The transgender pilot who survived the Nazis and set racing records
QueerAF | Inspiring LGBTQIA+ stories told by emerging queer creativesShow Notes
Roberta Cowell, or Betty might have been born into a strict, religious family - but her history, is one with many lessons.
She shows us that Trans+ people are more than just their identity. That Trans+ people deserve to tell their own stories. That, as Sabah Choudrey wrote in this year’s Trans+ History Week workbook lesson about her - “while positive trans representation matters, you don’t need to see yourself represented to know that you can live authentically, and be trans, happy and celebrated.”
It’s time for the final episode of Season 6 of the QueerAF podcast, once again with Trans+ History Week.
Episode Credits: Hosted and produced by Amber Deveraux and Tin Can Audio. Voiceover from Ashleigh Talbot. With thanks to guests Charlie Martin and Victoria Scott. Executive production by Jamie Wareham. This episode was supported by Publicis Groupe UK. Sign up as a QueerAF member to listen along ad-free and support our not-for-profit work, investing in a new generation of queer audio professionals: https://www.wearequeeraf.com/membership/
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Make sure to sign up for updates about Trans+ History Week, a QueerAF launchpad project: https://www.wearequeeraf.com/transhistoryweek/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from QueerAF | Inspiring LGBTQIA+ stories told by emerging queer creatives
June 2nd 1953, London, England. Coronation day of Elizabeth the second, who would at the age of twenty seven become Queen of the United Kingdom and Head of the Commonwealth Nations, but that morning much of the United Kingdom was already celebrating. News had broken that four and a half thousand miles away Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay had finally become the first individuals in history to conquer Mount Everest. The person breaking this historic news, via coded message and two runners, was none other than Jan Morris, intrepid reporter for The Times. Jan Morris would go on to become a world famous journalist, writer, and historian, known for her works on Venice, Trieste, the British Empire, and her beloved home country of Wales - as well as her book covering her transition, Conundrum.
Margate Pride has been around for ten years, and depending on which local you ask, it celebrated its tenth, or 11th, anniversary this year. See, that’s the thing about local and regional queer stories and history. You often have to rely on one of the queerest forms of communication to find them out - gossip. It's that fascination, which has led this town - with one of the densest populations of LGBTQIA+ people in Britain, only a little behind London, Manchester and Brighton - to better understand its queer heritage.
Recorded in February 2026 at National Student Pride, a live recording of the QueerAF podcast, hosted by Juno Dawson, with guests Munroe Bergdorf, Zelah Glasson, Lars Fellows and Fizz Sinclair - the panel explores Trans 2030, what life is like now and how Trans+ lives have changed.
The north of England has a long history of welcoming migrant communities, despite a growing far-right movement growing in the region. Indeed, immigration is an integral part of the history of the UK. While that’s in part due to a horrific colonial past, today we would hardly be anywhere without it. The well-loved national dish of Fish and Chips was brought over by Spanish and Portuguese migrants, and popularised by the Jewish migrant community in the mid-1800s. The iconic mini cooper was invented by a Greek engineer, who came to the UK to study. Chicken tikka massala, development of Marxist theory, 4am shawarma after a night out. Adrian Collins heads to Bradford, to speak with Trans+ refugees and migrants to find out what it's like on the intersections of being Trans+ and a migrant.
Allyship, solidarity. They’re words that are banded around a lot. Allies often ask how to show solidarity, and marginalised queer and Trans+ folks try their hardest to give ever-increasing practical insights. But what do those words, really mean? How do you do justice to the work?