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Hi, and welcome back to Outward.

I'm Brandon Tensley, the associate editor at New American, a contributing writer at Pacific Standard Magazine.

And I'm currently on a strict diet of Robin Bops as I prepare for a concert this move.

I'm Brian Louder, editor of Outward.

And while I love making and eating desserts, I'm going to have to pass on a serving of silky nutmeg ganache.

I'm Christina Cotterucci, a staff writer at Slate and host of the Waves, Slate's podcast about

women and gender, and I recently learned that if you get served the check when you're out to dinner,

your server has decided that you of the couple are the top.

This month, our theme on the podcast is town and country.

For almost as long as gay and queer have been conceptualized as identities and not just categories of sexual behaviors, the narrative around LGBTQ communities has revolved around cities.

So on this episode, we're going to talk about how that urban centricity came to be, how cities helped form expectations of queer life,

why the stereotype of the urban gay has proved remarkably persistent, how queer people decide where to make their homes,

and why LGBT life thrives in some of the most outwardly, unlikely places.

To help us unpack some of these questions, we're going to talk to author Hugh Ryan, who's

studied gay communities in Brooklyn in the 19th and early 20th century about how cities have

provided records of some of these historical queer lives.

Then we'll chat with the Daily Beasts, Samantha Allen, who has written a new book about

LGBTQ life in red states.

That's two authors, so y'all are going to get read.

We'll also answer our listeners' questions about building queer community in rural areas.

But first, we're going to kick things off with our March edition of Pride and Provocations.

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