The Gondolier

Back in 2017, reporters Kristen Clark and David Conrad came to us with a story that dug into the difficult and often dark places discrimination creates. We start in Venice, Italy, where they meet gondolier Alex Hai. On the winding canals in the hidden parts of Venice, we learn about the nearly 1,000-year old tradition of the Venetian Gondolier, and how the global media created a 20-year battle between that tradition and a supposed feminist icon. 

We circled back to Alex in 2026, to find out where the canal of life ended up leading after our initial reporting, and we’ve included some heartbreaking and heartwarming updates on Alex’s life at the end of this episode. 

Special thanks to Alexis Ungerer, Summer, Alex Hai, Kevin Gotkin, Silvia Del Fabbro, Sandro Mariot, Aldo Rosso and Marta Vannucci, The Longest Shortest Time (Hillary Frank, Peter Clowney and Abigail Keel), Tim Howard, Nick Adams/GLAAD, Valentina Powers, Florence Ursino, Ann Marie Somma, Alex Overington, Jeremy Bloom and the people of Little Italy. 

EPISODE CREDITS: 
Reported by David Conrad and Kristen Clark.
Produced by Annie McEwen and Molly Webster.
with help from Anisa Vietze
Fact-checking for the update by Angely Mercado

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