Lez Hang Out | A Lesbian Podcast

Are you a card carrying Daughter of Bilitis? This week Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with writer and English teacher Kirsty Loehr (@KirstyLoehr) to talk about her book, A Short History of Queer Women, which teaches readers about the women throughout history that were very much not “just friends” in a way that is both informative and incredibly funny. Although the historical stories of queer women tend to be depressing, Kirsty imbues her work with humor that really helps to showcase who these women were rather than focusing on the tragedy of their circumstances. If you’ve ever wondered where some of the lesbian stereotypes and jokes we use today originated from, this book is one you need to pick up. Queer women have been around forever. We didn’t just disappear after Sappho and reappear with Ellen, and yet much of our history is ignored or purposefully re-written to be less queer than it was. For example, the Daughters of Bilitis invented the idea of the card-carrying lesbian. Not only did they invent the very first lesbian magazine, but they also had membership cards and a manifesto and everything! They were very dedicated to the cause. Queer people have always been incredibly inventive and creative. Going back all the way to Sappho, she literally invented the guitar pick so that she could cut her nails to pleasure women while maintaining her ability to play the guitar. Ingenious! On behalf of musical queers everywhere, thank you Sappho. If you enjoyed Gentleman Jack, you won’t want to miss us talking to Kirsty about Anne Lister and the way the show captured the experience of being a lesbian in that time period where most people could not even conceive of the idea of two women being anything but friends. We also talk about former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and the incredibly romantic letters she used to exchange with her “friend” Lorena Hickok (whom she nicknamed Hick). They were clearly having a love affair and yet people still deny it to this day. We mourn for the more explicit letters that Hick actually burned rather than choosing to expose Eleanor. Surely if those letters had not been burned, there would be less of a debate around whether they were actually a couple. It is important to look back on the history of queer women and to learn about the sapphics who helped us get to where we are today. They could never have even imagined a world where they could marry and have a family with another woman and to forget their contributions would be a disservice to queer women everywhere. Follow along on Twitter: Lez Hang Out (@lezhangoutpod) and answer our Q & Gay at the end of every episode. Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster) and Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). You can also join us on Facebook.com/lezhangoutpod and follow along on Instagram (@lezhangoutpod).Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lezhangoutpod.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s time to make the yuletide gay! Come for the Christmas cheer and stay for Vanessa Hudgens putting her whole Vanessa Hudgussy into the tango while another Vanessa Hudgens does backflips into a split while slinking sexily around a bunch of lasers while a third Vanessa Hudgens meets with a convent disciplinary board on behalf of the Vanessa Hudgens that previously kidnapped her. This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with writer and comedian Colette McIntyre (@yungbabayaga) to talk about the Netflix Christmas romcom trilogy The Princess Switch, which we will now forever be referring to as P Swi. If you haven’t seen these movies, buckle up because you are in for a holigay treat. The basic premise of the trilogy is that Vanessa Hudgens is actually 3 identical women, all of whom are gay af and who have to continually swap back and forth pretending to be one another for progressively more ludicrous reasons in fantasy European countries that somehow are within like a 2 hour flight of Chicago. The characters are in theory cousins (although in Stacey’s case, extremely distantly), but that can’t stop us from shipping Vanessa Hudgens with Vanessa Hudgens with Vanessa Hudgens (Don’t lie to us, you know you saw it in that tango lesson scene). The films do us a huge disservice by desperately trying to convince us that the Hudges are all straight, even Fiona who is literally the most flamboyant high femme we have ever seen. Stacey and Edward don’t even sleep together anymore by the second movie, Kevin and Margaret are in a lesbian relationship (You cannot convince us that Kevin isn’t a lesbian stand-in, they got married in a freaking airport!), and Fiona is 100% sleeping with everyone she’s ever met while also being in a relationship with her henchwoman Mindy (they didn’t give Mindy that purple hair for us to just sleep on her being queer as hell). Seriously Fiona probably is broke because she spent all her inheritance money spoiling Mindy while on vacation at a White Lotus. The third movie is arguably the gayest, mostly because it is all Fiona all the time. There are literally 3 entire Fionas at one point and every side plot revolves around Fiona. We learn that she has unresolved mommy issues, we’ll take relatable lesbian problems for 100, and we get a really cute and quintessentially queer found family plot. We will eagerly await The Princess Switch 4: Romancing The Strap and will take to the streets if we do not get at least one additional Vanessa Hudgens (although they really owe us 2 since they did not add a new one into P Swi 3). We know one thing for sure, P Swi Should’ve Been Gay. Follow along on Twitter: Lez Hang Out (@lezhangoutpod) and answer our Q & Gay at the end of every episode. Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster) and Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). You can also join us on Facebook.com/lezhangoutpod and follow along on Instagram (@lezhangoutpod). Don’t forget to head over to https://www.magicmind.co/lezhangout and use code LEZHANGOUT20 for 20% off your order (get a subscription within the next 10 days and receive 40% off!). Leigh loves these handy matcha shots for jitterless productivity and we think you will too.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lezhangoutpod.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the honor of Gayskull! Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) talk about Netflix’s She-Ra and the Princesses of Power for this Lez-ssentials episode, a recurring segment on the essential movies and TV shows in the lesbian canon. What could be more of a lesbian essential than the one where the fate of the world depends on the best friends to enemies to lovers finally kissing? Especially when the best friends to enemies to lovers are an 8 foot tall Amazonian warrior and a loveable morally challenged catgirl. Yes, this podcast ships Catradora, but Glimmadora can also have some rights, because something LGBT was definitely happening there. The great thing about She-Ra is there is just so much representation. Name a straight person in She-Ra. You literally can’t. Even the horse is gay. In addition to the romantic ships, we also get nonbinary representation in Double Trouble and neurodivergent representation in Entrapta. She-Ra is such a wonderful show, because even though it is aimed at a younger audience, the messages and representation in the series resonate strongly with adults. Therapy is expensive but hearing Mara tell Adora, “You’re worth more than what you can give other people,” is free. At the end of the episode, stick around to hear our original song based on She-Ra titled “Stay With Me” written by Leigh Holmes Foster, produced by Ellie Brigida, and performed by Ellie Brigida and Leigh Holmes Foster. Join us on Patreon at bit.ly/lezpatreon for mp3 downloads of all our original songs or find us on Bandcamp to purchase songs individually. Follow along on Twitter: Lez Hang Out (@lezhangoutpod) and answer our Q & Gay at the end of every episode. Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster) and Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). You can also join us on Facebook.com/lezhangoutpod and follow along on Instagram (@lezhangoutpod).Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lezhangoutpod.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Let’s go gays, it’s time to kill John Tucker. This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with Rachel Scanlon (@rachelsafety), standup-comedian and co-host of the podcast Two Dykes And A Mic (@twodykesandamic), to talk about the 2006 teen comedy, John Tucker Must Die. If you have not yet seen this teen sleepover movie night classic, the first thing you need to know is that it stars Sophia Bush and Brittany Snow. Not only are they both impossible to read as straight anytime they are on screen, but also their characters Beth and Kate MAKE OUT in a JEEP. The basic plot of this movie is that John Tucker is a serial cheater and his exes decide to team up and mess with him. This would be a satisfying thing to watch play out, if it actually ever paid off. Sadly, John never learns anything and doesn’t make a single improvement as a person. Imagine you’re watching Mean Girls and Regina George never falls from her pedestal and just keeps wrecking her classmates’ lives. That would be deeply unsatisfying, and it does not even come close to the frustration of watching this misogynistic playboy continue to be the reason we are glad we aren’t attracted to men. Ignoring John Tucker himself, the movie is worth watching for the relationship between his exes. It’s impossible not to read these girls as queer. You’ve got the overachiever gay, the ‘But I’m a Cheerleader’ gay, and the vegan gay wearing a literal hemp bra. They’re all closeted except for Beth who we are convinced is openly bisexual. They team up in Do Revenge style and act like they’re all dating, because when you put several ‘straight’ teenage girls together things tend to get homoerotic. Beth and Kate didn’t need to go THAT HARD for the Jeep kiss, but baby gays everywhere are very glad they did. Unfortunately while re-watching this movie in 2022, it is hard to ignore the things that really did not age well. Many of the pranks done to ruin John Tucker are to essentially make him into a girl, including giving him estrogen and making him wear a thong. This is a really interesting choice, but comes off as transphobic by today’s standards. We still love this movie, mainly for the nostalgia of watching it as a closeted baby gay at a sleepover trying to not react when Sophia Bush and Brittany Snow kissed. The ending of the film was actually relatively progressive for it’s time with John ending up in a polyamorous relationship. We are pretty sure this movie resulted in a lot of queer awakenings and if it was your queer awakening, we want to hear all about it! We know one thing for sure, John Tucker Must Die Should’ve Been Gay. Follow along on Twitter: Lez Hang Out (@lezhangoutpod) and answer our Q & Gay at the end of every episode. Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster) and Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). You can also join us on Facebook.com/lezhangoutpod and follow along on Instagram (@lezhangoutpod).Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lezhangoutpod.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Picture it. The year is 2004. You’ve finished your homework and you’re ready to see your best friend in the whole world appear on your tv screen. You bite into a pizza roll and somehow the filling does not burn your tongue. Raven-Symoné comes on the screen and you smile. You are at peace. This week Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with trans Puerto Rican actress Juliana Joel (@thejulianajoel) to talk about her experiences as the first out trans actor on Disney Channel. Disney may have a bit of a contentious relationship with the gays, but when they get it right, they really get it right. Juliana grew up watching That’s So Raven and dreaming of the day she could be an actor on Disney too, but believing it was out of reach because in those days it was impossible to imagine Disney hiring a trans actor. While we all wish it had not taken until 2022 for Disney to finally get some live action trans representation, they really got something right in hiring Juliana Joel to play Nikki on Raven’s Home. Nikki is the first live action trans character on Disney and the great thing about her character is that being trans is not treated like a big deal. Nikki is an airheaded heiress and jokes center around her being truly terrible at her job as Raven’s assistant rather than having anything to do with her gender. We chat with Juliana about the audition process, how she ended up getting the role as Nikki, and her experience on set getting to work side by side with her childhood hero (and bestie), Raven. We also talk about how Nikki being trans is handled in the show. In a recent episode of Raven’s Home, Nikki and Raven talk about Nikki being transgender out loud on the Disney Channel and the way the scene is handled is perfect and casual, showing viewers that Nikki’s gender is simply not a big deal and that it does not have to be a whole big thing. While Juliana has received backlash from angry conservative parents who want to boycott Disney over her mere existence on the show, she does not let that hate get to her and instead focuses on being who she wishes she could have seen on tv when she was growing up. Positive trans representation in media is few and far between, and it is pivotal to changing how everyday people interact with and view trans people in real life. Media does not exist in a vacuum and in today’s tumultuous political landscape, positive LGBTQ+ representation is more important than ever. Follow along on Twitter: Lez Hang Out (@lezhangoutpod) and answer our Q & Gay at the end of every episode. Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster) and Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). You can also join us on Facebook.com/lezhangoutpod and follow along on Instagram (@lezhangoutpod).Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lezhangoutpod.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SISTAAAAAS! Grab your Roombas, we fly! This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with one of the stars of HBO Max’s FBOY Island Season 2, Mia Emani Jones (@_miaemani), to talk about Hocus Pocus 2 for a very special Halloween episode. We were lucky to be Mia’s first interview post coming out, so we spent some time talking about her journey. FBOY Island is a wild place to be while experiencing that ‘I really don’t like men’ revelation and yet, it is somewhat shocking that more contestants haven’t come out as gay. If anything was going to put someone off men, it would be FBOY Island. We could spend hours talking to Mia about her journey, but we are here to talk about Hocus Pocus 2! It has been 29 years since the Sanderson Sisters blessed our screens and yet there still aren’t any canonically gay main characters! This feels like a huge missed opportunity, considering there already is a sequel to Hocus Pocus in book form that is 100% gay. Instead of giving us a story about Max and Allison’s gay daughter like the book did, Hocus Pocus 2 goes in a different direction and brings in brand new characters not related to the original movie. From the second we meet Becca, Izzy, and Cassie it is extremely obvious that they are all baby gays. Plus, as we’ve said countless times before, witches are inherently gay. It should be impossible for a movie like Hocus Pocus 2 to not be gay, because witchcraft is gay; and yet, Disney is determined to keep its witches in the broomcloset. We know one thing for sure, Hocus Pocus 2 Should’ve Been Gay. Follow along on Twitter: Lez Hang Out (@lezhangoutpod) and answer our Q & Gay at the end of every episode. Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster) and Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). You can also join us on Facebook.com/lezhangoutpod and follow along on Instagram (@lezhangoutpod).Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lezhangoutpod.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our world is full of unknowable horrors; but that’s okay, because horror is for the gays! This week Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with writer, illustrator, and voice actor Cat Blackard (@catblackard), who is best known as the showrunner of the horror-comedy audio drama, The Call of Cthulhu Mystery Program. The TTRPG style audio drama is currently in its fourth season of stories that build on Lovecraft’s work from a queer lens. We talk about the inherent queerness of horror as a genre as Cat and Leigh introduce Ellie to the world of cosmic horror. If you’ve ever thought Cthulhu would be a great buddy to get an iced coffee with, you’re in the right place (Obviously he has all those tentacles so that he can hold all of his friends’ iced coffees!). The reason cosmic horror can be so appealing to the queer community is that we tend to be more open to acknowledging the discrepancies between the reality of the world around us and our own personal realities. For centuries queer people have challenged the concepts and rules that society continually tries to force onto us. Historically in the horror realm that has led to monsters and villains being queer-coded, and to queer people recognizing ourselves in that “otherness”. We frequently say witches are for the gays, vampires are for the gays, etc., and this is because it’s true. These creatures who live on the fringe of society, often at odds with society, and who are demonized for being different feel very relatable. When we get into body horror with werewolves and body transformations, the comparisons become even more obvious, looping in an inherent relation to the trans experience. Ultimately, horror is an attractive lens for queer creatives to showcase the power of being different and can provide a space for queer people to explore our identities and regain agency over our stories after centuries of being portrayed as the villains. In addition to talking about horror, we also talk about how table top role playing games are an attractive outlet for queer people to try out new facets of our identities and to learn more about ourselves through our characters. There is a good reason why so much of the LGBTQ+ community loves engaging in TTRPGs. These games provide a safe space for exploration and a way for our subconscious minds to make breakthroughs on our sexualities and gender identities through play. Giving our imaginations and subconscious minds the freedom to reveal hidden truths that help us better understand ourselves can be extremely powerful and transformative. Follow along on Twitter: Lez Hang Out (@lezhangoutpod) and answer our Q & Gay at the end of every episode. Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster) and Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). You can also join us on Facebook.com/lezhangoutpod and follow along on Instagram (@lezhangoutpod).Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lezhangoutpod.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Revenge Mommy? Sorry. Revenge Mommy? Sorry. This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with Lez Hang Out’s production assistant and actual mermaid, Kristin Murison (@therealksparkle), to talk about Netflix’s Do Revenge. This movie is honestly incredibly queer the entire time. It opens to Hayley Kiyoko’s “For The Girls” at the most EXTRA High School party we’ve ever seen and the rest of the soundtrack is filled with nonstop bops from sapphic favorites like Phoebe Bridgers, Olivia Rodrigo, and MUNA. So, you might be wondering why we are doing a Should’ve Been Gay on a movie that clearly is gay, but if you watch Eleanor and Drea interact for all of two minutes you will understand. Do Revenge stars Maya Hawke as Eleanor and Camila Mendes as Drea in a 2022 Gen Z version of Mean Girls that has all the makings of a cult classic movie. The entire premise of this film is that both Eleanor and Drea want revenge on the people who wronged them. Eleanor wants long-game revenge on the girl who ruined her life 5 years ago by spreading a harmful rumor about her that twisted things to make her look like a ‘predatory lesbian’. Drea’s whole premise for revenge is going after her ex-boyfriend, Max, and her old clique members, essentially the modern version of The Plastics, for destroying her social standing at school and ultimately causing her to lose her spot at Yale. We love that Eleanor is unapologetically openly gay, and we love her girlfriend Gabbi’s immaculate ‘boyfriend’ vibes, but there is a stark difference between Eleanor interacting with Gabbi and Eleanor interacting with Drea. Sure, she likes Gabbi, but if Drea made a move, Eleanor would dump Gabbi in a heartbeat. These two have a wild amount of chemistry- their sexual tension is off the charts, and the dom/sub energy is on point. We know most viewers agree, because if you look up Do Revenge on Archive of Our Own, 99% of the fanfics are about Eleanor and Drea being together. From the moment we meet Drea at the lavish party thrown by her best friend Tara (who is clearly in love with her), it is obvious that she is in the closet. She has zero interest in kissing Max, later on has zero interest in having sex with Russ (literally she is scrolling Instagram while he is going down on her- need we say more?), and is fully obsessed with Headmaster Sarah Michelle Gellar (for obvious reasons). From knowing terms like ‘crunchy granola lesbian’, wanting the hot milf Headmaster to back her over with her Tesla, and making little outfits for the greatest lizard of all time, Oscar Winner Olivia Coleman, Drea is constantly telling on herself. When making Eleanor over into ‘Frankenstein’s Bad Bitch’, Drea even says that all Eleanor needs to do to fit in with Max and her old friends is to disassociate from her body and not be herself. That sounds an awful lot like something a closeted person would do to survive in High School. When the tables turn and Eleanor takes over the title of Ultimate Revenge Mommy, her relationship with Drea somehow gets even more sexually charged than before, even though you would think hitting someone with your car would be a dealbreaker. We still do not understand how Drea and Eleanor did not kiss even once the whole movie and we feel robbed. Drea refers to Eleanor as her ‘fucked up soulmate’ and yet it still somehow doesn’t click for them that they are in love. We know one thing for sure, Do Revenge Should’ve Been Gayer. Follow along on Twitter: Lez Hang Out (@lezhangoutpod) and answer our Q & Gay at the end of every episode. Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster) and Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). You can also join us on Facebook.com/lezhangoutpod and follow along on Instagram (@lezhangoutpod).Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lezhangoutpod.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You know what’s better than chocolate? — being unapologetically gay! This week Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out to discuss Better Than Chocolate, a 1999 Canadian romcom, for this Lez-ssentials episode, a recurring segment on the essential movies and TV shows in the lesbian canon. Being in the closet is hard, but being in the closet while trying to cohabitate with your mother, younger brother, and secret girlfriend really takes the chaos to another level. Maggie juggles hiding her sexuality from her mom, Lila, working at a queer bookstore that is constantly under threat by the censors, and falling in love with Kim, a bohemian artist whose hippie van gets towed while they are hooking up; and she juggles it all about as well as can be expected for a 19 year old. As Lila gets further entangled in her daughter’s life, she meets Judy, a trans woman who becomes her closest friend and confidante, and ultimately helps her learn to accept Maggie’s sexuality. In return, Lila helps Judy conquer her fears of rejection and confront her feelings for the love of her life, Frances, the owner of the queer bookstore. In true late 90’s fashion, there is a bit of period typical homophobia to contend with, including a full on hate crime scene that we honestly could have done without. Ultimately this movie ends on a happy and hopeful note, a rarity for lesbian movies, even moreso for older ones. Better Than Chocolate contains everything we want in a great lesbian movie- a dramatic love story, hilarious jokes, incredible chemistry between the main couples, a moving storyline, a happy ending for our leads, and more dildos than even the most well stocked sex shop could ever have on display. At the end of the episode, stick around to hear our original song based on Better Than Chocolate titled “A Little Bit Better” written by Leigh Holmes Foster, produced by Ellie Brigida, and performed by Ellie Brigida and Leigh Holmes Foster. Join us on Patreon at bit.ly/lezpatreon for mp3 downloads of all our original songs or find us on Bandcamp to purchase songs individually. Follow along on Twitter: Lez Hang Out (@lezhangoutpod) and answer our Q & Gay at the end of every episode. Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster) and Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). You can also join us on Facebook.com/lezhangoutpod and follow along on Instagram (@lezhangoutpod).Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lezhangoutpod.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We want more fortune cookies, we want more earthquakes!!! Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with Meghan Gunther (@meggunth), Broadway administrator, director, and producer to talk about the beloved 2003 body swap comedy, Freaky Friday. For those who don’t know, Meghan is the one who helped us bring The Flame live to New York City! Freaky Friday is the early 2000s comedy where a mother and daughter wake up to find their bodies interchanged, and proceed to out-gay each other, because what else would you do! Obvi we get strong gay vibes from Anna, played by Lindsey Lohan, who falls for lesbian stand-in Chad Michael Murray and immediately gets her mom a shorter haircut and cartilage piercing. And honestly, has Lindsey Lohan ever played a straight character in her life? We’d argue, no, she hasn’t. But let’s talk about Dr. Tess Coleman, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, and the gay awakening we all had to that sick guitar solo! Tess telling Anna’s friends, “I don't believe in physical contact with the opposite sex at all ever,” is a forever mood. This yoga loving, opposite-sex averse, breadwinner could have and should have been the crunchy granola lesbian milf of our dreams and yet it was a 2003 Disney movie, so really we couldn’t have asked for more at the time. We know one thing for sure, Freaky Friday Should’ve Been Gay. Follow along on Twitter: Lez Hang Out (@lezhangoutpod) and answer our Q & Gay at the end of every episode. Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster) and Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). You can also join us on Facebook.com/lezhangoutpod and follow along on Instagram (@lezhangoutpod).Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lezhangoutpod.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices