Arts
Well, it's been aaaages (due to LC having to do a hell of a lot of late nights for her day job - don't ask) but we're back with Episode 5 of our series on LGBTQ+ authors, this time on Leslie Feinberg's acclaimed "Stone Butch Blues". In discussing our most affecting examination of the LGBTQ+ experience, the girls get into: Stone Butch Blues being, straight up, a critical novel in our learning about the historical experience of gay women when living a gay lifestyle or presenting as gender nonbinary was straight up illegal Trigger warning: This episode discusses physical abuse and rape – a lot. Because it happened a lot to these characters we loved. That’s why we need to talk about it and show it in the way it’s shown in the book. But if that is a source of trauma for you please be aware before listening, or indeed reading Stone Butch Blues. It’s important to note that this story is restricted to the experience of a white gay woman, presenting as gender non-binary in 1950s America, but this is also something the author is very clear about – with Jess learning from her friends of colour what their struggles at the intersection of racism and homophobia are. And we experience the effects of that on her loved ones along with her This book isn’t for the faint-hearted. Or maybe it is. We need to look the vile things our predecessors did head on. We are the better for reading about people we would have known or been related to or loved, dehumanising these people simply because they did not understand the way they live their lives But I mean, of course there were tangents: Chloe has named her new haircut. She’s that excited about it Chloe and Katie get into a fight over the symbolic nature of the Purple balloon in the Permission to Dance video – Katie's likely more accurate but Chloe’s theory is a LOT more entertaining Interestingly Chloe did also come up with her latest possible t-shirt phrase “Men, lesbians want nothing to do with your gross little willies” Followed closely by Cliodhna’s “Lesbian Minesweeper Wiz” And not so much a tangent but definitely something we want to be aware of – given the anti-capitalist stance of the author we do not have ads for this week’s episode (even if they are made up and not for anything real). Instead LC is sharing information on LGBTQ+ resources It's all here on our latest episode of Chick Lit 4 LIfe! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/lc-lewis/message