Out on the Air - The Queer History of Bay Area Radio

Join KALW & the GLBT Historical Society for a journey through the queer history of Bay Area broadcasting with the voices who were there.
About this Event

Hear the voices that documented, shaped, and celebrated queer life in the Bay Area, from Stonewall through the AIDS crisis.

Queer Power Hour host David Boyer welcomes pioneering broadcaster Randy Alfred, producer and host of The Gay Life; radio producer Chana Wilson, host of Radio Free Lesbian on KPFA; and broadcast journalist Eric Jansen, lead producer and co-host of Out in the Bay. Through audio excerpts and live conversation, they'll reflect on how queer people used radio to find one another, document their communities, challenge mainstream narratives, and create a public record of lives too often left out of history.

Out on the Air celebrates Revisiting The Gay Life, a new documentary series from KALW's Queer Power Hour. Produced in collaboration with the GLBT Historical Society and Randy Alfred, the series revisits The Gay Life, the groundbreaking program that aired on KSAN from 1977 to 1984 and became the first regularly scheduled LGBTQ-focused show on commercial radio in the United States.

Drawing from newly restored archival recordings, the series offers a vivid portrait of LGBTQ life in San Francisco during the years between Stonewall and the AIDS crisis. We'll hear stories from the city's gay underground of the 1950s, the origins of the Imperial Court, conversations with influential queer writers, and voices from LGBTQ activists, judges, filmmakers, and leaders. The recordings also capture some of the earliest radio reporting on the mysterious illness that would later become known as AIDS.

Randy Alfred is widely known for his detailed 1980 probe into the biased and unfair portrayal of San Francisco’s gay community in CBS Reports’ “Gay Power, Gay Politics,” an investigation that resulted in CBS making a rare public apology for its failed coverage. He was twice editor of the S.F Sentinel and co-founded the S.F. Bay Times. Alfred produced and hosted KSAN's public-affairs radio show The Gay Life from 1979 to 1984. He was a founding member of NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists and entered its Hall of Fame in 2015.
For more than four decades, Alfred has spoken out in newsrooms and professional organizations for bias-free language, bias-free news coverage, and bias-free workplaces and benefits, not only for LGBTQ people, but for women, minorities and disabled people.

Chana Wilson is a radio/audio producer who produced radio shows at KPFA-FM in Berkeley, CA from 1973-1983, including the pioneering show Radio Free Lesbian. She left radio to explore people’s lives in more depth as an LGBTQ-affirmative psychotherapist. Her memoir, Riding Fury Home, chronicles her childhood in the ‘50s as caretaker to a closeted lesbian mom made suicidal by conversion therapy, and their shared exhilaration when they both come out as lesbians in the ebullient days of the ‘70s women’s and gay liberation movements. Her essays have appeared on the Huffington Post in Queer Voices. Now retired, Chana has returned to audio storytelling.

Eric Jansen founded Out in the Bay Queer Radio in 2004, after many years in broadcast and print journalism. He patterned it after KQED’s popular public affairs show Forum -- on which he had worked -- and Latino USA, which he loves for how it entertains and serves its own communities while inviting others to listen and learn about subcultures not their own. Out in the Bay aired weekly on KALW for 15 years, was podcast for over a decade and - via PRX - its features aired on other US public radio stations. Before creating Out in the Bay, Eric freelanced for NPR and other outlets and was a producer, reporter and newscaster for KQED and Minnesota Public Radio.

David Boyer is KALW's Director of New Programming, host of Queer Power Hour, and former Managing Editor of KALW News. He is also the producer/host of the Murrow Award winning podcast THE INTERSECTION, which looks at our changing cities, one street corner at a time.

Past seasons of THE INTERSECTION focussed on street corner in the middle of San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, an intersection in the middle of Google’s Mountain View campus and conceptual intersections at 2019’s Burning Man.

The writer-turned-radio maker is also the author of two oral histories Kings and Queens: Queers at the Prom (Soft Skull Press) and Bachelor Party Confidential (Simon & Schuster).

Come early for Pollinating The Possible, on view in KALW's gallery until July 31. CreatingAS1, the art team of Sara Corbett and Aaron Haldiman, is transforming KALW's public gathering space into a living gallery—an invitation to pause, reflect, and engage with artwork that explores connection, renewal, and possibility. Together, KALW and CreatingAS1 invite you into a process of discovery, connection, and collective imagination.

There is a $10 - $20 sliding scale suggested donation for this event. Nobody will be turned away for lack of funds.

Please become a KALW member today and receive your first drink on us at all 220 Montgomery events.

📍 220 Montgomery St., San Francisco, 2 blocks from BART/MUNI

🚪 Reception doors open at 6:00

🗣️ Program begins at 7:00

🆓 The event is free with an RSVP — and you are welcome to donate what you want

Please note:

• The event space is just to the left of the main entrance to the Mills Building at 220 Montgomery Street
• We recommend taking BART/MUNI, exiting at Montgomery, and walking two blocks north
• Ride-shares can drop off and pick up directly in front of the venue
• If you drive, there are several garages within two blocks of the event location

Agenda

🕑: 06:30 PM - 07:00 PM
Doors & Art Show
🕑: 07:00 PM - 08:30 PM
Out on the Air