Love this show - love the humour and the excellent model on how to disagree and stay good friends. As an Australian, love the way, you take the mickey out of things. As a late (very late) lesbian bloomer, I haven’t really found a spiritual home and this podcast provides a sense of belonging. I do resonate with Kathleen’s excitement at discovering her attraction for women. For me falling in love with a woman was exhilarating and I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. I felt that I had found my home. That relationship didn’t last long, but my sexual attraction of women has lasted. But I am surrounded by heterosexual friends and couples. So I love listening to this podcast to have a ‘bit more lesbianism’ in my life.
I genuinely hope Curious of Scotland finds GC lezzers to meet up with. Completely agree that the active GC gay ‘community’ & others (straights) should be welcoming to desist or or detransitioners. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that we should be seeking to do whatever we can to support such as Curious given what they’ve been through, & as Julie pointed out, are still going through. Others might have suggestions but LGB Alliance Scotland may be able to support. https://lgballiance.org.uk/contact/
Am also in Scotland and think there should be a GC lesbian/desistors/detransitioners night once a month in a suitable venue, what are the chances of that happening though!
Not great, I think. Due to the SNP & elements within Scottish Labour, Glasgow & Edinburgh’s institutions (especially academia, health, local government & education) & social networks have been particularly captured. But there is also resistance to this imposition on women (notably lesbians) & gays, it’s just finding it.
I'm lucky enough to own an early '50's Bantam pulp paperback edition of The Price of Salt. I got it on ebay years ago, after reading it for the first time (as 'Carol'); I remember the sheer relief of discovering this story - along with Colette's Claudine novels - was huge, as I'd started to worry I was doomed to miserable re-reads of the dreaded WOL. My paperback's cover illustration is suitably suggestive, along with 'THE NOVEL OF A LOVE SOCIETY FORBIDS' emblazoned along the top. I'm sure Highsmith's subtle and beautifully evoked story was the exception rather than the rule amongst Lesbian pulps, but still, give me pulpy melodrama, wit and playfulness over Radclyffe Hall any day of the week. Hurrah for birds, food talk, and punchy opinions leavened by fun! Thanks for another great episode, both.
Definitely intelligent and intellectual commentators on all topics (including food - though slightly perturbed by Kathleen's laissez-faire approach to grating). About the AfD, I think this is typical of parties with one central issue at the heart of their politics (immigration). People who coalesce around one issue (as opposed to an ideology) are unsurprisingly diverse on other social issues and economic policies. You see this also in the gender critical 'movement'. Germany is very liberal on sexual minorities generally across the spectrum too.
This week's podcast made me laugh so much, it was the funniest in ages, with Julie in full flow! Thanks both for a great start to the weekend.
No no please K, don’t call yourself a man. You’re a gorgeous soft butch.
An ode to the soft butch
“Here she comes. Slouching around the corner like heat softened chocolate. She doesn’t walk. She rolls. She glides. She surveys. Her eyes go shopping around the room.
Her head sits high on a long pale neck caressed by soft tendrils of hair.
Her hands are masterpieces of flesh and tendon. Her wrists, mysterious.
She is magic. The strolling, hip rolling, hot eyed promissory note”
Hello! I can't complain about the subtitles as such as they're obviously good for those who need them, and you also made an effort to make them aesthetic, but I'd really appreciate if they could be turned off. I find them extremely distracting and I'd much rather look at your pretty faces! If that's not doable, could they at least be moved further down, preferably outside (below) the main picture?
Loved this episode. I love you both so much and find your banter hilarious even when you go on about eating animals (I am one of your long suffering vegan fans, please don't hold that against me).
I had a different reaction from Diana King to Kathleen referring to herself as a man (though I prefer Diana's descriptor "lovely soft butch"). I would love to hear Kathleen talk more about this feeling and in a less tongue in cheek way because I am trying to better understand my lovely butch daughter (who has identified as a boy for over two years). When my daughter first shared "I feel like a boy" and asked me to use he/him pronouns, I failed to react with curiosity. Instead, I was reflexively dismissive of this feeling and reminded her of biological realities, that there are many ways to be a girl, there's no need to conform to stereotypes, that there's nothing wrong with being a masculine girl, that until 5 minutes ago she had never expressed any doubts or unhappiness about being a girl, etc. Not long thereafter, "I feel like a boy" turned into "I AM A BOY". And so here we are, less than 2 years away from her potentially getting her breasts chopped off and taking T, with everyone around her except her family referring to her as a boy (even the lesbian parents of her girlfriend!) and going with the pronouns rubbish.
So, if I could make a heartfelt plea to Kathleen, can you help me understand why / how you can say you feel like a man (I first heard you say this on GWL a while back) when at least intellectually I am sure you would acknowledge that you can't possibly know what it's like to be a man? (Not to mention that it's not as if all men look, feel and behave the same way, just as not all women look, feel, and behave the same way.)
Many women think it's misogynistic when a trans-identifying male claims that he “feels like a woman”, and that what he really means is that he "enjoys femininity". Could the reverse claim (misandrist, I suppose?) be said of a woman who claims that she "feels like a man"? Is she just enjoying masculinity rather than truly feeling like a man?
As you can probably tell, I am still working out what I think about this as part of the never ending train of thoughts in my head about how to bring my daughter back to reality. I would very much appreciate both of your thoughts.
Intelligent questions! I would love to hear Kathleen's thoughts. No doubt many lesbians -- including yours truly -- have recognized in themselves traits that conform more to what's considered a masculine trait. But we never for a moment thought that made us male, or meant that we could (or should) become male. The concretization of metaphor and fantasy among young people is disastrous.
I'm a big fan of film noir, and don't see it as a sexed genre. Things just go slowly, relentlessly, insidiously wrong, and at least as often for men as for women.
I do wish writers (and speakers) would banish "queer" as well as "gender." "Queer" (after historical use to mean odd) used to be a clearly understood synonym for "gay." Now it tends to lump gay people in with gender activists ("gender" being another now meaningless word) and God knows who else. Along the same lines, I'm glad to see more American journalists -- as progressives lose their pulpit -- discarding the "LGBTQ+" nonsense and using "transgender" when supposed gender identity, not same-sex attraction, is the subject of their reportage. It's a sign that ideological capture of purportedly unbiased language is receding as clarity and accuracy -- once prime directives of journalism -- again take priority.
The first book i read with lesbian content was La Batarde by Violette Le Duc. I was 20 years old in 1966 and was attracted to it by the cover of a naked woman. My inner, unacknowledged, lesbian took wing. And my life made sense. Followed by Radclyffe Hall’s Well of Loneliness. Both books were full of tragedy, yearning, and grief. It didn’t divert me from the rightness of my instincts. The literary world was nearly empty of lesbianism that went beyond “perversion” and horrible outcomes at the time
Now we are blessed with a tsunami of books, movies, streamers, celebrities “owning up”. I am in a swoon of lesbian recognition and expression. Lesbian warriors and everyday across all genres. I think that’s a collective noun — a swoon of lesbian fiction.
Film noir from the 1940's is great! I watch them all the time. Just watched Too Late for Tears starring Lizbeth Scott. In real life, she may have been a lesbian and had a law suit against a trashy magazine accusing her for paying for sex with women. Her response was that she would never have to pay for sex - she won.
Women were femme fatales and often the star of the movie. Film noir should be required watching. Barbara Stanwyck, Veronica Lake, Bette Davis, Gloria Graham, Ava Gardner, Gene Tierney, Joan Crawford. You can find them on Prime, Max, Tubi, and YouTube. Still my favorite movies. The best.
With Julie completely re ignoring the mandatory 'conservative' ending to many great operas and films and theatre plays. Women cross-dressing as males, having all kinds of adventures and then at the end re-femming and getting married, this is a plot device in a lot of baroque opera (and also present in Shakespeare and Restoration comedy). The mandatory death at the end in a lot of lesbian pulp and in films during The Hays Code and later was similarly read by the fans as something the publishers had to tack on in order for the thing to get funding and distribution. "Look, we are not lesbian propaganda, the order gets restored at the end, remember?" Are these works about women's inevitable road towards wifery and motherhood? Or are they about women getting up to all kinds of shenanigans in the forest of Arden and the island of the sorceress Alcina? #TeamJulie
Loved this episode! especially the discussion about the words we use and how we use them in our personal lives might be very different (playful, subversive, creating bonds) to the way we talk in public settings. If the point of language is to communicate with others then context always matters. Remember those blokes at work, who overheard a discussion about a 'girls' night out' and then tried to justify themselves using the word girl to refer to an adult woman colleague? Grrr
In the article - MTV explained back: "As Lily said boyfriend, we’re respecting her terms."
Really? surely the respect should be to check with 070 Shack what term she'd like to be described by. Although frankly the whole article looks like one of those pieces identifying as journalism, when it's actually a confection of meringue - all sugar and no substance.
I think you hit the nail on the head with your comments about trans activism spoiling fun and humor in lesbian culture. If Kathleen's theory that Lily-Rose's reference to her female partner as her 'boyfriend' was humorous then MTV killed the joke by ponderously announcing they would use her choice of language out of 'respect'. It looks more like virtue signaling than respect to me.
The so called far right are just the new conservatives since the conservatives moved LEFT o join the globalists! I like AFD Christine Anderson is a total hero!
Love this show - love the humour and the excellent model on how to disagree and stay good friends. As an Australian, love the way, you take the mickey out of things. As a late (very late) lesbian bloomer, I haven’t really found a spiritual home and this podcast provides a sense of belonging. I do resonate with Kathleen’s excitement at discovering her attraction for women. For me falling in love with a woman was exhilarating and I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. I felt that I had found my home. That relationship didn’t last long, but my sexual attraction of women has lasted. But I am surrounded by heterosexual friends and couples. So I love listening to this podcast to have a ‘bit more lesbianism’ in my life.
I genuinely hope Curious of Scotland finds GC lezzers to meet up with. Completely agree that the active GC gay ‘community’ & others (straights) should be welcoming to desist or or detransitioners. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that we should be seeking to do whatever we can to support such as Curious given what they’ve been through, & as Julie pointed out, are still going through. Others might have suggestions but LGB Alliance Scotland may be able to support. https://lgballiance.org.uk/contact/
*desistors
Am also in Scotland and think there should be a GC lesbian/desistors/detransitioners night once a month in a suitable venue, what are the chances of that happening though!
FiLia runs a monthly meeting in Glasgow, not lesbian-only but you could probably meet lots of lesbians there!
If you build it they will come! Why not plan a pub visit or a hotel bar takeover and announce it here, you could start something.
Not great, I think. Due to the SNP & elements within Scottish Labour, Glasgow & Edinburgh’s institutions (especially academia, health, local government & education) & social networks have been particularly captured. But there is also resistance to this imposition on women (notably lesbians) & gays, it’s just finding it.
Also pending Supreme Court decision. If Scottish Government wins lesbians will not be able to get together in groups without allowing men access :-(
I'm lucky enough to own an early '50's Bantam pulp paperback edition of The Price of Salt. I got it on ebay years ago, after reading it for the first time (as 'Carol'); I remember the sheer relief of discovering this story - along with Colette's Claudine novels - was huge, as I'd started to worry I was doomed to miserable re-reads of the dreaded WOL. My paperback's cover illustration is suitably suggestive, along with 'THE NOVEL OF A LOVE SOCIETY FORBIDS' emblazoned along the top. I'm sure Highsmith's subtle and beautifully evoked story was the exception rather than the rule amongst Lesbian pulps, but still, give me pulpy melodrama, wit and playfulness over Radclyffe Hall any day of the week. Hurrah for birds, food talk, and punchy opinions leavened by fun! Thanks for another great episode, both.
Definitely intelligent and intellectual commentators on all topics (including food - though slightly perturbed by Kathleen's laissez-faire approach to grating). About the AfD, I think this is typical of parties with one central issue at the heart of their politics (immigration). People who coalesce around one issue (as opposed to an ideology) are unsurprisingly diverse on other social issues and economic policies. You see this also in the gender critical 'movement'. Germany is very liberal on sexual minorities generally across the spectrum too.
This week's podcast made me laugh so much, it was the funniest in ages, with Julie in full flow! Thanks both for a great start to the weekend.
No no please K, don’t call yourself a man. You’re a gorgeous soft butch.
An ode to the soft butch
“Here she comes. Slouching around the corner like heat softened chocolate. She doesn’t walk. She rolls. She glides. She surveys. Her eyes go shopping around the room.
Her head sits high on a long pale neck caressed by soft tendrils of hair.
Her hands are masterpieces of flesh and tendon. Her wrists, mysterious.
She is magic. The strolling, hip rolling, hot eyed promissory note”
Hello! I can't complain about the subtitles as such as they're obviously good for those who need them, and you also made an effort to make them aesthetic, but I'd really appreciate if they could be turned off. I find them extremely distracting and I'd much rather look at your pretty faces! If that's not doable, could they at least be moved further down, preferably outside (below) the main picture?
Someone called "Mark Harris" wrote this NYT piece *chin stroke emoji*
I take it yall watched the documentary on the topic of lezzer pulp fiction made by actual lesbians of the Boomer generation, FORBIDDEN LOVE? It's still one of the most popular among NFB films... and could be watched here, I think it's not geoblocked https://riseupfeministarchive.ca/culture/films/forbidden-love-the-unashamed-stories-of-lesbian-lives/
Fabulous.
Loved this episode. I love you both so much and find your banter hilarious even when you go on about eating animals (I am one of your long suffering vegan fans, please don't hold that against me).
I had a different reaction from Diana King to Kathleen referring to herself as a man (though I prefer Diana's descriptor "lovely soft butch"). I would love to hear Kathleen talk more about this feeling and in a less tongue in cheek way because I am trying to better understand my lovely butch daughter (who has identified as a boy for over two years). When my daughter first shared "I feel like a boy" and asked me to use he/him pronouns, I failed to react with curiosity. Instead, I was reflexively dismissive of this feeling and reminded her of biological realities, that there are many ways to be a girl, there's no need to conform to stereotypes, that there's nothing wrong with being a masculine girl, that until 5 minutes ago she had never expressed any doubts or unhappiness about being a girl, etc. Not long thereafter, "I feel like a boy" turned into "I AM A BOY". And so here we are, less than 2 years away from her potentially getting her breasts chopped off and taking T, with everyone around her except her family referring to her as a boy (even the lesbian parents of her girlfriend!) and going with the pronouns rubbish.
So, if I could make a heartfelt plea to Kathleen, can you help me understand why / how you can say you feel like a man (I first heard you say this on GWL a while back) when at least intellectually I am sure you would acknowledge that you can't possibly know what it's like to be a man? (Not to mention that it's not as if all men look, feel and behave the same way, just as not all women look, feel, and behave the same way.)
Many women think it's misogynistic when a trans-identifying male claims that he “feels like a woman”, and that what he really means is that he "enjoys femininity". Could the reverse claim (misandrist, I suppose?) be said of a woman who claims that she "feels like a man"? Is she just enjoying masculinity rather than truly feeling like a man?
As you can probably tell, I am still working out what I think about this as part of the never ending train of thoughts in my head about how to bring my daughter back to reality. I would very much appreciate both of your thoughts.
Intelligent questions! I would love to hear Kathleen's thoughts. No doubt many lesbians -- including yours truly -- have recognized in themselves traits that conform more to what's considered a masculine trait. But we never for a moment thought that made us male, or meant that we could (or should) become male. The concretization of metaphor and fantasy among young people is disastrous.
The phrase 'the concretization of metaphor and fantasy' really resonates with me - thanks
I'm a big fan of film noir, and don't see it as a sexed genre. Things just go slowly, relentlessly, insidiously wrong, and at least as often for men as for women.
I do wish writers (and speakers) would banish "queer" as well as "gender." "Queer" (after historical use to mean odd) used to be a clearly understood synonym for "gay." Now it tends to lump gay people in with gender activists ("gender" being another now meaningless word) and God knows who else. Along the same lines, I'm glad to see more American journalists -- as progressives lose their pulpit -- discarding the "LGBTQ+" nonsense and using "transgender" when supposed gender identity, not same-sex attraction, is the subject of their reportage. It's a sign that ideological capture of purportedly unbiased language is receding as clarity and accuracy -- once prime directives of journalism -- again take priority.
#not all clownfish
The first book i read with lesbian content was La Batarde by Violette Le Duc. I was 20 years old in 1966 and was attracted to it by the cover of a naked woman. My inner, unacknowledged, lesbian took wing. And my life made sense. Followed by Radclyffe Hall’s Well of Loneliness. Both books were full of tragedy, yearning, and grief. It didn’t divert me from the rightness of my instincts. The literary world was nearly empty of lesbianism that went beyond “perversion” and horrible outcomes at the time
Now we are blessed with a tsunami of books, movies, streamers, celebrities “owning up”. I am in a swoon of lesbian recognition and expression. Lesbian warriors and everyday across all genres. I think that’s a collective noun — a swoon of lesbian fiction.
Film noir from the 1940's is great! I watch them all the time. Just watched Too Late for Tears starring Lizbeth Scott. In real life, she may have been a lesbian and had a law suit against a trashy magazine accusing her for paying for sex with women. Her response was that she would never have to pay for sex - she won.
Women were femme fatales and often the star of the movie. Film noir should be required watching. Barbara Stanwyck, Veronica Lake, Bette Davis, Gloria Graham, Ava Gardner, Gene Tierney, Joan Crawford. You can find them on Prime, Max, Tubi, and YouTube. Still my favorite movies. The best.
Spot on. A great era for the lesbian siren
With Julie completely re ignoring the mandatory 'conservative' ending to many great operas and films and theatre plays. Women cross-dressing as males, having all kinds of adventures and then at the end re-femming and getting married, this is a plot device in a lot of baroque opera (and also present in Shakespeare and Restoration comedy). The mandatory death at the end in a lot of lesbian pulp and in films during The Hays Code and later was similarly read by the fans as something the publishers had to tack on in order for the thing to get funding and distribution. "Look, we are not lesbian propaganda, the order gets restored at the end, remember?" Are these works about women's inevitable road towards wifery and motherhood? Or are they about women getting up to all kinds of shenanigans in the forest of Arden and the island of the sorceress Alcina? #TeamJulie
Loved this episode! especially the discussion about the words we use and how we use them in our personal lives might be very different (playful, subversive, creating bonds) to the way we talk in public settings. If the point of language is to communicate with others then context always matters. Remember those blokes at work, who overheard a discussion about a 'girls' night out' and then tried to justify themselves using the word girl to refer to an adult woman colleague? Grrr
In the article - MTV explained back: "As Lily said boyfriend, we’re respecting her terms."
Really? surely the respect should be to check with 070 Shack what term she'd like to be described by. Although frankly the whole article looks like one of those pieces identifying as journalism, when it's actually a confection of meringue - all sugar and no substance.
I can't believe I'm even writing about it!
I think you hit the nail on the head with your comments about trans activism spoiling fun and humor in lesbian culture. If Kathleen's theory that Lily-Rose's reference to her female partner as her 'boyfriend' was humorous then MTV killed the joke by ponderously announcing they would use her choice of language out of 'respect'. It looks more like virtue signaling than respect to me.
The so called far right are just the new conservatives since the conservatives moved LEFT o join the globalists! I like AFD Christine Anderson is a total hero!