Veteran folk-rock musician Danni Hoshino surprised everyone — not least herself — when she came out as a transgender woman in 2022, just weeks before her planned wedding. But her gender identity wasn’t the only thing that changed. She moved from her native Boston to New York, changed her stage name to Light Bird, and began working on a new album of songs that bare her soul with gritty honesty and raw emotion.

In this audio feature, Light Bird shares some of her new songs with journalist David Hunt, including “Alright,” a single released for Transgender Day of Visibility. The full album is due out in a few months, likely in June 2026.

In the interview, Light Bird discusses the intersection of her transgender identity with her life and career as an aspiring singer-songwriter.

Her upcoming album is her first full-length album as Light Bird. It tracks her journey of self-discovery and self-love, with songs written both before and after she realized she was trans. She chose the name Light Bird to signify a fresh start, moving from a "dark bird" that was reserved and hidden to a free spirit "stepping into the light" and celebrating herself in the spotlight.

Light Bird describes her musical style as having an "old soul" feel, heavily influenced by 1970s singer-songwriters and classic rock introduced to her by her parents. She feels her music is now more "honest and raw" because she finally has a real perspective and voice to share.

Despite the challenges of being a small artist in New York, she feels it is vital to keep singing out and making her story visible. She writes to move people and to help both trans and cis audiences find shared humanity in her experiences.

Raised in a suburb of Boston, Light Bird was living a traditional life with a 9-to-5 job and was about to get married when she realized she was trans in her 30s. She describes this realization as a "lightning strike" that upended all her previous plans. The heavily gendered expectations of her upcoming wedding—such as being pressured to wear a suit when she really wanted to wear a dress—acted as a final catalyst for her realization.

While her gender dysphoria was not always acute before her transition, it became an "urgent imperative" once she understood it. She views her transition as a "beautiful gift" but also mourns the younger version of herself who didn't understand why she felt "off" for so many years. Ultimately, she has never felt this good and finally feels a sense of peace.

Light Bird reflects on how a lack of positive trans representation in 1990s/2000s media—where trans people were often the "butt of the joke"—delayed her own realization. She now emphasizes the importance of trans visibility.

Transitioning meant moving from the status of a cis man to a member of a group facing significant oppression. She acknowledges she is still learning about trans history and culture, but asserts that one's queerness is legitimate even without knowing everything.

Find her music at https://www.lightbirdmusic.com/

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David Hunt is an Emmy-winning journalist and documentary producer who has reported on America's culture wars since the 1970s. Explore his blog, Tell Me, David.

Kestral Gaian brings a queer sensibility to their new book, The Boy From Elsewhere, putting a queer spin on that universal trope: the hero’s quest to conquer evil and save the world. It’s a genre-bending story featuring a young-adult cast of characters on a trek through the multiverse. The landscape is familiar at first, but beware. Nothing is quite what it seems.

Gaian’s creative energy is nearly as boundless as their stories. They’re a poet, playwright, essayist, composer and author whose previous books include Tubelines: The Poetry of Motion, Hidden Lives, and Counterweights.

Gaian discusses their new book and the importance of queer visibility in young adult fiction in a conversation with journalist David Hunt.

Learn more about Kestral Gaian at https://kestr.al/

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David Hunt is an Emmy-winning journalist and documentary producer who has reported on America's culture wars since the 1970s. Explore his blog, Tell Me, David.

In the early 1980s, the LGBTQ movement experienced the first tremors of a shockwave that would shake its very foundations. A disease outbreak diagnosed in just five gay men in Los Angeles in 1981 would eventually claim the lives of more than 700,000 Americans. Nearly 60% of the dead would be gay or bisexual men.

It was the beginning of a global pandemic: AIDS — the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

To mark World AIDS Day — December First — journalist David Hunt revisits a story he first covered for Pacifica Radio more than 40 years ago: the early years of the AIDS epidemic. The program includes rare audio recordings of the nation’s first AIDS demonstrations, some of the first media interviews of AIDS patients and AIDS activists, and an inside look at the panic sweeping the gay community as the death toll mounted and the Reagan administration remained silent.

The program documents the greed, bigotry, and misinformation that would give the AIDS virus a deadly head start as it spread among some of society’s most marginalized populations: gay men, Haitian immigrants, and IV drug users.

And it follows the first steps a small number of progressive leaders, journalists, and ordinary people would take to meet the crisis and rouse the nation to action.

Featured voices include AIDS activists Bobbi Campbell, Bob Cecchi, Bill Bader, Matt Redman, Douglas Wright, and Daniel Warner. You’ll hear pioneering gay journalist Randy Shilts and San Francisco Supervisor Harry Britt discuss their efforts to pressure gay bathhouses to protect their patrons. You’ll find out about a meeting with the blood bank industry that had public-health officials pounding the table in frustration. You’ll learn about the health threat sociologist Laud Humphreys said was greater than AIDS. And you’ll meet the self-described “sexual prima donna of New York City.”

Adding context to the archival recordings are recent interviews with retired Rep. Henry Waxman, who helped secure the first federal funding for AIDS research in 1983; Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter B.D. Colen, who covered the epidemic for Newsday; and AIDS activist Colin Clews, a writer and social worker who spearheaded AIDS information and treatment programs in the U.K. and Australia.

Special thanks to the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives at the University of Southern California and the Pacifica Radio Archives. Photo by Daal Praderas.

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David Hunt is an Emmy-winning journalist and documentary producer who has reported on America's culture wars since the 1970s. Explore his blog, Tell Me, David.