Melanie Willingham-Jaggers is the first Black & first nonbinary Executive Director of GLSEN. Basketball royalty Ann Wauters joins the Chicago Sky coaching staff & MVP Kahleah Copper rocks the cover of SLAM. Jonathan Van Ness of Queer Eye drops their Getting Curious Netflix series today. Anna shares some business podcast recommendations for you to check out this weekend.

00:00 – Welcome & Intro

00:35 – The Qube Ad

00:58 – Intro Music

01:38 – Melanie Willingham-Jaggers is the first Black & first nonbinary Executive Director of GLSEN

03:29 – Basketball royalty Ann Wauters joins the Chicago Sky coaching staff & MVP Kahleah Copper rocks the cover of SLAM

04:57 – Jonathan Van Ness of Queer Eye drops their Getting Curious Netflix series today

06:13 – Anna shares some business podcast recommendations for you to check out this weekend

06:44 – Anna’s Got A Word

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Family, this is your favorite queer radio personality Anna DeShawn here with our queer news from today.

Melanie Willingham-Jaggers is the first Black & first nonbinary Executive Director of GLSEN. Basketball royalty Ann Wauters joins the Chicago Sky coaching staff & MVP Kahleah Copper rocks the cover of SLAM. Jonathan Van Ness of Queer Eye drops their Getting Curious Netflix series today and I share some business podcast recommendations for you to check out this weekend. 

Our leading story for today is about the LGBTQ organization GLSEN. Ya’ll probably know GLSEN for their mission to create safe & inclusive schools for K-12 LGBTQ students. Well they just named their first Black & first nonbinary executive director Melanie Willingham-Jaggers who uses she/they pronouns. Melanie has been serving as the interim executive director a year and clearly she has been a great fit. She joined the organization in 2019 as deputy executive director so it seems this has been in the cards all along. They have a ton of experience in social justice movements advocating on behalf of the formerly incarcerated, immigrants, those who are differently able and our aging community. Melanie also served as board chair at the Audre Lorde Center from 2016-2019. She said this about stepping into her new role, “I am thrilled to continue and accelerate the important work GLSEN started more than 30 years ago”…“Education is the cornerstone of our democracy and GLSEN’s work is rooted in the belief that education can and should be an experience that is safe, inclusive, and affirming for all students. I am committed to ensuring our organization lives up to that promise and advances work based always on GLSEN’s core strategies: anti-racism, gender justice, and disability justice.” I will say they definitely have their work cut out for them. We report almost every week about another bill being introduced to ban LGBTQ books in libraries or LGBTQ history in schools. Republicans have been bullish in this area to spur on anti-LGBTQ sentiment so there is much work to do. Congratulations Melanie! We are rooting for you. 

Now if you don’t know I’m a big basketball fan and an even bigger Chicago sports fan so the Chicago Sky is my fav. The Sky announced yesterday that Ann Wauters is going to the coaching staff. Woot! Ann is global basketball royalty. She has played professional basketball for more than two decades. She went #1 in the 2000 WNBA Draft—becoming the first Belgian player to do so—and won a championship in 2016 with the LA Sparks alongside Candace Parker. During her career she has earned four EuroLeague titles, one EuroCup title, 12 domestic championships, 11 Cups and a bronze medal at the European Championship, and she is a five-time European player of the year. Ann retired from playing this past summer following the Olympics in Tokyo. So do you see what I mean by global basketball royalty. She’s family too which is always an extra bonus. Then in more Chicago Sky news Kahleah Copper is on the cover of the latest issue of SLAM magazine. The photos are hot and she talks about being a girl from North Philly to the WNBA Finals MVP and world champion. If you’re a die hard fan you can purchase the metal edition for $94 #ijs. I can’t wait for this upcoming season. Let’s go. 

Also tonight Jonathan Van Ness, you know them from Queer Eye, premieres their new series called Getting Curious on Netflix which is a spinoff of their very popular weekly podcast. Getting Curious is a 6-part series where Jonathan lets curiosity lead the way while roving from snacks to wigs to figure skating to a beautiful conversation about the gender binary. Alok posted a clip from the episode and it hits okay. Take a listen [PLAY CLIP]. In case you couldn’t catch it, at the end Jonathan said “I literally can’t talk”. We are living poems. Whew. Now all 6 episodes drop at the same time so dive in this weekend and definitely watch the episode titled “Can We Say Bye-Bye to the Binary?”. 

Now it’s Friday which means I’m dropping more podcast recommendations for you. Today it’s all about the business podcasts and these are coming from the homie Tricey Trice. You ready? Here we go, We Study Billionaires – The Investors Podcast Network, Robinhood Snacks which I personally really enjoy, The Rich Dad Radio Show, Earn Your Leisure & the Social Proof Podcast. Check them out. If you enjoy them let us know by DM’ing us on TikTok or IG. 

Let’s close out our week with an encouraging word. My affirmation today talked about the greatest gift being unanswered prayers. At first glance you think no I definitely wanted that prayer answered but it could be God setting you up for something bigger and better or perhaps protecting you from something you can’t see. All I know to be true is that God has shown up consistently and without fail. So don’t be discouraged if what you’re praying for doesn’t happen when or how you want it too. I’m learning to be less concerned about the how, the when, the why and more focused on allowing the journey to take the lead. Have a wonderful weekend family. Till Monday, peace. 

Sources

GLSEN Names First Black, First Nonbinary Executive Director

https://www.advocate.com/news/2022/1/27/glsen-names-first-black-first-nonbinary-executive-director

Chicago Sky hire Ann Wauters as assistant coach

https://www.windycitytimes.com/lgbt/Chicago-Sky-hire-Ann-Wauters-as-assistant-coach/72224.html

Kahleah Cooper Instagram

​​https://www.instagram.com/_klc215/

Alok Vaid-Menon Exists Outside Of Your Heteronormative Gender Binary.

GLSEN names Melanie Willingham-Jaggers as its new Executive Director, the Chicago Sky welcome Ann Wauters to the coaching staff & Kahleah Copper is on the cover of SLAM, Getting Curious drops on Netflix today & Anna shares some business podcast recommendations – Friday, January 28, 2022