Following our main interview with Adèle Anderson, recorded before the April 2025 Supreme Court ruling on trans rights in the UK, we sit down with Adèle for a live recording at The View From Here's launch event in London.

Adèle shares her thoughts on the negative progress we're seeing in trans rights in the UK, the impact of culture wars and the chilling effect this is having.

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This episode was hosted by Jonathan Chambers and James Alexander

Editing by Hannah Stewart

Music: Mystify created by AlterEgo

Visit our website, https://tvfh.co.uk

Follow us on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/theviewfromherepodcast

Adèle Anderson, a key voice of cabaret group, Fascinating Aida, takes us behind the spotlight to Britain in the 1970s, where a radical queen went on to face aversion therapy and a medical playbook that demanded a “ladylike” life before providing basic care.

We explore how a newspaper headline threatened to push Adèle out of Fascinating Aida, GLF fractures, the politics of trans inclusion, and the echoes of the past in today's trans debate. Adele’s story offers both tears and joy.

Note, this episode was recorded before the April 2025 UK Supreme Court ruling on trans rights in the UK. To hear Adèle's reaction to this case, tune in to our special bonus episode to be released on 9 January 2025.

Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs to hear it, and leave a review to help more listeners discover this history.

This episode was hosted by Jonathan Chambers and James Alexander

Editing by Hannah Stewart

Music: Mystify created by AlterEgo

Visit our website, https://tvfh.co.uk

Follow us on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/theviewfromherepodcast

We sit down with the activist and actor, Jill Nalder, whose real life shaped the TV series It’s a Sin, to uncover how a makeshift home in London became a blueprint for chosen family, mutual aid, and relentless care during the HIV crisis. From youth theatre in Wales to drama school in the city, Jill shows how safe spaces grow courage and how that courage fuelled nights of laughter, emergency phone calls, and the kind of honesty that saves lives.

Jill opens up about the disorienting early days of HIV: rumours framed as “gay flu,” weeks-long waits for test results, and government messaging that stoked fear instead of clarity. She explains the grassroots network that filled the gap—helplines, the gay press, hospital leaflets, and blunt, shame-free sex education. Then the West End stepped in. Drawing inspiration from Broadway Cares, Jill and friends launched West End Cares, transforming late-night cabarets and bucket collections into hardship grants and research support. Actor, curtain calls, and queues at venues raised cash and delivered real change.

Jill’s reflections on “going home,” chosen family, and the ethics of care show what happens when art becomes activism, bringing with it compassion, courage and hope.

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This episode was hosted by Jonathan Chambers and James Alexander

Editing by Hannah Stewart

Music: Mystify created by AlterEgo

Visit our website, https://tvfh.co.uk

Follow us on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/theviewfromherepodcast

Ted Brown, veteran of the Gay Liberation Front and a driving force behind black gay activism in Britain, joins us to trace a path from a civil rights–inspired childhood to organising the first UK Pride, and to a battle many don’t see coming - staying out and safe in elderly care.

We start with Ted’s mother, a Jamaican activist who stood with the US civil rights movement and taught him to read prejudice as a system, not a personal failing. From there, Ted walks us into the early GLF meetings at the LSE, where liberation meant more than law reform. He shares how drag, gender-nonconformity, and the idea of sexuality as a spectrum found space in rooms that were chaotic, joyous, and deeply political. We get inside the strategy debates—CHE’s legal focus versus GLF’s cultural transformation—and the reality of racism and sexism in early gay spaces.

Ted details the founding of black queer institutions, including Europe’s pioneering Black Gay and Lesbian Centre, and the hard lessons from confronting media homophobia during the Justin Fashanu saga. His organising forced a powerful newspaper to rethink its stance, showing how targeted pressure can shift hostile narratives.

Then comes a sharp turn to the present: the quiet violence of care homes that ignore or erase LGBTQ relationships. Ted recounts fighting for his partner Noel’s dignity, the systemic misrecognition of their civil partnership, and the ease with which abuse can hide in “care”. He lays out “Not Going In The Care Closet”, a campaign ensuring no one must hide at the end of life.

This episode was hosted by Jonathan Chambers and James Alexander

Editing by Hannah Stewart

Music: Mystify created by AlterEgo

Visit our website, https://tvfh.co.uk

Follow us on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/theviewfromherepodcast

Lisa Power joins us to chart a raw, funny, and fiercely practical road through UK LGBTQ+ history—from Switchboard’s midnight calls to the birth of Stonewall, from Section 28’s chilling effect to the sudden light of Vancouver 1996 when HIV combination therapy changed everything.

We dig into the messy reality of coalition building: why Stonewall chose equality as the shared baseline, how the age of consent fight was won in stages, and what it took to navigate the frictions between feminism, the left, and queer communities. Lisa brings history to life: the cramped Switchboard office with maps and files; early THT meetings; treatment-activist showdowns where community experts out-briefed pharma reps.

Lisa's call is simple and sharp: stop fighting each other, fight the right enemy, and keep pushing the window of acceptance forward.

If this story moved you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review. Tell us what moment or tactic you’d pass on to the next generation.

This episode was hosted by Jonathan Chambers and James Alexander

Editing by Hannah Stewart

Music: Mystify created by AlterEgo

Visit our website, https://tvfh.co.uk

Follow us on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/theviewfromherepodcast

A boy from Limehouse learns to disappear to survive. Decades later, he chooses the opposite—and everything changes. Michael Cashman joins us for a vivid, unflinching journey from dockside childhood to EastEnders fame, from the terror and tenderness of the AIDS years to the kitchen-table founding of Stonewall. He shares how art, politics and everyday compassion forged a life of showing up when silence was safer.

Michael dissects the tabloid machine, Thatcher-era fearmongering, and the “double helix of hatred” that braided homophobia with AIDS panic. Then he walks us through Section 28: the strategy behind inserting “intentionally,” the coalition that grew beyond identity, and how a law designed to erase visibility sparked a generation to come out and organise.

From living rooms stacked with wine racks to a one-night revival of Bent that funded a movement, we trace how Stonewall took shape and why rights remain fragile without relentless solidarity. Michael is clear: equality means the right to opt in or out—and it strengthens everyone’s freedoms. We close with a call to reject complacency, stand with trans people and migrants, and demand politics that allows honesty, course-correction and courage.

If this conversation moved you, follow the show, leave a review, and share it with someone. Your support keeps these stories alive—and keeps the door open for the next person to walk through.

This episode was hosted by Jonathan Chambers and James Alexander

Editing by Hannah Stewart

Music: Mystify created by AlterEgo

Visit our website, https://tvfh.co.uk

Follow us on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/theviewfromherepodcast

The View From Here is a UK-based podcast shining a fresh light on LGBTQ+ history through long-form interviews with some of the UK's leading changemakers. Our aim is to keep these stories alive and inspire the activists of tomorrow.

This trailer introduces the podcast. Season one will begin on 26 November 2025 with weekly episodes.

This episode was hosted by Jonathan Chambers and James Alexander

Editing by Hannah Stewart

Music: Mystify created by AlterEgo

Visit our website

Follow us on Instagram