The Radical Origins of Pride Month (with Kaila Story)

The rainbow flag signals unity. Reality under the banner is messier.

Professor Kaila Story has spent her life navigating spaces where parts of her identity are welcomed while other parts are pushed aside. As a Black lesbian, she has encountered racism within queer communities, queerphobia within Black communities, and exclusion even among people who claim to be fighting for liberation.

Drawing from her book The Rainbow Ain't Never Been Enuf: On the Myth of LGBTQ+ Solidarity, Kaila explores why marginalized groups don't automatically stand together, how racism and respectability politics continue to shape LGBTQ communities, and why genuine solidarity requires more than shared oppression.

A challenging, hopeful conversation about identity, community, and why our liberation remains bound up with one another.

Full transcript is available here at relationscapes.org. 

Fellow Traveler Episodes

• Queer History Repeating (with Christina Cauterucci)
• Recovering Queer Black History for Everybody (with George M. Johnson)

About the Guest Kaila Adia Story, PhD, is a professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and of Pan-African Studies, as well as the Audre Lorde Endowed Chair, at the University of Louisville. She is also the cocreator, coproducer, and cohost of Louisville Public Media’s Strange Fruit: Musings on Politics, Pop Culture, and Black Gay Life, a popular, award-winning podcast.