started as filling a gap in the city's cabaret scene has grown into something with real momentum, and Ruby talks about why they built it, how it nearly broke them when 20 competition slots filled in nine hours, and why keeping drag silly is the whole point. There's also the engagement story, which involves Rome, a fight, a ring that hadn't arrived, and a proposal that was equal parts romantic and deeply traumatic. It's exactly as good as it sounds. It's loud, funny, completely unfiltered, and a genuinely warm conversation about building a drag career on your own terms in a city that's becoming home. Make sure to follow their instagram! 🗣️ 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
    67
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2025 Proudly Said
  • Show Website
    Proudly Said