From Cape Cod Roots to State Senate: Julian Cyr's Story

From Cape Cod Roots to State Senate: Julian Cyr's Story

Author: Rick Koonce September 5, 2025 Duration: 43:20

In this episode of Profiles in LGBTQ+ Courage, I sit down with Massachusetts State Senator Julian Cyr, who represents Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket. Julian shares his powerful journey of growing up as a young gay man on the Outer Cape, finding his voice through activism, and ultimately stepping into leadership to serve his community.


We talk about how his early experiences shaped his commitment to public service, the lessons he learned from the AIDS epidemic, and why authenticity is a core value in both politics and personal life. Julian also opens up about the pressing issues facing Cape Cod today—including the housing crisis, climate change, and public health—and how his lived experience informs the way he leads.


This conversation is both inspiring and practical, offering wisdom for anyone navigating their own journey of courage, leadership, or advocacy.


Key Takeaways:

  • Growing up LGBTQ+ on Cape Cod shaped Julian's values and resilience.
  • The importance of authenticity in leadership and advocacy.
  • Housing, climate, and public health challenges on Cape Cod today.
  • Why the LGBTQ+ community must stand united—especially for trans rights.


I'd love to hear your thoughts—reach out and share your own story of courage.


Please click the button to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes and leave a review if your favorite podcast app has that ability.


For more information, visit the PFLAG Cape Cod website: https://www.pflagcapecod.org/podcasts.html


© 2020 - 2025 PFLAG Cape Cod


Hosted by Rick Koonce, Profiles in LGBTQ+ Courage: Real Stories of Identity & Acceptance is built around intimate, unscripted conversations that go beyond headlines. This podcast lives in the personal moments-the difficult family dinner, the quiet realization, the supportive friend’s first question. You’ll hear directly from LGBTQ+ individuals, their parents, siblings, and allies, sharing narratives that are less about grand declarations and more about the daily, nuanced journey toward living authentically. The stories encompass coming out, gender transition, and the complex, ongoing search for belonging, offering a raw and moving look at what courage actually sounds like in real time. Produced by Huntington Northstar Productions in partnership with PFLAG Cape Cod, each episode functions as a personal audio journal, focusing on a single portrait where vulnerability and strength are inseparable. Listening feels like being invited into a deeply meaningful, private conversation that highlights our shared humanity. The collective result is a powerful and necessary tapestry of voices that celebrates resilience while honestly examining the challenges within families and communities. Tune in for a series that connects through specificity, where every story adds a vital thread to the broader fabric of human experience.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 56

Profiles in LGBTQ+ Courage: Real Stories of Identity & Acceptance
Podcast Episodes
Interview with Mara Betti | Ep #35 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:52
Mara Betti is a successful, 50-something architect, working for one of the leading architectural firms in Boston. She's also a transwoman and biological father of two sons, ages 18 and 22. In this deeply personal intervi…
Interview with Jake Wanamaker | Ep #34 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:52
Assigned female at birth, Jake Wanamaker is a 2023 graduate of Nauset High School on Cape Cod who today identifies as a Transman. For Jake, the awareness that he was born into a body of the wrong-gender for him came earl…
Interview with Ann Burke | Ep #33 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 37:17
Ann Burke is a registered nurse and long-time advocate for Transgender people who live on Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard. She serves as a board member of the Cape and Islands Transgender Resource Fund, and al…
Interview with Rikki Bates | Ep #32 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:06
Rikki Bates is a rock and roll drummer who has struggled much of her life with gender dysphoria. For years, like many Transgender people, she lived with deep depression, and a lack of adequate employment. Then, she manag…
Interview with Zooey Zephyr | Ep #31 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:52
Transgender activist and first-time state legislator Zooey Zephyr made national headlines in April 2023 when she spoke out in support of Transgender rights in the Montana state legislature and was banished from legislati…
Interview with Felice Cohen | Ep #30 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 30:40
At the age of 23, Felice Cohen was, like many other college graduates, hesitant about entering the real world, and at the same time, uncertain about her sexuality. Focused on landing her first job as a writer, falling in…
Interview with Jere Mahaffey | Ep #29 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:20
Jere Mahaffey is a 35-year-old former Evangelical Christian. He's also an out, married gay/bisexual man who has retained many of the tenets of his early Christian faith, while leaving other elements of evangelical doctri…
Interview with Connor Ryan | Ep #28 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 25:51
Connor Ryan is an 18-year-old transgender male and 2022 graduate of Bourne High School in Bourne, MA. He's also one of three recipients of the 2022 Anne Toran scholarship, an award given annually by PFLAG Cape Cod to hig…
Interview with Lilith Rose | Ep #27 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:55
Lilith Rose is a twenty-something individual who identifies as transgender and non-binary. At the time of this interview, they had also just been named executive director of PFLAG San Francisco. Lilith grew up in what sh…
Interview with Jeff Mack | Ep #26 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:07
In October 1998, Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old student at the University of Wyoming, was brutally attacked and tied to a fence outside of Laramie, Wyoming. Five days later he died of deep wounds inflicted in one of the…