Band of Brothers Mental Health Podcast
Band of Brothers Mental Health Podcast
Podcast Description
Improving the mental health and well-being of Black transmasculine folks and Black transmen.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast focuses on mental health, personal experiences, and community support, with episodes exploring themes like emotional boundaries and self-awareness. For example, the episode 'Is Your Cutoff Game Strong?' uses gardening metaphors to discuss eliminating harmful thought patterns that attract toxic relationships, highlighting the unique struggles faced by Black trans men.
Why the podcast exists. According to a survey by the Trevor Project, 60% of young Black transmasculine folks considered suicide; and according to the Williams Institute, 45% of Black transmen also considered suicide.
Podcast is part of Transman In Search of Media. For more info go to,
www.transmaninsearchof.substack.com.
Forgotten history sits just beneath the surface of our community, and today we dig it up with care. We walk through the Tenderloin after the Compton Cafeteria Riot to find trans organizers meeting at Glide Memorial, building Conversion Our Goal (COG) in 1967, and setting a standard for peer-led support that moved beyond survival. From there, we follow the thread to the National Transsexual Counseling Unit (NTCU) in 1968, a first-of-its-kind hub that offered counseling, referrals, job training resources, and legal guidance when official channels refused to see us.
We also spotlight the Labyrinth Foundation Counseling Service, founded in New York by trans man Dr. Angelo Torbene, also known as Mario Martino. Labyrinth shows what full-stack care looked like before the term existed: licensed mental health support tied directly to gender-affirming pathways, discreet coordination with outside institutions, help with name changes and IDs, and even weekend room, board, and transportation for clients traveling from out of town. Each piece speaks to a single goal—protect privacy, reduce harm, and get people to care faster. These organizations didn’t just resist stigma; they engineered solutions that worked on the ground.
By tracing these lineages, we connect the dots between yesterday’s mutual aid and today’s networks of telehealth, legal clinics, and community funds. We honor the Black and Brown trans leadership that set these efforts in motion, and we pull forward the practical lessons: centralize knowledge, build buffers against hostile systems, and keep services integrated so people aren’t left to navigate alone. If this history shifts how, you see our present, share the episode with someone who needs the receipts. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us which piece of this story you want us to explore next.
Further Info:
The Labyrinth Counseling Center, Dr. Angelo Torbene: 7d278t12c
History of Conversion Our Goal: Compton’s Cafeteria, 1966 – Guernica
Subject: National Transsexual Counseling Unit – Digital Transgender Archive Search Results
The Band of Brothers Mental Health Podcast is produced, written, and edited by Transman In Search of Media Atl, GA. Sound design and music production also created by Trans Man In Search of Media.
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