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Weekly news and stories from the American South — and why they matter to you.

Introducing The Broadside: weekly news and stories from the South

Have you missed hearing stories from us about North Carolina and the South? We have too!

A light-skinned Black woman with freckles and curly brown hair holds two white masks up on either side of her face. Both masks have smiles and happy expressions. She is wearing a blue V-neck T-shirt and is looking at the mask on the right with a neutral expression. The background is light purple and the words “Masked” are above her in dark blue capital lettering.

Masked: Coming Out As Autistic In Adulthood

Many autistic people assigned female at birth remain undiagnosed at 18, so what's it like to get an autism diagnosis in your adulthood? Anita meets two women whose paths to a diagnosis started on the internet. Plus a non-binary photographer shares how their late autism diagnosis has informed their marriage and sense of self.

An illustration of a South Asian woman with long brown hair and an off-the-shoulder gray-green top. She is looking off into the distance, and behind her is a mosaic patterned background. The shards of mosaic are colored white, green and red, with a red and white cross hatched background in between the shards. Text in the lower right reads: Complicated.

Complicated: Healing from Complex PTSD

What happens when trauma occurs not as a single isolated event, but millions of smaller, ongoing incidents? Guest host Anisa Khalifa talks with an artist, psychotherapist and racial trauma expert about understanding complex post-traumatic stress disorder and the path to healing.

An illustration of a young boy with short brown hair, a green shirt and gray pants who sits with his arms held around his knees. He’s smiling and looking out of the illustration. Around his head are six symbols - from left to right, the flag of Thailand, an ice cream sundae, the flag of the Philippines, a hamburger, the flag of the U.S., and a passport with plane tickets. The background is made of up rays of yellow, red and purple hues. Text at the top of the illustration reads: Traveled.

Traveled: The Lives Of Third Culture Kids

As a child of two immigrants, Anita has a tumultuous relationship with the question: "Where are you from?" So, too, do many third culture kids — people who spend a significant number of their developmental years living in places that are not their parents' homelands. She talks with two third culture kids — one 35 and one 12 — and their moms about growing up between cultures and how they’ve built identity and relationships along the way.

A person with shoulder length salt-and-pepper hair wearing a purple headset sits at a cluttered desk. Just the back of their head is visible above their desk chair, which has a purple sweatshirt draped over it. On the desk are three monitors, and various purple-hued knick knacks and notebooks. On the wall are a purple poster and purple calendar with the outlines of human characters on them. The desk and wall items are intended to be paraphernalia from the same fandom. Text in the bottom left reads:” Adored.”

Adored: How Fandoms Build Community

Guest host Anisa Khalifa first became a fan in high school. She gets an explanation from a psychologist about how being in fandoms benefits mental health, and a journalist describes what role the internet has played in shaping fan culture. Plus, Anisa invites the co-hosts of her K-drama podcast to reflect on how fandom brought them together — and what it means to be a fan.

Illustration of a femme-presenting person posing in nature seen through a reflection of a camera lens. The person, who has shoulder-length dreads and medium-tone skin, is wearing lipstick, a tie crop top, arm warmers and high-waisted bottoms. Behind the lens is a close-up view of the upper right-hand portion of the photographer's face and their fingers holding the shutter of the camera. In the bottom left corner of the illustration there is the text "Posed."

Posed: Intimate Photography Goes Beyond Nudes (Revisited)

Anita hasn't always loved getting her photo taken, but seeing herself through the artistic eye of a close friend and photographer has changed her perspective. She meets two intimate photographers who take her behind the scenes of their shoots and share their philosophies on capturing the erotic in an image. Plus, she talks with a model about her intimate work that explores disability and sexuality.

An illustration of a cracked mirror. A different version of one person's face is in each section of the cracked mirror. The upper-left face has a beard and eyes with eyeliner on the top lid. The face to the right of that features a handlebar mustache with the ends curled up, a nose stud, multiple earrings and eyes donned with eyeshadow and a cat-eye in eye liner. The face on the righthand side of the mirror features a full beard and no makeup. Only the eyes of the face on the bottom of the mirror are visible, and they are lined with eyeliner and feature eyeshadow. The word "Reconstructed" appears along one of the mirror cracks.

Reconstructed: Building New Definitions Of Masculinity

Fifteen years ago Anita took Women's Studies 101 on a whim … and to this day, she still doesn't have an answer to the question: what is masculinity? In further pursuit of some clarity, she talks with a trans man and a non-binary person about what's possible when we take a more gender-fluid approach to manhood. The two share where their own beliefs about gender come from and how they're building a more expansive definition of masculinity in their own lives.

An illustration featuring a masculine-appearing person with their head in their hands. They're wearing a gray hoodie and have red squiggly lines branching out and up from their upper body. To the left is a thought bubble with a heart with a question mark in it. To the right is a thought bubble with two praying hands in it. In the bottom righthand corner of the illustration is a thought bubble with a bottle of poison tipped over, a match and a house on fire. In the bottom lefthand corner of the illustration is the word "Obsessed."

Obsessed: Breaking The OCD Cycle

Anita is no stranger to anxiety, but her spirals are mostly short lived. In this episode she meets folks who often get caught in loops of extreme worry and compulsions with little relief. A married couple shares how OCD put them in survival mode and a woman whose OCD symptoms began in kindergarten talks about learning how to open up about her experience in friendships and dating.

An illustration of two Black parents of either side if a young kid with cornrows. The father is on the left and the mother is on the right, and both parents are holding one hand of the child and swinging them. The child has their feet off the ground and their knees bent. The three of them are standing on a grassy field and are all wearing coats. The word "Singled" is on the left side of the illustration.

Singled: Inside The Only-Child Family

Anita has many close friends who defy all stereotypes about only children. But when it comes to thinking about having her own kids, she still can't shake some of those ingrained ideas. She hears three perspectives on single-kid families (including that of former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins) and learns why the debunked mythology around only children still lingers today.

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