Anthems

Anthems is built around voices that sound ready to be kept, quoted, argued with, and returned to. In the Anthems Talks episodes, that format shifts into intimate one-on-one conversations between trans and queer creatives and activists. The result is personal, political, and often disarmingly funny. Charlie Craggs and Kenny Ethan Jones move between jokes, desire, surgery, dysphoria, and the need for young queer people to see someone standing up for themselves. Juliet Jacques and Jackson King use culture as a way into history, writing, confession, and the exhaustion of being asked to justify trans lives in hostile media spaces. Xandice Armah and Sabah Choudrey talk through belonging, wellbeing, masculinity, blackness, brownness, and the way Trans Pride Brighton grew from a need to be seen into a larger community force. Felix Mufti and Mika Onyx Johnson focus on ownership, theatre, casting, and the limits of inclusion when trans performers are only considered for narrowly trans roles. Juno Dawson and Nicola Dinan frame responsibility as something messier than perfect knowledge, with learning, mistakes, and voice all in play. The show’s strength is its willingness to let people speak in full human scale. Pain is present. So are wit, gossip, tenderness, irritation, pride, and ambition. Anthems does not sand its subjects into inspirational neatness. It gives them time to think, contradict, laugh, remember, and insist. The episodes are grounded in lived experience rather than abstract panel-talk, which makes the political stakes feel immediate without turning every moment into a campaign line. For listeners interested in LGBTQ+ identity, trans culture, creative work, and community survival, Anthems offers a thoughtful archive of voices speaking from inside the questions that shape their lives.