Lez Hang Out | Lesbian Life & Queer Culture

There has never been a better time to find your HER-d! This week Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with Jill O’Sullivan, community manager and event host at HER (@hersocialapp), to talk about queer dating, the importance of queer spaces both online and in person, and how HER helps people find their community. HER is a dating and social community app for queer folks that you most likely have downloaded at some point. If you haven’t checked it out in awhile, you may be surprised to find out that it’s actually not just a dating space. It began as a dating space for queer women and has evolved into a much larger social community for everyone under the queer umbrella. Sure you can still swipe to your heart's content, but once you’re done swiping, take some time to check out the social scene. There are social communities for everything your little queer heart could want, including spaces to talk about media like tv shows, movies, and podcasts. Watching a new show and really excited to talk about it? There’s a space for that! Whether you are looking for romance or friendship, you will be able to find it on the HER app. There are even spaces specifically for the asexual community, which can be challenging to find elsewhere. Additionally, HER hosts plenty of events, including many virtual events, like speed dating, queer book clubs, movie nights, and more! With the decline in lesbian bars and the lingering concerns about the pandemic, it can be difficult to find your tribe in person, especially if you do not live in a major metro area. Whether you find local friends on HER or not, you are bound to find people you vibe with and make lasting connections online. Nowadays everyone knows someone who met their partner or bestie online, heck even Jill met her partner online (before it was cool). If you have been struggling to find queer community in your area, definitely give HER a try. 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).

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Every queer person has that one childhood friendship that was just a little too intense to be platonic. This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) talk about the 2021 Netflix superhero comedy Thunder Force. This movie stars Melissa McCarthy as Lydia and Octavia Spencer as Emily being so incredibly gay together that even Emily’s grandmother ships them. Lydia and Emily have the best meet-cute. Little Lydia saves the day by knocking out Emily’s bullies and then they bond on the swings. Later on Emily literally makes them rainbow friendship bracelets. This is the type of romantic soulmate level backstory that we wish actual lesbian films would have. Of course, Emily and Lydia end up having an overly intense friend breakup. Then we jump forward in time. Even after 20 years have passed, Lydia has nothing but love for Emily and has been pining after her all this time. She hasn’t even seen Emily for 2 decades and Lydia is still fully secure in the fact that they are best friends. Thunder Force was massively underappreciated and only got a 21% on Rotten Tomatoes, because whenever there are two female leads in a superhero movie there tends to be a disappointing lack of support. However, this movie is 100% worth the watch for Melissa McCarthy’s humor and the most adorable love story between Emily and Lydia. We’re just going to pretend that they get married with the cake topper Emily’s grandma made and they went on to be a family with Emily’s daughter Tracy. Several of the other characters in this movie were super queer too, like Tracy, the Shane wannabe, Laser, the flamboyant guy who kills all his boyfriends after he gets bored with them, The King, and the obvious lesbian, Allie. Throughout the movie it’s like a running joke that Lydia and Emily are gay together. It’s treated like a joke the entire time by everyone except Lydia’s grandma who knows lesbian soulmates when she sees them and eagerly awaits their wedding. We know one thing for sure, Thunder Force 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).

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Attention FRUITS! Somehow it is 2023, and we still don’t have a renewal announcement for A League of Their Own. We ride at dawn. This week Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with actor Lea Robinson (@le_robinson_) to talk about their role as Uncle Bertie on Amazon Prime’s series A League of Their Own. If you somehow have not yet had a chance to watch ALOTO, do so right now or be prepared to hear some spoilers from Season 1. There are so many wonderful things about this series, but the hands down absolute best is just how incredibly GAY it is. We are so used to being tossed crumbs of queer content or being reduced to side characters (or suffering some horrible tragic ending if we are the main characters), but ALOTO changes the playing field by making nearly every character queer. You’re likely not only to see yourself represented, but also to see your friends and the lives of other people in the community represented who you may not typically see in your daily life. It doesn’t even matter if you like baseball or not, you will feel seen. This inclusive representation is one of the huge draws that has queer people all around the world resonating with the show. ALOTO does a fantastic job of providing representation both on screen and behind the camera and it really feels like it’s by queer people for queer people. We talked to Lea about their role as Bertie, a trans man who is living his best possible life for the time period. Bertie is so incredibly gender-affirming to see on screen. He is always sharply dressed, holds himself very confidently, and lives life largely unmasked being his authentic self. While Uncle Bertie is estranged from much of his family, he is overall happy with his life and himself as a person. His story shows not only Max that life can work out for trans and nonbinary people, but also the audience. To be able to see Bertie strut by in those fabulous suits that he makes himself is life-affirming for an audience of queer, trans, and nonbinary people who truly understand the courage it takes to be authentically yourself in a world where being yourself is demonized (and in those days, criminalized). He lives proudly and is a beacon of hope for everyone struggling with their sexuality and gender identity. 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).

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Happy Holly Gays! As a special gift, we are throwing it back all the way to our very first season! Whether you're a long time listener or new to the show, we hope you will enjoy taking a little trip back through time to the early days of Lez Hang Out. This is the episode that started it all. That's right, this is the episode that features our very first ever original song written by Leigh Holmes Foster! If you've been enjoying all our original songs for our Lez-ssential episodes and our musical The Flame, you will not want to miss the song that started it all, a Carol spoof of My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music. In case it still isn't obvious, this week Leigh and Ellie dive into Carol for this Lez-ssentials episode, a recurring segment on the essential movies and TV shows in the lesbian canon. They're here, they're queer and full of Christmas cheer! They have quite a bit to say about the fate of Carol (Cate Blanchett), Therese (Rooney Mara) and the true star of the movie Abby (Sarah Paulson). Lez-ssentials comes complete with a Carol drinking game because every lesbian movie should be accompanied by heavy drinking. 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 Instagram (@lezhangoutpod).

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“Do, is queer is really queer. Gay, this movie’s really gay. Me, I’m also very gay.” If you sung that to the tune of “Do-Re-Mi”, you’re in the right place. This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with comedian Kristin Key (@thekristinkey) to talk about the 1965 classic, The Sound of Music. If you somehow have not yet seen this movie, we are very sorry about your childhood. On the other hand, if you were obsessed with Maria as a little kid, congratulations! You’re gay now. For every little kid who really liked Maria and watched the movie on a loop (an impressive feat considering it took up 2 whole VHS tapes) or demanded a matching pageboy haircut, we absolutely need to talk about this musical. Aside from Maria’s tomboy appearance, cottagecore tendencies, and desire to bring her acoustic guitar everywhere she goes, perhaps the most stark evidence of her gayness is how much she loves women. Her favorite things include “girls in white dresses” and there’s really no heterosexual explanation for that. She also has not been at the abbey for all that long and somehow she already has all the nuns obsessed with her, which honestly is very valid of them. The Mother Abbess sees Maria getting all her nuns in a tizzy and realizes she needs to send her favorite baby gay “out” into the world. So she sends her to the only other gay she knows, Captain “GAYORG” Von Trapp (sure it’s spelled Georg but come on). The Captain is perhaps the gayest character in the entire movie. He is incredibly sassy, cares way too much about fashion (so much so that he has fabric on standby), and brings home his close personal friend Max to stay with them. Uncle Max? We’re not buying it. That’s a hidden in plain sight secret gay lover. Then we get to the Baroness and even though she should be jealous or wary of Maria, she spends her time flirting with her. Maria seems to enjoy flirting with the Baroness as well, using puppets to delight her. Honestly what is a gayer communication method than using puppets to flirt with your crush? There isn’t one. The Captain and Maria are just never a believable couple. The one time they do kiss they both look incredibly awkward. There is no doubt in our minds that their relationship is just both of them bearding up because it’s the 30’s in Austria and that’s just what gays had to do. We know one thing for sure, The Sound of Music 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).

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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).

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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.

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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).

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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).

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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).

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