BONUS 0.20. Dialing in to Gender: Tracing Trans Internet History with Avery Dame-Griff

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In this interview episode, Leigh sits down with scholar and creator of the Queer Digital History Project Avery Dame-Griff to discuss his book The Two Revolutions: A History of the Transgender Internet and all it contains about the magic of the evolution of trans folks on the internet. From BBSes (bulletin board system) to Twitter, we discuss how trans people have always existed on and created their own unique spaces on the World Wide Web, tapping into Avery’s extensive research, interviews, and media archaeology.

The Two Revolutions explores how the rise of the internet shaped transgender identity and activism from the 1980s to the present. Through extensive archival research and media archeology, Avery Dame-Griff reconstructs the manifold digital networks of transgender activists, cross-dressing computer hobbyists, and others interested in gender nonconformity who incited the second revolution of the title: the ascendance of "transgender" as an umbrella identity in the mid-1990s.

Dame-Griff argues that digital communications sparked significant momentum within what would become the transgender movement, but also further cemented existing power structures. Covering both a historical period that is largely neglected within the history of computing, and the poorly understood role of technology in queer and trans social movements, The Two Revolutions offers a new understanding of both revolutions-the internet's early development and the structures of communication that would take us to today's tipping point of trans visibility politics. Through a history of how trans people online exploited different digital infrastructures in the early days of the internet to build a community, The Two Revolutions tells a crucial part of trans history itself.

 

Dr. Avery Dame-Griff teaches courses on gender, race and sexuality in the US, LGBT studies, gender and technology, digital humanities, and feminist media studies at Gonzaga University. He founded and serves as primary curator of the Queer Digital History Project, an independent community history project cataloging and archiving pre-2010 LGBTQ spaces online. In 2022, he was selected to be a Public Humanities Fellow for Humanities Washington, developing a series of interactive online exhibits, teaching guides, and workshops about the history of LBGTQ+ communities in online spaces.

Where To Find Dr. Avery Dame-Griff Online:

More Exciting News in the World of Early Trans Internet!

As listeners may know, Leigh works at the GLBT Historical Society for their day job. And recently, a volunteer archivist, Cara Esten Hurtle, discovered an amazing CD-ROM containing the entirety of Transgender Forum, (TGForum.com) from 1995 to 1998, one of the largest trans communities online at that time, that Avery Dame-Griff also covers in his book! Hurtle uploaded the CD-rom online for anyone to peruse, and it’s absolutely amazing to see the 90s trans community right there before your very eyes!

The discovery has been covered by them online in a fantastic article which you can read here: This Archive Offers an Incredible Window Into the Early Trans Internet.

And you can peruse the CD-Rom of TGForum.com here, where Cara uploaded the archive! Just click the “START.HTM” file in the tgfcd window, and browse to your heart’s content! Want Leigh to do an interview with Cara about her discovery? Let us know!


Until next time, stay queer and stay curious!

BONUS 0.19. Classical Myths, Monsters, and Ancient Gays: A Conversation with Liz Gloyn

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In this interview episode, Leigh talks with Dr. Elizabeth Gloyn, Reader in Latin Language and Literature at Royal Holloway, the University of London, and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Her research focuses on the intersection between Latin literature, ancient philosophy, and gender studies; as well as topics of classical reception (particularly monsters) and the history of women in Classics. She is also the author of Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture.

Thanks to listener Cheryl Morgan for connecting us for this wonderful conversation on queerness in the ancient world (including adorable poly couples), what Seneca really said about the Amazons, and how fanfiction has created a unique space for queering classical monsters.

What is it about ancient monsters that popular culture still finds so enthralling? Why do the monsters of antiquity continue to stride across the modern world? In this book, the first in-depth study of how post-classical societies use the creatures from ancient myth, Liz Gloyn reveals the trends behind how we have used monsters since the 1950s to the present day, and considers why they have remained such a powerful presence in our shared cultural imagination. She presents a new model for interpreting the extraordinary vitality that classical monsters have shown, and their enormous adaptability in finding places to dwell in popular culture without sacrificing their connection to the ancient world.

Her argument takes her readers through a comprehensive tour of monsters on film and television, from the much-loved creations of Ray Harryhausen in Clash of the Titans to the monster of the week in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, before looking in detail at the afterlives of the Medusa and the Minotaur. She develops a broad theory of the ancient monster and its life after antiquity, investigating its relation to gender, genre and space to offer a bold and novel exploration of what keeps drawing us back to these mythical beasts. From the siren to the centaur, all monster lovers will find something to enjoy in this stimulating and accessible book.

 

Dr. Liz Gloyn is Reader in Classics at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. Her many research interests include the reception of classics in popular culture, with a particular focus on film and children's literature. She has recently published Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture (2019). As well as writing for publications like History Today and Strange Horizons, she tweets about her research at @lizgloyn.

Where To Find Dr. Liz Gloyn Online:

Until next time, stay queer and stay curious!

BONUS 0.18. Take Me Out to the Ball Gayme: Will Graham Talks A League of Their Own

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Have you, like our dear host Leigh, gotten totally sucked into the amazing new Amazon Prime adaptation of A League of Their Own? Do you want to hear all about the show, its meticulous research into queer life of the 1940s and how the writers, producers, and cast opened up the scope of the movie to focus on the lives of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League’s queer players? Well then, hop in to this episode, where I’m joined by co-creator Will Graham to dive deep into A League of Their Own, early queer nightlife, the importance of representation both on and behind the camera, and what it means to be a young, queer kid who just wants to play ball and has finally found their team.

A League of Their Own follows queer women athletes and players during the first season of the All-American Girls’ Professional Baseball League, started in 1943 by chewing gum magnate and owner of the Chicago Cubs, Phillip K. Wrigley, in response to a shortage of male players due to World War II, We’ll be doing a full episode on the queer history of the AAGPBL and queer women in baseball/softball during this era next, so stay tuned!


Will Graham is a writer, director, and showrunner. He directed and executive produced episodes of Amazon’s Emmy and Golden Globe-winning series Mozart in the Jungle. He also wrote multiple episodes of Amazon’s comedy series Alpha House. Graham was one of the original founders of The Onion’s Onion News Network web series and won a Peabody Award for his directing and executive producing work on the show. He subsequently served as showrunner on IFC’s The Onion News Network series.

He founded Field Trip Productions in 2017, along with former UTA agent Hailey Wierengo. The company is currently producing multiple series through their first-look TV deal with Amazon Studios, including A League of Their Own, with Graham serving as co-creator and co-showrunner alongside Abbi Jacobson; Daisy Jones and the Six with Hello Sunshine, as well as many other forthcoming shows.


You can watch the first season of A League of Their Own on Amazon Prime.

To give you a taste, check out the trailer!

Where To Find Will Graham Online:

And for more information on A League of Their Own:

Until next time, stay queer and stay curious!

BONUS 0.17. Dip Me in Honey & Throw Me to the Lesbians: Queer Feminist Restaurant History

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Anyone remember that pin & bumper sticker with the slogan that serves as the title for this episode? Well, I hope you’re hungry, because we’re talking lesbians and food in this interview with Dr. Alex Ketchum, Director of the Just Feminist Tech and Scholarship Lab, lecturer, and author, whose work integrates food, environmental, technological, and gender history.

We talk about her latest book, Ingredients for Revolution: A History of American Feminist Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses, the first history of the more than 230 feminist and lesbian-feminist restaurants, cafes, and coffeehouses that existed in the United States from 1972 to the present. We dive into the ways these institutions provided spaces and community to tackle questions around the intersections between feminism, food justice, queer rights, and other social justice movements while serving as training grounds for women workers and entrepreneurs, as well as what the landscape of queer feminist restaurants looks like today.

Coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the trailblazing restaurant Mother Courage of New York City, Ingredients for Revolution: A History of American Feminist Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses is the first history of the more than 230 feminist and lesbian-feminist restaurants, cafes, and coffeehouses that existed in the United States from 1972 to the present. As key sites of cultural and political significance, this volume shows the essential role these institutions served for multiple social justice movements including women’s liberation, LGBTQ equality, and food justice, as well as for training women workers and entrepreneurs. 

This systematic study outlines the crucial steps it took to establish these businesses during eras when sexism was so institutionalized it was difficult for unmarried women to obtain a bank loan, while also showing the continuities and influences of past businesses on contemporary places. Through an examination of important establishments across America, Alex D. Ketchum first examines the foundational principles behind these businesses, noting key differences between cooperative, for-profit, and non-profit models. She then looks to issues of financing, labour, pay, food sourcing, and cultural programming to understand how these organizations reconciled feminist beliefs with capitalism and how they strove for more equitable and sustainable business practices. 

Brimming with illuminating archival research, interviews with influential restaurateurs, and illustrated with photographs, menus, posters, and calendars, Ingredients for Revolution is a fundamental work of women’s history, food history, and cultural history.  

 

Dr. Alex Ketchum is the Faculty Lecturer of the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies of McGill University in Montreal. She is the Director of the Just Feminist Tech and Scholarship Lab and the author of Engage in Public Scholarship!: A Guidebook on Feminist and Accessible Communication. Her work integrates food, environmental, technological, and gender history.

Alex’s latest book, Ingredients for Revolution: American Feminist Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses, 1972-2022, is the first history of the more than 230 feminist and lesbian-feminist restaurants, cafes, and coffeehouses that existed in the United States from 1972 to the present.

Where can I get the book?

You can order your copy of Ingredients for Revolution for 20% off (for U.S. readers) through University of Chicago Press, or through Concordia University Press for Canadian readers.

The Podcast!

There’s also an accompanying podcast: Feminist Ingredients for Revolution: A Food and Queer History Podcast, full of interviews with others in the food justice and feminism world. Check it out at TheFeministRestaurantProject.com. You can listen to the trailer here!

Where To Find Dr. Alex Ketchum Online:

Until next time, stay queer and stay curious!

BONUS 0.16. Undoing Silence: Hugh Ryan & The Women's House of Detention

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In this interview episode, Leigh sits down for a conversation with historian and writer Hugh Ryan about his landmark book The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison. The Women's House of Detention is the story of one building: the people it caged, the neighborhood it changed, and the resistance it inspired. Listen for an extremely enlightening conversation on the unlikely queer community found in a space of incarceration in the heart of New York's Greenwich Village, the ways in which the carceral state specifically targets queer women and transmasculine people, and the case for abolition as prioritizing of systems of care. 

Historian Hugh Ryan (When Brooklyn Was Queer) delivers an immersive study of a New York City women’s prison that operated between 1929 and 1971. Contending that the House of D, as it was known, “helped make Greenwich Village queer, and the Village, in return, helped define queerness for America,” Ryan recovers the story of Charlotte B. (most last names are withheld), who fell in love with a fellow inmate while awaiting her arraignment for “waywardism” in 1934, and other queer and “transmasculine” prisoners. Though the inmates’ harsh treatment, including “dehumanizing” medical exams, provoked riots beginning in the 1950s, queer women remained segregated and were still required to wear a “D” (for degenerate) on their clothes. Contending that these experiences pushed queer women to resist labels and take pride in their sexuality, Ryan notes that by the 1960s, the House of D was publicly linked to queer behavior in Broadway musical lyrics and magazine articles, and explains how Black Panther member Afeni Shakur, incarcerated in 1969, connected Black Power with gay liberation. Expertly mining prison records and other source materials, Ryan brings these marginalized women to vivid life. This informative, empathetic narrative is a vital contribution to LGBTQ history.”

-Publisher’s Weekly

 

Photo credit: M. Sharkey/Bold Type Books

Hugh Ryan is a writer and curator, and most recently, the author of The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison, which New York Magazine called one of the best books of 2022. His first book, When Brooklyn Was Queer, won a 2020 New York City Book Award, was a New York Times Editors' Choice in 2019, and was a finalist for the Randy Shilts and Lambda Literary Awards. He was honored with the 2020 Allan Berube Prize from the American Historical Association. Since 2019, he has worked with the NYC Dept. of Education to develop LGBTQ+ inclusive educational materials and trainings.

Where To Find Hugh Ryan Online:

Until next time, stay queer and stay curious!

BONUS 0.15. Malinda Lo and Queer YA Historical Fiction

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Another interview episode for you all in the feed today, this time Leigh sat down with author Malinda Lo about her writing, her interest and research into queer history, and the trajectory of queer literature since her first published book in 2009.

Her award-winning novel Last Night at the Telegraph Club is a queer historical fiction coming-of-age story set in 1954 San Francisco, following Chinese-American teenager Lily Hu as she discovers her queer identity, falls in love with classmate Kath Miller, and sneaks out to the Telegraph Club, a lesbian bar humming with life and new experiences.

We dive into the research and real-life queer San Francisco scene Lo explored to create the world of Last Night at the Telegraph Club, as well as her newest book, A Scatter of Light, a companion novel set against backdrop of the first major Supreme Court decisions legalizing gay marriage.

"That book. It was about two women, and they fell in love with each other." And then Lily asked the question that had taken root in her, that was even now unfurling its leaves and demanding to be shown the sun: "Have you ever heard of such a thing?" 

Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can't remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club. 

America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father - despite his hard-won citizenship - Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day. 

Last Night at the Telegraph Club author Malinda Lo returns to the Bay Area with another masterful queer coming-of-age story, this time set against the backdrop of the first major Supreme Court decisions legalizing gay marriage.

Aria Tang West was looking forward to a summer on Martha’s Vineyard with her best friends—one last round of sand and sun before college. But after a graduation party goes wrong, Aria’s parents exile her to California to stay with her grandmother, artist Joan West. Aria expects boredom, but what she finds is Steph Nichols, her grandmother’s gardener. Soon, Aria is second-guessing who she is and what she wants to be, and a summer that once seemed lost becomes unforgettable—for Aria, her family, and the working-class queer community Steph introduces her to. It’s the kind of summer that changes a life forever.

And almost sixty years after the end of Last Night at the Telegraph Club, A Scatter of Light also offers a glimpse into Lily and Kath’s lives since 1955.

 

Photo credit: Sharona Jacobs

Malinda Lo is the New York Times bestselling author of seven novels, including most recently A Scatter of Light. Her novel Last Night at the Telegraph Club won the National Book Award, the Stonewall Book Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, a Michael L. Printz Honor, and was an LA Times Book Prize finalist. Her books have received 15 starred reviews and have been finalists for multiple awards, including the Andre Norton Award and the Lambda Literary Award. She has been honored by the Carnegie Corporation as a Great Immigrant. Malinda’s short fiction and nonfiction has been published by The New York Times, NPR, Autostraddle, The Horn Book, and multiple anthologies. She lives in Massachusetts with her wife and their dog.

Notes from the Telegraph Club

Malinda also has some other queer history and current events articles on her blog, one of which we’ve even used as a source in a previous episode. We recommend you check these out:

Where To Find Malinda Lo Online:

Until next time, stay queer and stay curious!

BONUS 0.14. A Pod Meets BROS Love Story: Making Queer (Romcom) History!

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While Leigh is working on putting together the next regular History is Gay episode for you, we've got a special treat in the form of a minisode, all about the new film BROS, making history as the first romantic comedy from a major film studio about two gay men and featuring an all LGBTQ+ principal cast! It's uproariously funny, filled with queer history tidbits, and we worked on it!

History is Gay did some research consulting for the film back in 2021 as they were building out their set design of The LGBTQIA+ Museum, which serves as backdrop for some of the film, and Leigh got a chance to sit down with three of the cast members who play board members of the museum— Dot-Marie Jones, Academy Award winner Jim Rash, and Eve Lindley— to talk about their roles, their own queer history knowledge, and what it meant to them to be part of this project!

BROS is out in theaters now as of September 30, 2022 -- go support the film, and keep your eyes peeled for a fun History is Gay easter egg in the film! Tweet us your thoughts!




From left: Ts Madison, Billy Eichner, Miss Lawrence, Eve Lindley, Jim Rash and Dot-Marie Jones as board members of the LGBTQIA+ museum in "Bros." Museum scenes were filmed at the Newark Museum of Art. Nicole Rivelli | Universal Pictures

 

Dot-Marie Jones has received three consecutive Emmy® Award nominations (2011, 2012, 2013) for her role as football coach Shannon Beiste on FOX’s megahit television show Glee (Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series, Season 3). With an expansive list of diverse film and television credits, Jones is known for her poignant roles in both drama and comedy. In 2017, Dot performed in her first theatre production of Our Town (Deaf West Company, The Pasadena Playhouse). She portrays LGBTQIA+ Museum board member Cherry in BROS.

Jim Rash is an actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He is widely known for his role as Dean Craig Pelton on the NBC sitcom Community (2009–2015), for which he was nominated for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2012. In that same year, he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and received a Golden Globe nomination as one of the writers of The Descendants. He portrays LGBTQIA+ Museum board member Robert in BROS.

Eve Lindley is an actress and model, best known for her roles in the television series Dispatches from Elsewhere and the film All We Had. In 2016, she was named in Out magazine's OUT100. As a model she has worked with Barneys New York. She portrays LGBTQIA+ Museum board member Tamara in BROS.

 

Learn more about BROS and our guests for this episode:

Until next time, stay queer and stay curious!

BONUS 0.13. Before We Were Trans

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For this bonus episode, Leigh sat down with Dr. Kit Heyam about their new book, Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender. We talked about gender diversity throughout the world, the importance of getting into “messy” or not easily-categorized gender variance in queer history, and more!


”Today’s narratives about trans people tend to feature individuals with stable gender identities that fit neatly into the categories of male or female. Those stories, while important, fail to account for the complex realities of many trans people’s lives.

Before We Were Trans illuminates the stories of people across the globe, from antiquity to the present, whose experiences of gender have defied binary categories. Blending historical analysis with sharp cultural criticism, trans historian and activist Kit Heyam offers a new, radically inclusive trans history, chronicling expressions of trans experience that are often overlooked, like gender-nonconforming fashion and wartime stage performance. Before We Were Trans transports us from Renaissance Venice to seventeenth-century Angola, from Edo Japan to early America, and looks to the past to uncover new horizons for possible trans futures.”


The book is out in North America TODAY, September 13, 2022, so go check it out!


Dr Kit Heyam (they/them or he/him) is a university lecturer, a queer history activist, and a trans awareness trainer who has worked with organizations across the United Kingdom. They have written for academic publications as well as articles for NOTCHES and The Public Medievalist. They live in Leeds, UK, with their partner Alex.

Where To Find Kit Online:

Until next time, stay queer and stay curious!

BONUS 0.12. Florine Stettheimer's Gay Salon (An Interview with Barbara Bloemink)

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For this bonus episode, we're bringing you an interview with esteemed art historian, art director, and curator Barbara Bloemink about her recently published comprehensive biography of turn-of-the-century Modernist painter Florine Stettheimer.


Stettheimer, a cousin of Natalie Clifford Barney's, painted the vibrant world of New York between the two world wars and welcomed gay, lesbian, and bisexual friends and family into her Manhattan salon at a time when it was dangerous and illegal to be out in New York. Listen on to hear Bloemink talk about Stettheimer's painting style, her relationships with the queer art elite of New York, and the ways the contemporary art world has shunned away from diving deeply into subversive and feminist painters.

Alongside her paintings of vibrant, chaotic scenes of New York life and her provocative nude self-portraits, she also painted intimate portraits of her gay and lesbian friends that frequented her salon and were given the space to be open about their sexuality. Here are a few that are featured in the book and that we mention in the conversation:

Carl Van Vechten, 1922 (Oil on Canvas), by Florine Stettheimer. Carl Van Vechten was a gay writer in the Harlem Renaissance— note the purple socks and red tie, as coded notes to queerness.

Portrait of Virgil Thomson, 1930 (Oil, and possibly ink, on canvas), by Florine Stettheimer. Virgil Thomson was an American composer and critic, who composed several ballets, operas, and film scores.

Henry McBride, Art Critic, 1922 (Oil on Canvas), by Florine Stettheimer. Henry McBride (July 25, 1867 – March 31, 1962) was a gay American art critic who wrote for the New York Sun in the 1920s

Barbara Bloemink is an expert on Florine Stettheimer’s work. She has written extensively on Stettheimer and co-curated the artist’s 1995 Whitney Museum Retrospective. Formerly the director and chief curator of five art museums, including the Smithsonian’s National Design Museum and the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, Bloemink has curated over seventy exhibitions, published extensively, and lectured and taught internationally on art and design.



Where To Find Barbara online:

  • Follow her on Facebook, where she posts about her acting and writings about the art world!

Until next time, stay queer and stay curious!

BONUS 0.8. Alternate Channels - Talking Queer TV with Steven Capsuto

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We’re bringing you a bonus episode here on the History is Gay feed today, so get ready for a ride through the history of queers on TV! Leigh got a chance to sit down and talk with Steven Capsuto, author of Alternate Channels: Queer Images on 20th-Century TV, a deep dive into the history of queer representation on radio and the small screen from the 1930s to 2000! We chat about our favorite moments of representation from the era, the impact and role of gay activists in moving the needle forward for narrative depictions of queerness, and more!

This new edition features over 100 photos that weren’t included in the first printing in 2000, and is beautifully reimagined!

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Where To Find Steven online:

Until next time, stay queer and stay curious!

BONUS 0.7. Rainbow Revolutionaries: An(other) Interview with Sarah Prager!

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Welcome to History is Gay's latest minisode! This time, we're interviewing author and queer historian Sarah Prager again, in anticipation of her new book Rainbow Revolutionaries: Fifty LGBTQ+ People Who Made History. We get into the details of who is featured in this new book, what it was like writing for a young audience, and get some sneak peek details about the illustrations for the book and the upcoming release party!

Image courtesy of Sarah Prager’s website

Image courtesy of Sarah Prager’s website


Her newest book, Rainbow Revolutionaries is a gorgeous book aimed at middle-grade readers, with beautiful illustrations and an array of 50 queer heroes!



rainbow revolutionaries.jpg

Check out a preview of the book from Sarah’s instagram:

Rainbow Revolutionaries comes out May 26! Preorder it online from your favorite bookstore, and then join Sarah at 1:00pm EDT for the online launch party!

Details and RSVP here!


Where To Find Sarah Online

Until next time, stay queer and stay curious!