StoryCorps OutLoud sets out across the country to record and preserve the stories of LGBT individuals along with their families and friends. OutLoud is a project undertaken in the memory of Isay's father, psychiatrist Dr. Richard Isay. Professionally credited for helping to persuade the mental-health community that homosexuality is not a mental disorder, Dr. Isay was himself a closeted gay man for many years. He came out to his son at the age of 52, and in 2011 he married his partner of 31 years, Gordon Harrell, before passing away suddenly from cancer on June 28, 2012.

On June 28, 2014, the 45th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, StoryCorps inaugurated OutLoud, a three-year project to capture the experiences of LGBTQ people. In particular the project will seek stories from young people, minorities, and those who lived before the uprising, which was a response by gays to a police raid on the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village and helped precipitate the gay rights movement.