Lez Hang Out | A Lesbian Podcast

921: Friend Zone with Daniel Lavery

Happy Pride month!  Running this show is unfortunately not cheap, and we need all the community support we can get during Pride and beyond to keep the pod going. Now is a perfect time to join our Patreon [http://bit.ly/lezpatreon] at the $5/month tier or higher and unlock our growing library of full-length ad-free bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of all our original songs, exclusive Discord access to hang out with us, and more! Get an automatic discount on your membership by signing up for an annual subscription. Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that is genuinely wondering where adults go to meet new friends. This week, co-hosts Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with New York Times Best Selling author Daniel Lavery to discuss his new fiction novel, Meeting New People [https://www.harpercollins.com/products/meeting-new-people-daniel-m-lavery-2?variant=44287888588834], available now. Meeting New People follows the story of Barbara, a difficult, twice-divorced woman in her late 50s, as she grapples with the 9th best-friend-breakup of her life. As Barbara seeks to make her 10th (and hopefully final) best friend, she analyzes her relationships with her past 9 best friends to try to figure out what went wrong.  Although Barbara very much claims to be straight, there is something distinctly sapphic in the intense, monogamous nature of her best-friendships and the way each one burns fast and bright before imploding dramatically. She is a particularly judgemental person who is very set in her ways and has strong beliefs on how the world works and how friendship should be. It vexes her to no end that she has followed all the rules and still ended up alone. Even though Barbara does recognize to some extent that her beliefs and behaviors are alienating her from the very community she so desperately desires, she remains heavily resistant to changing her ways in order to become more palatable. Barbara may have some rigid thought processes and generationally outdated ideas on friendship, but we believe she remains relatable in her strong yearning for understanding, acceptance, and community bonds. We find in Barbara a realistic depiction of self-growth and a glimpse into the challenges of coping with an ever-evolving social landscape.  We’ve all known at least one Barbara in our lives, and as sapphics, we are no stranger to the overly intense, vaguely homoerotic best-friendship that tends to crash and burn. Meeting New People puts us front and center for Barbara’s inner monologues and unique perceptions of reality and asks us to consider if she’s actually wrong or simply unlikeable by today’s standards.  Pick up your own copy of Meeting New People [https://www.harpercollins.com/products/meeting-new-people-daniel-m-lavery-2?variant=44287888588834] wherever you shop for books or find it at your local library. Don’t forget to show your support for our tiny (and mighty!) podcasting team by shopping small for your Pride merch at bit.ly/lezmerch [http://bit.ly/lezmerch] & picking up our original Lez-ssentials songs on Bandcamp [https://lezhangoutpod.bandcamp.com/].  Give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod. Connect with us individually: Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

SBG 168: Dirty Dancing with Jenny Hagel

Happy Pride!  The best way to support the gays this month is by joining our Patreon [http://bit.ly/lezpatreon] at the $5/month tier or higher and unlocking our growing library of full-length ad-free bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of all our original songs, exclusive Discord access to hang out with us, and more! Get an automatic discount on your membership by signing up for an annual subscription. Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that would never, under any circumstances, put a Baby Gay in the corner. This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with Emmy-nominated TV writer (Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Amber Ruffin Show) and comedy performer, Jenny Hagel (@jennyhagel [https://www.instagram.com/jennyhagel/]), and talk about why the 1987 hit movie-musical, Dirty Dancing [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092890/], Should've Been Gay. We thought we were big Dirty Dancing fans, but Jenny one thousand percent has us both beat. When this film was released, it was the talk of the school for anyone whose parents allowed them to see it. For Jenny and all the others whose parents said “no way”, sneakily watching Dirty Dancing at a sleepover was basically a right of passage (and a spiritual experience). Ever since the first time Jenny laid eyes on Jennifer Grey, Dirty Dancing has been playing on a loop in her head.  Very few things need to be changed to make Dirty Dancing a canonically queer film. Francis “Baby Gay” Houseman (Jennifer Grey) is already a clear lesbian. There’s literally nothing more lesbian than rolling into an unfamiliar situation and deciding it is now your job to solve a crime (and then solving that crime!). Francis’ big clipboard energy is off the charts. Patrick Swayze as “Johnny Castle" isn't exactly giving heterosexual either. His whole persona reads as more ‘butch lesbian’ than straight dude. Not to mention that just 8 years later, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar was released starring Patrick Swayze as the drag queen, Vida. It’s not exactly a leap for us to view this cult classic as a Dirty Dancing sequel where Johnny is finally living his truth.  We know one thing for sure, Dirty Dancing Should’ve Been Gay. Don’t forget to pick up your own copy of Jenny’s debut book of essays, “Advice No One Asked For” [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Advice-No-One-Asked-For/Jenny-Hagel/9781668079614] available now!  Give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod. Email us @lezhangoutpod@gmail.com [lezhangoutpod@gmail.com]. Connect with us individually: Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster). Support the pod by shopping small for your Pride #ootd at bit.ly/lezmerch [http://bit.ly/lezmerch] & picking up our Lez-ssentials songs on Bandcamp [https://lezhangoutpod.bandcamp.com/]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

920: Date of the Art

Happy Pride month!  Running this show is unfortunately not cheap, and we need all the community support we can get during Pride and beyond to keep the pod going. Now is a perfect time to join our Patreon [http://bit.ly/lezpatreon] at the $5/month tier or higher and unlock our growing library of full-length ad-free bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of all our original songs, exclusive Discord access to hang out with us, and more! Get an automatic discount on your membership by signing up for an annual subscription. Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that is pumped up for PRIDE!  This week, co-hosts Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out and give their advice on the trials and tribulations of dating after being inspired (and horrified) by this article [https://nonchalantmagazine.com/we-asked-fifty-sapphics-to-spill-on-their-worst-dates-it-got-messy/] about the 50 worst-ever sapphic dating stories. As two married lesbians who have achieved their final form, ie. chilling on the couch with their wives and rarely leaving the house, they are clearly the experts on the sapphic dating scene.  From a girl whose Plenty of Fish date turned out to be a Plenty of “Friends” date with a surprise boyfriend reveal to the girl who ended up sky high in a hot air balloon on a first date, these sapphic horror stories will have you thinking twice about swiping right. After discussing the stories in the article, we think back on our own dating experiences and the things that probably should have raised more red flags at the time. But it’s not all doom and gloom! We also provide healthier date ideas for early in a relationship along with our personal perfect 5-date sequences.  Don’t forget to show your support for our tiny (and mighty!) podcasting team by shopping small for your Pride merch at bit.ly/lezmerch [http://bit.ly/lezmerch] & picking up our original Lez-ssentials songs on Bandcamp [https://lezhangoutpod.bandcamp.com/].  Give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod. Connect with us individually: Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster).  Have a horrifying sapphic dating story that rivals the ones in the article? We want to hear them! Email us your terrible dates to @lezhangoutpod@gmail.com [lezhangoutpod@gmail.com].  Leave a rating and review wherever you are listening to this episode to help others find the pod! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

SBG 167: Eternity

Join our ⁠Patreon⁠ [http://bit.ly/lezpatreon] family for as little as $5 per month to unlock 25+ full-length bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of our original songs, exclusive Discord access, and more!  Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that’s, “knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door”. This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out and talk about why the 2025 Apple TV dramedy, Eternity, Should've Been Gay. Eternity asks the genuinely thought-provoking question, ‘what does happiness in the afterlife look like for you’, and dares to answer it in the most heteronormative way possible. Leigh and Ellie ended up having vastly differing opinions this time around. Ellie loved the film so much, she watched it more than once, and cried every single time. Leigh was so enraged while watching it for the first and only time on a flight that she strongly considered throwing herself out of the plane while 30,000 feet up in the sky.  For those who are unfamiliar, Eternity centers around Elizabeth Olsen’s character, Joan, as she decides between two possible “eternities” in the afterlife– one in the mountains with her first husband, Luke, who died young and waited 70 years for Joan to join him, or one at the beach with Larry, the husband with whom she spent the majority of her life and built a family. Unfortunately for Joan, neither Larry nor Luke seem all that concerned about where she would actually like to spend literal forever. They're set on mountain world and beach world, respectively, and will not budge on these decisions, even though a compromise would’ve fixed the entire problem. The one saving grace for Joan comes in her longtime best friend Karen, a late-in-life lesbian who plans to spend her afterlife lezzing it up in Paris.  The film presents so many potential paths for Joan to take (the mountains with Luke, the beach with Larry, Luke and Larry giving in to their obvious bisexual curiosities to form a throuple, running off to Paris with Karen, choosing an afterlife herself instead of being forced into someone else’s version of a happily ever after…) and then walks her down the most aggressively heterosexual option in a way that truly feels like a hate crime. Honestly, regardless of how much anyone loves their partner, eternity is not 100 years or even 500 years, it’s ETERNITY. There is no way everyone doesn’t end up becoming swingers eventually anyway.  We know one thing for sure, Eternity Should’ve Been Gay. Give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod. Email us @⁠lezhangoutpod@gmail.com⁠ [lezhangoutpod@gmail.com]. Connect with us individually: Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster). You can support our little indie pod by shopping small at bit.ly/lezmerch [http://bit.ly/lezmerch] & picking up Lez-ssentials songs on Bandcamp [https://lezhangoutpod.bandcamp.com/]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

919: I Censor-Ship It with Yi-Ling Liu

Join our Patreon [http://bit.ly/lezpatreon] for less than a cup of your favorite iced coffee and unlock 25+ full-length bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of our original songs, exclusive Discord access, and more!  Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that is currently crying over a gay novel in an internet cafe.  This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) are hanging out with journalist and editor Yi-Ling Liu (@instalingers [https://www.instagram.com/instalingers/]), author of The Wall Dancers: Searching for Freedom and Connection on the Chinese Internet [https://www.yi-lingliu.com/the-wall-dancers]. This debut narrative nonfiction follows the lives of five individuals across the past three decades as they push for social change while navigating within the walls of China’s Great Firewall. We talk with Yi-Ling Liu about online censorship in China and the life-altering importance of representation and access to community for queer people everywhere.  In the early days of the internet, there were significantly less built-in systems of censorship and surveillance. Internet cafes were cropping up in every town, and globally people were experiencing a newfound freedom that did not exist outside of the confines of their screens. In China and the United States alike, homosexuality was still considered a crime and classified as a mental illness. However, on the newly created, not-yet algorithmically controlled internet, queer people could find one another, form communities and subcultures, and share their stories long before it became acceptable to live openly in daily life. A gay person living in a small city thinking they’re the only one in the world who feels the way they do could stumble across a queer novel in an internet cafe and have a truly transformative experience.  Nowadays, things have flipped, especially in China. While being gay is generally more accepted and younger generations think nothing of coming out, the internet has become a much more restrictive and monitored environment. Gay couples in China can openly live their lives; but if they try to share those lives on social media, they have to do so covertly with language that won’t trigger the firewall. Words like ‘lesbian’ and ‘gay’ are automatically censored; so queer people have had to get creative, inventing a shared lexicon that keeps their content off the government’s radar. As we watch our own cultural landscape change through algorithmic censorship, increased government surveillance, book bans, and legal challenges, we can’t help but see China’s firewall as a very possible blueprint for our own near-future online ecosystem.  Get your own copy [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/708614/the-wall-dancers-by-yi-ling-liu/] of Yi-Ling Liu’s, The Wall Dancers: Searching for Freedom and Connection on the Chinese Internet.  Don’t forget to show your support for our tiny podcasting team by shopping small at bit.ly/lezmerch [http://bit.ly/lezmerch] & picking up Lez-ssentials songs on Bandcamp [https://lezhangoutpod.bandcamp.com/].  Give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod. Email us @lezhangoutpod@gmail.com [lezhangoutpod@gmail.com]. Connect with us individually: Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]