Queer Lit

What does AI have to do with queerness? And how could the use of machine learning affect our lives and our rights as LGBTQIA+ people? Daniella Gáti shares the answers to these questions and more. Daniella is an expert in narrative, creative computing, and brings a unique transdisciplinary perspective to both. We touch on facial recognition, what is happening in Hungary, and speak about common misconceptions about AI.  

References:
Gáti, Daniella. ‘Theorizing Mathematical Narrative through Machine Learning’. Journal of Narrative Theory, vol. 53, no. 1, 2023, pp. 139–65.
Gáti, Daniella . “AI, Queerness, and Humanity: How AI Reshapes the World and What We Can Do about It” (8 February, 2025, TedX Talk)
The Palgrave Handbook of Feminist, Queer and Trans* Narrative Studies (Vera Nuenning and Corinna Assman, eds)
Nicola Dinan’s Disappoint Me
Thon (19th century gender-neutral pronoun)
Dennis Baron’s What’s Your Pronoun: Beyond He and She
Jordy Rosenberg’s Confessions of the Fox
Erzsébet Galgóczi’s A törvényen kívül és belül (Another Love)  

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.      Why might AI not be compatible with queer thought?
2.      How can facial recognition affect rights of LGBTQIA+ people?
3.      What is a common misconception about AI?
4.      What is machine learning?
5.      What role might narrative play in all of this?  

Meet Julie Enszer, editor of Sinister Wisdom, dyke poetry superstar, and protector of the lesbian archives. Julie and I speak about shared queer cultures, lesbian feminist publishing, and all of the amazing queer archiving projects Julie is involved in. We also speak about the importance of sharing knowledge and practices of resistance, especially at a time like the present moment. Since Julie is particularly invested in sharing these practices internationally, she is part of the team that is bringing the Lesbian Lives conference to New York in October 2025… Tune in for the details.  

References:
https://julierenszer.com/
Sinister Wisdom 
https://www.sinisterwisdom.org/
@sinister_wisom (IG)
Julie Enszer’s The Pinko Commie Dyke (Indolent Books, 2024) with illustrations by Isabel Clare Paul
OutWrite: The Speeches that Shaped LGBTQ Literary Culture (ed. Julie Enszer and Elena Gross, Rutgers UP, 2022)
The Complete Works of Pat Parkers (ed. Julie Enszer, Sinister Wisdom/A Midsummer Night’s Press, 2016)
Fire-Rimmed Eden: Selected Poems by Lynn Lonidier (ed. Julie Enszer, Sinister Wisdom, 2023)
Sinister Wisdom 128: Trans/Feminisms
Reveal Digital Archives
https://about.jstor.org/revealdigital/
The Lesbian Poetry Archive 
http://lesbianpoetryarchive.org/
Feminist Bookstore News Archive
https://www.lesbianpoetryarchive.org/fbn
Carol Seajay
Women in Print Movement
Catherine Nicholson
Harriet Desmoines
Hillary Clinton
Lesbian Lives Conference
Ella Ben Hagai
The Journal of Lesbian Studies
Olu Jenzen
CLAGS (The Centre for LGBTQ Studies, CUNY)
https://www.gc.cuny.edu/clags-center-lgbtq-studies
Matt Brim
Grace Nichols’ The Fat Black Woman’s Poems
Heresies
http://heresiesfilmproject.org/archive/
Cheryl Clarke
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/cheryl-clarke
Tim Retzloff
https://michiganlgbtqremember.com/842-2/
Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home
Marilyn Hacker’s Love, Death and the Changing of the Seasons (1986)  

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
1.      How do we build lesbian and feminist communities? Which examples does Julie give?
2.      What are the Reveal Digital Archives?
3.      What types of writing does Sinister Wisdom publish and what would Julie like to see more of? In which year was the journal launched?
4.      How does Julie describe the importance of lesbian archives?
5.      How might archives help us with lesbian, queer and trans oganising?

Whether you share them, prefer them or avoid them – pronouns are everywhere. As Laura Paterson, a linguist who specialises in pronouns, tells us, this is a. because they are an essential part of grammar and b. because they are particularly sexy right now. Laura tells us what exactly a pronoun is and why third-person personal pronouns can cause so much controversy, despite the fact that their main job is just to point to things.  

References: 
Paterson, Laura L. The Routledge Handbook of Pronouns. (Routledge, 2024)
Paterson, Laura L. and Gregory, Ian N. Representations of Poverty and Place: Using Geographical Text Analysis to Understand Discourse. (Palgrave, 2018)
Paterson, Laura L. British Pronoun Use, Prescription, and Processing: Linguistic and Social Influences Affecting 'They' and 'He' (Palgrave, 2014)
Ann Leckie
Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time
Ashley Reilly-Thornton
Susan Stryker
Lal Zimman
Gardelle, Laure. “Pronoun Activism and the Power of Animacy” The Routledge Handbook of Pronouns. (Routledge, 2024)
Journal of Language and Discrimination (https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JLD)
Dennis Baron’s What’s Your Pronoun (Liveright, 2020)
Chloe Benjamin’s The Immortalists (‎G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2018)  

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. What is a pronoun?
2. Why can pronouns ‘humanise’ characters?
3. Which two uses of singular they do we speak about? Can you think of others?
4. When might the pronoun ‘it’ become important in activism?
5. What are combined pronouns and why are they no longer in fashion?
6. What are some considerations around pronoun sharing that Laura touches on? How do you feel about this?

   

Would you like to hear about a 100-year-old public Art nouveau toilet turned queer art gallery? Or about the police station that went from a site of protest and oppression to a place of LGBTQIA+ storytelling? Then this is the episode for you. George Savoulis, director of Qtopia Sydney, is taking us all the way to Australia to tell us all about the magic of queer history, reclaiming of space, and the beauty of queer creativity.  

References:

https://qtopiasydney.com.au/
Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
Darlinghurst Police Station
Troughman
Virginia Woolf’s Orlando  

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.      What is the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras?
2.      Where did the 1978 protests take place and what were they about?
3.      What is the pink triangle?
4.      If you could choose any space to turn into a queer gallery, museum or performance space, which space would that be?  

Join me and Louise Siddons, professor of visual politics par excellence, to learn about Laura Gilpin, the lesbian photographer who spent 30 years creating her book The Enduring Navaho in and with both queer and Navajo community. Louise speaks about the lesbian gaze in Gilpin’s photographs, the lesbian networks of Santa Fe, where Gilpin and her partner lived, and the intersectional methods that Louise brings to writing about these. The thoughtful (and fun) observations Louise shares about Gilpin’s work and voice will stay with you.

Come for the fascinating content, stay for the free writing advice, and get more of both by following @lsiddons.bsky.social and @uni_southampton_wsa (on Instagram). Stay up-to-date about the podcast on Instagram @queerlitpodcast or on Blue Sky (@lenamattheis.bsky.social).  

References:
Louise Siddons’ Good Pictures Are a Strong Weapon: Laura Gilpin, Queerness and Navajo Sovereignty (University of Minnesota Press, 2024)
Louise Siddons’ Centering Modernism: J. Jay McVicker and Postwar American Art (University of Oklahoma Press, 2018)
Laura Gilpin’s The Enduring Navaho (University of Texas Press, 1968)
Wanda Corn, professor emerita, Stanford University Clarence Hudson White, photographer (American, 1871-1925)
Elizabeth Forster (public health nurse and Gilpin’s partner, American, 1886-1972)
Amon Carter Museum of American Art
Helen Langa, emerita, American University
Lesbian gaze
Herbert Blatchford (Diné (Navajo), dates unknown)
Karen-edis Barzman, scholar in residence, Newberry Library
Heather Love, University of Pennsylvania
Mara Gold, University of Oxford
Laura Gilpin, The Summer Shelter of Old Lady Long Salt (published in The Enduring Navaho, gelatin silver print, 1953)
Bean Yazzie (Diné (Navajo), b. 1978)
Refugee Tales
David Herd, University of St. Andrews
Janice Gould’s Doubters and Dreamers (University of Arizona Press, 2011)    

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.      Who is Laura Gilpin?
2.      Why are lesbian networks relevant in Louise’s thinking about Gilpin’s work?
3.      What do you think a lesbian gaze might be?
4.      Why is intersectionality such an important topic in this episode, although we only explicitly speak about it at the end?
5.      Louise shares some writing advice in the episode. What is your favourite bit of writing advice?

Do we perhaps deserve the impossible? This is only one of the many beautiful questions Marquis Bey asks in this poem of an episode. Marquis is an exquisite thinker who joins me to speak about the incredible book Black Trans Feminism and share thoughts about why such a feminism is for everyone. Marquis speaks about how literature allows us to imagine new possibilities to exist in the world and see how everything is entangled with everything else. Join me to learn from Marquis, to think about abolition, coalition, fugitivity and traniflesh, and to imagine what the world could be beyond the realistic and the possible.  

References:
https://www.marquisbey.com/
Marquis Bey’s Black Trans Feminism (Duke UP, 2022)
Marquis Bey’s Cistem Failure (Duke UP, 2022)
Marquis Bey’s The Problem of the Negro as a Problem for Gender (University of Minnesota Press, 2020)
Marquis Bey’s “RE: [No Subject]—On Nonbinary Gender.” Qui Parle: Critical Humanities and Social Sciences (2022)
Saidiya Hartman
Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ M Archive and Undrowned
Lauryn Hill
Denise Ferreira da Silva
Toni Morrison
N.K. Jemisin
Octavia Butler
Rivers Solomon
Andrew Cutrone
Sarah Jane Cervenak
Fred Moten
Roxane Gay
Stefano Harney
Jack Halberstam
Tina Campt
Ralph Ellison
Traniflesh
Emma Heaney
Hortense Spillers’ “Mama’s baby, papa’s maybe”
K. Marshall Green
Treva Ellison
Tranifest Spillers, Hortense, et al. "" Whatcha gonna do?": Revisiting ‘Mama's baby, papa's maybe:’ An American grammar book": A conversation with Hortense Spillers, Saidiya Hartman, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Shelly Eversley, & Jennifer L. Morgan." Women's Studies Quarterly 35.1/2 (2007): 299-309.
Abraham Weil 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua_Hm6wePro
Ciara Cremin
Transgender Theory (Bloomsbury)
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/series/transgender-theory/
A Nonbinary Life (forthcoming) Asterisk (Duke UP) 
https://www.dukeupress.edu/series/asterisk-gender-trans-and-all-that-comes-after
Jian Neo Chen
Susan Stryker
Eliza Steinbock
C. Riley Snorton’s Black On Both Sides
Jess Goldberg’s Abolition Time
Frieren  

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.      What is Black Trans Feminism? Why is it for everyone?
2.      How can identities provide comfort and safety and why is that not always useful?
3.      What are the terms Marquis thinks about in relation to allyship?
4.      How does Marquis define traniflesh?
5.      Which thinkers inform Marquis’ thinking about fugitivity and what is the central metaphor Marquis introduces here?
6.      What might be challenging about thinking Black Trans Feminism in the way Marquis proposes it?
7.      How do you feel about the impossible and the unrealistic?

You’ve read Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts but have you heard of the scholar who puts the auto in theories? Meet Alex Brostoff, my new favourite autotheorist. Alex is here to clear up common misconceptions about autotheories and tell us more about biomythography, teoría de la noche, and reading beside. I was also intrigued to learn about intertextual kinship and hear Alex’s (beautifully phrased) thoughts on co-writing and co-translating. 

References:

Alex Brostoff and Lauren Fournier (eds) Autotheory (special issue of ASAP/Journal, 2021)
Alex Brostoff and Vilashini Cooppan (eds) Autotheories (MIT Press, 2025)
Alex Brostoff’s Unruly Relations: A Critical Reframing of Autotheory (Columbia University Press, forthcoming)
Alex Brostoff and rl Goldberg (eds) Trans Literature (special issue of College Literature, 2025)
Alex Brostoff and rl Goldberg (eds) Reassignments: Trans and Sex from the Clinical to the Critical (Fordham University Press, forthcoming)
Stryker, Susan. "Transgender studies: Queer theory's evil twin." GLQ: A journal of lesbian and gay studies 10.2 (2004): 212-215.
Intertextual kinship in Brostoff’s “An Autotheory of Intertextual Kinship: Ambivalent Bodies in the Work of Maggie Nelson and Paul Preciado.” Special issue, “Dissident Self-Narratives: Radical and Queer Life Writing,” ed. Aude Haffen. Synthesis: An Anglophone Journal of Comparative Literary Studies 14 (2021): 91-115.
Kai Minosh Pyle trans*temporal kinship
Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts
Roland Barthes
Paul Preciado’s Testo Junkie
On the Eve of This Death
Freccero, Carla. "The ‘Auto’ of Theory." in Autotheories (MIT Press, 2025) 
Foucault
Derrida
Gloria Anzaldúa
This Bridge Called My Back Borderlands/La Frontera
Theory in the flesh
 Autohistoria-teoría
Audre Lorde’s Zami
Biomythography
María Moreno’s teoría de la noche (theory of the night)
Sedgwick’s reading beside
Lauren Berlant and Kathleen Steward’s The Hundreds
Heather Love
John Money
Richard Green
Judith Butler’s Who’s Afraid of Gender
Cameron Awkward-Rich
Stephanie Burt
Liz Rose
Nat Rivkin
Jordy Rosenberg
Trish Salah
torrin a. greathouse
Cole Rizki
TSQ
@alextakesfotos (on Instagram)
@AlexBrostoff (on X)
@alexbrostoff.bsky.social (on Bluesky)
TravestiAmara Moira, “Loose Tongues,” a selection from Neca (2021), translated by Jesse Rothbard and edited by Cole Rizki, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly (forthcoming, 2025).

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. What is autotheory and why might Alex prefer the plural autotheories?
2. What are some related concepts or theories?
3. Which thinkers do we commonly associate with autotheories?
4. Name at least two texts that Alex posits as central to autotheories.
5. Alex speaks a lot about co-writing. Have you ever experienced “being deep in the trenches of someone else’s sentences”? How do you co-write?

Are you in the mood for queer joy and lots of panache? Come, come, listen to this episode about Virginia Gay’s Cyrano, an excitingly fun, gender-twisting play that you will love to the moon and back. Virginia talks about why this play resonates so much for queer people, how James McAvoy made her want to write it, and why theatre should always be hot, weird, funny and no more than a 90-minute experience.

To keep up-to-date with this beautiful production, follow @cyranolive and @thatsmsgaytoyou on Instagram. @queerlitpodcast is there too.  

References:
Cyrano de Bergerac
Fried Green Tomatoes
Park Theatre London @parktheatrelondon
James McAvoy
Jamie Lloyd
Steve Martin
Roxanne (1987)
Daryl Hannah
L’esprit de l’escalier
Jessica Whitehurst
Joseph Evans
The Handmaiden
Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith
Roxane Gay
Virginia Gay’s Cyrano (Spotify) https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3Uayz56Nzmdekj1rry7rIP  

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.      Virginia’s Cyrano is what one might call a gender-swap moment. Can you think of other plays, rewrites, or adaptions that alter the story by changing the protagonist’s gender?
2.      We use three different pronouns for Cyrano in the episode. Which one is your favourite and why?
3.      Virginia speaks about several moments of metatheatre. Can you look up what metatheatre means and name one example?
4.      What does ‘l’esprit de l’escalier’ mean and how does it relate to writing?
5.      Virginia speaks about the complicity of the audience in problematic stories. Have you ever wanted to apologise to a character?
6.      What playlist (or play) gives you queer joy?

In part two of our festive end-of-year special, you will hear about queer families and mourning, gay novels and book festivals, cargo pants and Vaseline, and lesbians and travel. What’s the queerest thing you did in 2024? And how will you power bottom that in 2025?  

References:
Karen Tongson’s Norm Porn
Amber Jamilla Musser
Feminist Keywords podcast
Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ Survival is a Promise and Undrowned
Mabel Mundy
Kerstin-Anja Muenderlein
Jack Strange’s Look Up, Handsome
Gay on Wye
Out and Wild
Pigeon Books
London LGBTQ Centre
Bluestockings
Liz’s Book Bar
Sweet Pickle Books
The Ripped Bodice
Gay’s The Word
Happiest Season  
Victor Garber

In part one of our festive end-of-year special, you will hear about queer weddings and Madonna, intersex dinosaurs and PhDs, crafting and queer culture, and how all lesbians do kind of know each other. What’s the queerest thing you did in 2024? And how will you top that in 2025?  

References:
Hollis Griffin
Libro.Fm
Ashley Herring Blake’s Make the Season Bright
Bridgerton
Material Girls
Hannah McGregor’s Podcast or Perish and Clever Girl
Jurassic Park
Theoryish
Hannah Ayres
Paola Medina-Gonzalez
Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold
Mo Moulton
So Mayer’s Truth & Dare
listenqueer.co.uk
Blossom LGBTQ
The Female Glaze
Kit Schuster
Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries
Marquis Bey’s Black Trans Feminism