LZ Granderson

speaker

1,280 appearances 4 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2024 last heard 20 Jul

LZ Granderson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 2.

Appearances

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

The Don Lemon Show · LZ Granderson on Madonna, Caitlin Clark, & Fighting the Shame Around HIV · 25 Jun 2024 podcast

I could see it definitely being weird for you.

I've had opportunity to kind of process it for a long time.

So it's a little less weird for me.

So honestly, the simple fact that you're, you want to even engage now is a blessing.

I'm just honored to even, you know, have this conversation, however it unfolds.

Well, it's a piece essentially where I'm revealing that I'm HIV positive for the first time publicly.

But before I actually get to that piece of information, I do a deep dive into the history of the heroism during the HIV AIDS epidemic.

I felt that it was important to do that because so often we think about AIDS, we think about the trauma and we think about the loss.

And because of that, we don't think about the people and we don't want to talk about the people and we don't want to talk about the things that happened because it hurts so much.

But as I was doing my research, I realized there's a lot to be proud of.

Obviously not the hurt and the loss, but how we fought and how we won.

And so I wanted to really kind of reshape that paradigm, reshape the way that we think about this time period in our culture.

Because when you are constantly hurt by a conversation, you avoid that conversation.

And by proxy, you avoid the people that you lost.

And I can't tell you, Don, how many people, particularly people in the sports industry who have reached out to me and have talked about loved ones that died of HIV AIDS, that they just don't talk about it anymore because of how that's all wrapped up in terms of the trauma and the shame and the hurt.

And I decided to reveal my status in this piece because

I thought it was doing a disservice to the women and men who fought, you know, in the 80s and 90s and the 2000s so that we could have the proper medications so that we could go on and live healthy and productive lives.

So I'm a testament to their heroism, and I'm not going to allow the shame to deny them the credit that they deserve.

Is that what...

I'm going to say this and there's a full backstory to it, but I'm going to say this because I know it's going to suck a gay stereotype and I really don't care.

Showing 481–500 of 1,280 · page 25 of 64