Cruising | Queer History and Culture

Cruising started with a question that sounds simple but turned into an incredible project: what if you visited every lesbian bar left in America? Season 1 documented a 2021 cross-country road trip doing exactly that. Season 2 expanded to 14 additional queer spaces, chronicling both the resurgence of lesbian bars and the history of those that closed. Season 3 shifted to interviews with history-making lesbians and LGBTQ+ folks about bookstores, farms, peace encampments, and other community spaces. Sarah Gabrielli conducts the interviews, and listeners consistently praise her as a thoughtful, insightful host. Episodes run 45 minutes to over 75 minutes, released biweekly, with 80 in the archive. The storytelling is narrative-driven but grounded in real conversations with real people. There's an accompanying book, The Lesbian Bar Chronicles, that extends the project even further. The 4.8-star rating from 172 reviews reflects a show that people describe as culturally necessary. It's especially valuable for younger listeners who might not realize how much queer community space has been lost -- and how much is being rebuilt. The focus on physical places gives it a specificity that sets it apart from more biographical queer history shows. You come away understanding not just who queer people were, but where they gathered and why those spaces mattered so much.