Queer Stories Across Boarders

Joanne Lockwood is joined by researcher and storyteller Georgie Williams to explore what we can learn from queer lives and communities across borders, and why narrowly defined gender and sexuality “boxes” fail to reflect human diversity.

Georgie shares the origins of their project Slash Queer: building an open, accessible archive of oral histories from around the world, shaped by the people telling the stories. The conversation moves through how western frameworks have been exported through media and colonial histories, and how other cultures have long held broader understandings of gender, sexuality, kinship and social roles.

Together they discuss identity, pronouns, and the practical realities of being read by others. Georgie explains their shift to they/them pronouns and the difference between genuine effort and defaulting to what makes others comfortable. Joanne reflects on transition, “passing”, and the everyday ways couples navigate social scripts.

The episode also addresses safety, bias and access to care, including how healthcare and public spaces can become sites of policing and exclusion for trans and nonbinary people. Throughout, Joanne and Georgie balance humour with clear-eyed challenge: expanding representation, loosening assumptions, and making room for people to belong without having to fit a prescribed template.