On this show, Out-FM's Bob Lederer and Pauline Park will speak with ​Sarah Schulman about her new book, The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity. In it, the renowned​ novelist, playwright, historian​, and Palestine solidarity activist offers a nuanced and sophisticated analysis of the politics of solidarity and practical advice on how to engage in principled and effective solidarity from HIV/AIDS to Gaza and Palestine to anti-fascist organizing. 

 

The book's publisher writes:

Drawing parallels between queer, Palestinian, feminist, and artistic struggles for justice, Schulman challenges the traditional notion of solidarity as a simple union of equals, arguing that in today’s world of globalized power structures, true solidarity requires the collaboration of bystanders and conflicted perpetrators with the excluded and oppressed. That action comes at a cost, and is not always effective. And yet without it we sentence ourselves to a world without progressive change towards visions of liberation.

 

Sarah Schulman is a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, nonfiction writer, and AIDS historian. Her books include The Gentrification of the Mind, Conflict Is Not Abuse, and Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987–1993, and the novels The Cosmopolitans and Maggie Terry. Schulman’s honors include a Fulbright in Judaic Studies, a Guggenheim in Playwriting, and honors from Lambda Literary, the Publishing Triangle, NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists, the American Library Association, and others. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, New York, Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, The Nation, The New Republic, The New York Times, and The Guardian. Schulman holds an endowed chair in creative writing at Northwestern University and is on the advisory board of Jewish Voice for​ .​​​Peace.

Out-FM aired Tues., October 14, 2025 

LGBTQ people of color & the New York City mayoral election

New Yorkers will go to the polls on Nov. 4 to elect a new mayor​. On ​t​his program, transgender activist Pauline Park spok​e with LGBTQ people of color to get their perspectives on the candidates running for mayor and the most important issues in this mayoral election.

 

They discussed the positions of candidates on AIDS, Housing, Palestine, and attacks from the White House on Trans people and NYC's mayoral candidates' positions on these issues. Tuesday's guests include​d: