Everything and Anything…and a bit gay Podcast Zachary Randles-Friedman

Peggy is the author of Surviving the Family Kingdom: A Memoir of Growing Up in a Mom's Cult, Escaping and Reclaiming a Life, available now on Amazon. A psychotherapist of more than 20 years specializing in trauma, she sat down with Zach to talk through her extraordinary story — from the violent men and instability of her early childhood, to the gradual systematic indoctrination that began around age 11, to the "domino effect" that finally collapsed the kingdom when she walked away. We get into the four trauma responses (and why children most often "fawn"), the lasting toll of chronic cortisol stress on the body, deprogramming from beliefs about destiny and demons, radical acceptance, forgiveness, and what it meant for Peggy to raise her own children with a voice she was never allowed to have. If you've ever survived a controlling environment — a cult, an abusive relationship, a toxic family — this one is for you.

📖 Get the book: Surviving the Family Kingdom on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Family-Kingdom-Escaping-Reclaiming-ebook/dp/B0GMKLM4FW 

💬 Leave a comment and tell us what you think — and please leave Peggy a review on Amazon.

Podcast song by SIXFOOT 5: https://www.sixfoot5prod.com 

Apple: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/sixfoot-5/1551774977 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5rHMzoU0G0fLhaBsrQiOOY?si=laSZ5hiKTYubJJyhrzf2JQ

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Grant Ginder is the author of six novels, including The People We Hate at Weddings (adapted into the 2024 film starring Kristen Bell and Ben Platt) and his latest, So Old, So Young — a story that drops in on six college friends across five parties over twenty years. A University of Pennsylvania grad and former Washington speechwriter, Grant now teaches in the MFA program at NYU.

In this episode:

• Welcoming baby Celia via surrogacy — and the woman who made it possible
• How Frankie the dog became the world's gentlest big… er, little-sister supervisor
• The So Old, So Young structure: five parties, twenty years, six friends
• Writing (and wanting to burn) his first novel at 23 after a brutal breakup
• The millennial reckoning with homeownership, kids, and the markers of "real" adulthood
• Sipping gin and tonics through a Watch What Happens Live taping with Erika Jayne and Elizabeth Perkins
• The Long Island Railroad wine binge that birthed The People We Hate at Weddings
• Meeting husband Mac (and the handshake that almost killed it)
• Phones, performance culture, and why we were "so lucky" to grow up offline

📚 Grab So Old, So Young — https://www.grantginder.com  🏳️‍🌈 Catch Grant at East End Books in Provincetown this September, including an event with John Glenn for his queer Arthurian retelling The Lost Book of Lancelot.

Chapter Markers / Timestamps

00:00  Welcome — meet author Grant Ginder

00:30  Surprise! A brand-new baby (not a horse)

02:58  The surrogacy journey & their "hero" surrogate

05:31  So Old, So Young — the book

06:00  Getting tipsy on Watch What Happens Live

08:45  Five parties, twenty years: the book's structure

11:35  Laguna Beach to UPenn to speechwriting

13:00  Writing a novel at 23 after his first heartbreak

14:41  "How did I get to 40?" — the passage of time

17:50  Why millennials hit adulthood differently

20:36  The People We Hate at Weddings

21:55  Four bottles of wine & the train ride that started it all

23:48  The 2024 movie (Kristen Bell & Ben Platt)

24:08  Meeting husband Mac — and the dreaded handshake

29:11  Phones, performance & a Swedish Lapland digital detox

31:40  How Frankie the dog took to baby Celia

32:54  What's next: new book + a September in P-Town

Podcast song by SIXFOOT 5: https://www.sixfoot5prod.com 

Apple: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/sixfoot-5/1551774977 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5rHMzoU0G0fLhaBsrQiOOY?si=laSZ5hiKTYubJJyhrzf2JQ

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The rainbow flags are missing this June — and the silence is telling. In this Pride Month episode, Zach goes deep on rainbow washing (a.k.a. rainbow capitalism): what it is, where it came from, how it took over Pride, and why corporations are now retreating in record numbers.

From the 1969 Stonewall riots to Subaru's coded 1990s lesbian marketing, from the Bud Light and Target blowups of 2023 to the six-figure sponsorship shortfalls hitting New York, San Francisco, and Seattle Pride right now — this is the honest conversation about what corporate Pride was really about, what we lose when it leaves, and why this painful moment might be the most clarifying one our community has had in decades.

Because Pride didn't start as a party. It started as a protest. And it's finding its way back.

⏱️ Chapters 

00:00 Where did all the rainbow flags go? 

02:00 Stonewall: Pride started as a riot, not a party 

03:30 How corporate America got into Pride 

07:00 What rainbow washing actually is 

09:30 The 2023 turning point: Bud Light & Target 

13:00 The 2026 numbers: a staggering corporate retreat 

15:00 The community fights back: Twin Cities Pride 

18:00 What real allyship actually looks like 

19:00 Where this leaves us

Podcast song by SIXFOOT 5: https://www.sixfoot5prod.com 

Apple: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/sixfoot-5/1551774977 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5rHMzoU0G0fLhaBsrQiOOY?si=laSZ5hiKTYubJJyhrzf2JQ

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Are we losing LGBTQ+ unity — or do we just need to rebuild what it looks like?

In this Friday's Gay Bit, Zach digs into the division he's been watching play out inside the community: gay men turning on trans folks, bisexual and pansexual people getting invalidated, non-binary identities misunderstood, and comment sections full of people who'd rather criticize than get curious.

He reflects on the incredible bravery of the people he's interviewed — including a friend who came out at 52 to his wife and three sons, and trans women who transitioned later in life after decades of feeling something was missing. He gets real about why he struggles to ignore the trolls, what this podcast has taught him about respecting trans experiences, and the 650+ anti-trans bills moving through government right now.

The big idea: the world still sees us as one community. When we divide internally, we hand our opponents the cracks they're looking for. Unity in 2026 isn't about ignoring our differences — it's about choosing understanding, one conversation at a time.

This Pride Month, Zach's challenge is simple: you don't have to be best friends with everyone in the alphabet. Just respect them. Just be kind.

In this episode:

• The bravery of coming out — and transitioning — later in life
• Why Zach can't stop reading (and fighting) the comments
• Gay men vs. trans folks, and where the real division is coming from
• Bisexual, pansexual, and non-binary identities under the same umbrella
• The 650+ anti-trans bills and why "it doesn't affect me" doesn't fly
• Hope on the horizon: Hungary, Stonewall, and the moments that prove we can come together

🎧 Listen to Everything & Anything…and a Bit Gay wherever you get your podcasts 🌐 everythingandanythingpodcast.com

Podcast song by SIXFOOT 5: https://www.sixfoot5prod.com 

Apple: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/sixfoot-5/1551774977 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5rHMzoU0G0fLhaBsrQiOOY?si=laSZ5hiKTYubJJyhrzf2JQ

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Episode Title: The Hyphenated Life — Dr. Han on Intersectional Identity, Queer Mental Health, and Surviving the In-Between

Guest: Dr. Han (drhanren.com)

Zach sits down with Dr. Han — psychologist, author, and TikTok creator — who specializes in liberation psychology and anti-oppressive care for children of immigrants, queer people, and Asian Americans. Dr. Han grew up as a 1.5 generation immigrant, born in China and raised in Michigan, and came to her queerness later in life. That lived experience of never quite fitting in any one box is exactly what her upcoming book is about.

In this conversation, they get into:

• What it means to be a "hyphenate" — someone who holds multiple marginalized identities and refuses to collapse into just one
• The psychology behind queer and immigrant overachieving and perfectionism — and when ambition becomes burnout
• How Trump 1.0 shaped the demand for specialized mental health care — and what Trump 2.0 is doing to the communities Dr. Han serves
• The numbing out, dissociation, and nihilism she's seeing in clients right now
• Trans and non-binary clients in Texas: the painful reality of going back into hiding or planning to leave the state
• The DEI rollback and what the defunding of Pride events and corporate ERG programs actually costs marginalized communities
• How Dr. Han built her TikTok presence during the pandemic — and the exhaustion of staying on that hamster wheel
• Managing her own mental health while absorbing the weight of other people's trauma

Dr. Han's new book, The Hyphenated Life: Bridging the In-Between Spaces of Intersectional Identities, is out June 16th and available for pre-order now.

📖 Pre-order: drhanren.com 🛒 Also available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bookshop

Podcast song by SIXFOOT 5: https://www.sixfoot5prod.com 

Apple: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/sixfoot-5/1551774977 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5rHMzoU0G0fLhaBsrQiOOY?si=laSZ5hiKTYubJJyhrzf2JQ

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.