Hello and welcome to Outwork Slate's LGBT podcast. I'm Jewelskill Peterson coming to you live from the year

2024. You know, I managed, but kind of barely, to stay up to midnight on New Year's Eve.

And I did turn on Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper's

Times Square broadcasts for like all of five minutes at one point. I think it might have been out

of like morbid curiosity. But y'all, it was too weird for me. Like anyone who's lived in New York,

I've always felt stressed by the idea that like people show up to Times Square at

9 a.m. on New Year's Eve because they have to kind of stand around all day waiting and apparently,

or at least allegedly, don't have access to bathrooms. So just know that like whenever I see these

crowds in Times Square, even on TV, my bladder really starts dancing.

And then there was just something about like gaining up that whole scenario with Andy and Anderson

in front of one million product placements that took it to a whole new level of weird for me.

Anyways, I hope whatever kind of holiday you had, it included time for rest and rejuvenation

and that you're feeling ready for this new year. I'm so thrilled because today I'm bringing

you an extra special episode where I'm sitting down with the one and only Raquel Willis

to talk about her new memoir, the risk it takes to bloom on life

and liberation. You might remember that actually her book made it onto my gay agenda recently,

and it was like a gay agenda I was making for myself. Literally, I needed to sit down and read this

book as part of my gay holidays. So I figured why not share the experience with

you all and invite Raquel onto the show to tell us more about her remarkable life journey

and her fierce activism. It's a really exciting and interesting and moving conversation.

I know you're going to love. So stick around and I will be right back with Raquel Willis after this short break.

Welcome back. Listeners, I think we all know, Raquel Willis is the real deal. You know her from earth-shifting activism in the service of Black and Trans Liberation, including the Signal event that was a 2020 March for Black

...