

Bad Gays
Huw Lemmey & Ben Miller
A podcast about evil and complicated queers in history. Why do we remember our heroes better than our villains? Hosted by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller. Learn more: www.badgayspod.com
Episodes
Mentioned books

Dec 19, 2024 • 15min
Extra Bad Gays December 2024: Luigi Mangione, Folk Hero? (Trailer)
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On this month's episode of Extra Bad Gays, we discuss Luigi Mangione, who has now been charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City earlier this month. How do some assassins become folk heroes? Why is there such a groundswell of support for Mangione? Is it just because he's really hot? (He's really hot.) For the full story, and the charming Gaggony Guncles segment that concludes the show, subscribe on Apple or Patreon.

Nov 30, 2024 • 14min
Extra Bad Gays November 2024: The Transatlantic Anti-Trans Post-Election Backlash (Trailer)
Our new merch–evil twink energy socks, camo hats, and more–is now available with easy shipping to both sides of the Atlantic.
In the wake of Donald Trump's dismaying reelection to the Presidency, the most cynical consultants and commenters on both sides of the Atlantic have decided it's trans people who are to blame. We break down how ascending through the media breaks your brain––and the differences between US and UK center-left transphobia. For the full story, and the charming Gaggony Guncles segment that concludes the show, subscribe on Apple or Patreon.

Oct 30, 2024 • 1h 7min
Marianne Woods and Jane Pirie (with Indigo Dunphy-Smith)
Today's special guest is the researcher and museum worker Indigo Dunphy-Smith, who is bringing her expertise to the case of Marianne Woods and Jane Pirie, two Edinburghian school teachers who found themselves embroiled in a sex scandal and court case in the early years of the 19th century. Their legal woes followed accusations by a pupil about sapphic goings-on at their small private school, and raised issues regarding attitudes to sex, race and colonialism in late Georgian era Scotland.
Subscribe to Extra Bad Gays, our monthly subscriber-only show for conversations about contemporary queer culture and advice segments from your favorite Gagony Guncles.
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SOURCES:
Clerk, John, The notorious Drumsheugh Case of 1810: Miss Marianne Woods and Miss Jane Pirie v. Lady Cumming Gordon of Altyre, The Signet Library, Roughead Collection R343.1 H865
Singh, Frances B, Scandal and Survival in Nineteenth-Century Scotland: The Life of Jane Cumming, NED-New edition, Boydell & Brewer, 2020
Rupp, Leila J, Sapphistries: A Global History of Love Between Women, Beacon Press, 2009
Donoghue, Emma, Passions Between Women: British Lesbian Culture 1668–1801, HarperCollins, 1993
Faderman, Lillian, Scotch Verdict: The Real-Life Story That Inspired “The Children’s Hour”, Columbia University Press, 1983
Faderman, Lillian, Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present, William Morrow & Co, 1981
National Records of Scotland, Burgh Register of Sasines for Edinburgh B22/4/31
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrienn, distributed under a Creative Commons license. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner.

Oct 28, 2024 • 10min
Extra Bad Gays October 2024: Meet Your New Gaggony Guncles
Say hello to your new agony uncles: or is that Gaggony Guncles? A gay guy wonders if he's having enough sex! People ask about moving to Berlin. A freshly out transmasc wonders: am I becoming an evil twink? For the full story, subscribe to EXTRA BAD GAYS directly in Apple Podcasts or on Patreon.

Aug 25, 2024 • 1h 5min
Jerome Robbins (with Liz Rosenfeld)
Today, special guest Liz Rosenfeld discusses the choreographer Jerome Robbins. Born in New York to Jewish immigrants, Robbins pursued dance and radical politics––until, under the threat of being blacklisted and exposed for his sexuality, reporting on his former comrades to the House Committee on Unamerican Activities. As one of Broadway's star choreographers, he helped define Broadway's Golden Age with striking dance theatre that integrated ballet technique into storytelling. His charisma, abuses of power, and boundary-obliterating working methods helped define an idea of choreographer-as-genius that still disfigures dance today.
Support our show by subscribing to our monthly podcast EXTRA BAD GAYS by clicking this link and visiting our Patreon or directly through Apple Podcasts.
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SOURCES:
https://www.npr.org/2011/02/24/97274711/the-real-life-drama-behind-west-side-story
https://www.dummies.com/article/academics-the-arts/performing-arts/what-was-the-golden-age-of-broadway-297863/
https://www.commentary.org/articles/terry-teachout/what-jerome-robbins-knew-that-leonard-bernstein-didnt/
https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news-jerome-robbins-west-side-story-un-american-activities-committee-32460/
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/19/happy-hundredth-jerome-robbins
Jerome Robbins: By Himself: Selections from his letters, journals, drawings, photographs, and an Unfinished Memoir (ed. Amanda Vaill)
Wendy Lesser: Jerome Robbins: A Life in Dance
Jerome Robbins - Something to Dance About, dir. Judy Kinberg
Our intro is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner.

Jul 3, 2024 • 20min
Extra Bad Gays June 2024: Pride From Stonewall to Subaru (Trailer)
Starting with a reading from Martin Duberman's book Stonewall about the riots that kicked off a revolution, we reflect on the history of increasing corporate involvement in Pride, some unreasonably horny Subaru ads, a Raytheon Pride slogan from this year that made both of us momentarily speechless, and the politics and ethics of engaging with corporate pride in a moment of backlash.
Enjoy this sneak preview of EXTRA BAD GAYS, our monthly, subscriber-only show on contemporary queer politics and culture. For the full episode and a new episode every month, click 'subscribe' on Apple Podcasts or join our Patreon by clicking here.

Jun 25, 2024 • 1h 17min
Christopher Marlowe (with Will Tosh)
Will Tosh, Head of Research at Shakespeare's Globe, delves into the life of queer playwright Christopher Marlowe. They explore Marlowe's intriguing works, mysterious death, and representation of queer desire in literature. The podcast challenges traditional views on historical figures and societal perceptions of sexuality in Elizabethan England.

Apr 25, 2024 • 51min
Rotha Lintorn-Orman
We close out our season with the story of a dashing tomboy who was the first woman to found a British political party. The only problem: that party was the British Fascists.
Subscribe to EXTRA BAD GAYS, our monthly conversation about queer life, culture, and politics.
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SOURCES:
Colin Cross, The Fascists in Britain (London: Saint Martin's Press, 1963)
Julie Gottlieb, Feminine Fascism: Women in Britain's Fascist Movement, 1923-1945 (London: Bloomsbury, 2021)
Asa Seresin, "Lesbian Fascism on TERF Island," 2021 https://asaseresin.com/2021/02/11/lesbian-fascism-on-terf-island/
Richard Thurlow, Fascism in Britain: From Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts to the National Front (London: I. Thurbis, 1998)
Edward White, "Conservatism with Knobs On," The Paris Review, December 2, 2016, https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/12/02/conservatism-with-knobs-on/
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner.

Apr 22, 2024 • 17min
TRAILER: Extra Bad Gays April 2024 - Tory Sex Scandals and Capote's Feud
Enjoy a sneak preview of EXTRA BAD GAYS, our monthly, subscriber-only show on contemporary queer politics and culture. For the full episode and a new episode every month, click 'subscribe' on Apple Podcasts or join our Patreon by clicking here.

Apr 18, 2024 • 42min
Baron Franz Nopcsa von Felső-Szilvás
Today’s subject had a multi-hyphenate name and a multi-hyphenate resume––, in his 55 years of life, he was an adventurer, a geologist, a spy, a dinosaur scientist, one of the founders of paleobiology, the world’s first airplane hijacker, a founder of the field of Albanian studies, a cosplay artist, and a murderer. Born in 1877 in Transylvania, the Baron Franz Nopcsa von Felsö-Szilvás may have been, except perhaps as a pub quiz answer, lost to history since his death, but in his lifetime he had an outsized impact on several scientific disciplines, central European politics and nationalisms, and, unfortunately, the man who he lived with until a murder-suicide ended both of their lives.
Subscribe to Extra Bad Gays, our monthly conversation podcast, to support the show!
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SOURCES:
Gëzim Alpion, “Baron Franz Nopcsa and His Ambition for the Albanian Throne,” BESA Journal 6, no. 3 (Summer 2002): 25–32
Gareth Dyke, “The Dinosaur Baron of Transylvania,” Scientific American, October 1, 2011, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-dinosaur-baron-of-transylvania/
Robert Elsie, “1907 | Baron Franz Nopcsa: The Baron Held Hostage in the Mountains of Dibra,” Texts and Documents of Albanian History, accessed April 18, 2024, http://www.albanianhistory.net/1907_Nopcsa2/index.html
Robert Elsie, “The Viennese Scholar Who Almost Became King of Albania: Baron Franz Nopcsa and His Contribution to Albanian Studies,” n.d., http://www.elsie.de/pdf/articles/A1999VienneseNopcsa.pdf
Emily Osterloff, “Franz Nopcsa: The Dashing Baron Who Discovered Dwarf Dinosaurs,” Natural History Museum, accessed April 18, 2024, https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/franz-nopcsa-the-dashing-baron-who-discovered-dwarf-dinosaurs.html
Vanessa Veselka, “History Forgot This Rogue Aristocrat Who Discovered Dinosaurs and Died Penniless,” Smithsonian Magazine, accessed April 18, 2024, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/history-forgot-rogue-aristocrat-discovered-dinosaurs-died-penniless-180959504/
Traveler, Scholar, Political Adventurer: A Transylvanian Baron at the Birth of Albanian Independence: The Memoirs of Franz Nopcsa, NED-New edition, 1 (Central European University Press, 2014), https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7829/j.ctt6wpkrc;
"A Field Guide to the Long History of Skyjackings,” CrimeReads(blog), May 10, 2021, https://crimereads.com/skyjackings/.
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien, our outro music is by Dj Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner.


