Lesbian Testimony Podcast

overlooked tolerances

"Upper class women could have romantic friendships before the 20th century as a result of their upper class status. They weren't dependent on men because they had their own money. So money and finances is an important part of being able to move outside of the home and outside of the traditional family unit to form relationships that were more congruent with their desires and attractions." - Ashley D. Cole

For episode 16 we talked to Ashley D. Cole about her thesis “I just wanted to be who I was”: Documenting Queer Voices in the South. We talk about the southern toleration of certain queer acts during different eras of time and how they interesected with race and class. We also speak about the different historical antecedents for female queerness, acts and identities, and hidden oral histories.

Look out for our next episode where we talk to Michael Riordon, oral historian and author of Out Our Way: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Country and Eating Fire: Family Life on the Queer Side. We will speak about his interviews conducted with Ann, Beth, and Susan who discuss encountering their queerness from a young age.

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“The idea of the whole project was to catch seniors before they dropped their clogs.” - Greta Hurst

For episode 15 we talked with Greta Hurst about her collecting of queer oral history from older queer folk in Vancouver community through the Generations project. We look at her interview with Libby Davies, activist and former MP, and her own experiences with the queer community through the past decades and being outed in 1956 in Montreal. We also discuss McCarthyism and the politics surrounding that time period.

Look out for our next episode where we talk to Ashley D. Cole, the author of the thesis “I just wanted to be who I was”: Documenting Queer Voices in the South. We discuss the struggles of collecting queer oral testimony in the southern regions of the United States and the particularities of this region of testimony.

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“Women had only been able to buy houses in their own names for less than a handful of years. The fair credit act only really comes in in the early 1970s. The world that they imagined, where lesbians could carve out a life that was meaningful was so much smaller than the world that I live in because of the extreme homophobia that they encountered, because of still so many realities of sexism that legislation and societal change has really affected from 1976 over the past 40 years.” - Julie Enszer

For episode 14 we talked with Julie Enszer about her role as editor of the historic journal Sinister Wisdom and the changing roles of politics throughout the years of its publication.

Look out for our next episode where we talk to Greta Hurst and her lifetime navigating queerness and collecting testimony.

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“I call myself a combination between Barbara Walters and Oprah Winfrey in that I try to understand people’s motivations. I try to understand what brings someone to where they are." - Doug O'Keef

For episode 12 we talked with Doug O’Keef about the Leather Archives Museum and his interview with the venerable Marge Summit who he interviewed about her experiences owning a lesbian bar.

Look out for our next episode where we talk to Julie Enszer the editor of the long running lesbian magazine Sinister Wisdom.

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“The part that makes it really interesting and specific to Toronto is the extra element of immigration and uncomfortable multiculturalism. We like to look back and think about how accepting Toronto is but really although there were certainly a lot of immigrants building our history, there was a lot of discrimination too." - Lauren Hortie

For episode 12 we talked with Lauren Hortie, co-producer of the short film Midnight at the Continental. We addresses gentrification, immigration, movement hijacking, and butch femme politics and bar culture in 1955 Toronto.

Look out for our next episode where we talk to Doug O’Keefe about his interview with the invincible Marge Summit for the Leather Archives Museum Collection.

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“The larger oral history makes clear, and her published writing makes very clear, that Anita thought that she had, over the course of her life, 50s, 60s, 70s, distanced herself from the straight community because she was troubled and disgusted by heterosexual relationships. She separated herself from the black lesbian community because she found it was dominated by butch femme and she didn't like that. And she was also alienated from the black civil rights movement and black politics because she encountered sexism there. And there's one point in the interview when she talks about black male nationalists wanting their women to stop working for white men and work for them. So by the 70's she landed in the women's movement and while she was critical of racism in the women's movement I think ultimately she found a more friendly home in the multiracial women's movement. " - Marc Robert Stein

For episode 11 we spoke to Marc Robert Stein about his interview with Anita Cornwell, author of Black Lesbian in White America in 1983. We discuss race, tensions of what is inherent and what is performed in gender, and the effect of race, class, gender, sexuality and geography on a lived historical experience.

Next week we will speak with Lauren Hortie, co-producer of the short film Midnight at the Continental which addresses queer geography and butch femme politics in a 1955 Toronto.

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“Self Activity of Femmes: I like this clip because it shows femme women as searching out lesbian partners. They’re not passive in finding sexual partners. The actually seek them out and they are very important in the development of lesbian life and lesbian communities." - Elizabeth Kennedy

For episode 10 we spoke to Elizabeth Kennedy about her interview with Ann from her research that went into creating "Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of A Lesbian Community.” We discuss butch/femme politics throughout history and the presence of racism and acceptance within the queer community in Buffalo, New York during the period of these interviews in the 1980’s.

Look for our next episode with Marc Robert Stein, the creator of Philadelphia LGBT History Project. We will be speaking about his interviews with Anita Cornwell, a seminal American lesbian author who wrote the Black Lesbian in White America in 1983, and the intersections of race, class and geography discussed in her interview.

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Here is the transcript of the clip section that was difficult to parse:

Ann: I thought it was terrible that women went together. I talked about her like a dog. Oh hell yeah you couldn’t even convince me that there was anything right about that. I said it was ridiculous, terrible. She used to be my employee and I talked about her something terrible. But that same girl ended up seducing me but she used to get me drunk. Off that good Gordon Gin. Every time I went to her house we would just about kill a whole bottle and you know and they said I know something happened but I never knew what happened. And next time I came to her house she told me “You know I’m getting tired of these drunk actions from you” and I drank some more. Cause I would always get out of my mind I didn’t know what was going on cause I didn’t want… I was curious more than anything else. They always told me “lesbians will kill ya.” They were the wrong people to associate with. So I had a fear of lesbians because the first time I walked into a club in Cleveland, Ohio, this girl approached me in the ladies bathroom and demanded to kiss me and she scared me to death. And I didn’t want to kiss her and she grabbed the whiskey bottle like she was gonna hit me with it and another girl snatched her out of there. And that was my first encounter with a gay lady and that really scared me. I really thought they were crazy, she was drunk out of her mind, you know. And that same woman ended up killing a couple people though, really! She really did. She ended up committing murder. But it wasn’t women it was men she killed it was men. But that was the first gay lady I ever met and she really scared me. She was high in the bathroom, I don’t know what she had but she scared me to death. You know and I said, “Oh my god they’re really like that!”

Elizabeth Kennedy: Just like your mother said!

“Coming from a time when women were still associated with the private sphere, those relationships would be felt as very private, but with the lesbian feminist generation, being very visible and saying this is my identity and creating community around that identity, moving from the private to the public sphere, it really changed how people felt about sexuality." - Nadine Boulay

For episode 9 we spoke to Nadine Boulay about her interview with Christine and Robin, seminal figures in Vancouver queer activism in the 70’s and 80’s, family politics in the queer experience, and how the concept of sexuality has shifted over time.

Look for our next episode with Liz Kennedy most famously known for co-authoring "Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of A Lesbian Community," which required a lot of oral interviewing of the the lesbian community in Buffalo, New York in the decades before Stonewall. We listen to one of her interviews from her research for that book and discuss the changing tides of feminism and queer politics.

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“We didn’t want to go up there to save anybody or tell anybody how they should think about identity of sexuality or family structure. We just wanted to let people speak and ideally what we can provide is to get that story and those voices out there." - Mark Kenneth Woods

For episode 8 we spoke to Mark Kenneth Woods about his documentary "Two Soft Two Hard" about the queer histories and realities of Inuit people in Nunavut. We discuss ethical considerations approaching this kind of oral history work, colonization’s effect on historial identities, and the rising queer youth generation.

Look for our next episode with Nadine Boulay where we listen to and discuss her interview with women who were seminal in Vancouver queer activism in the 70’s and 80’s, and family politics in the queer experience.

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"In archive intervention, artist actually use the archives to create new artwork but it's not just research based it's also a way to expose some of the silences in archives." - Rebecka Sheffield

For episode 7 we spoke to Rebecka Sheffield about her project The Beside Table Archives where she interviewed women about the contents of their bedside tables which sparked nuanced conversations of queer life and the queer experience. We discuss archive intervention, and the methodology of collecting oral history.

Look for our next episode with filmmaker Mark Kenneth Woods when we talk about his documentary "Two Soft Two Hard" about the queer histories and realities of Inuit people in Nunavut.

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