Lez Hang Out | A Lesbian Podcast

Join our Patreon to unlock 25+ full-length bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of our original songs, exclusive Discord access, and more! You can also support the show by grabbing a cozy fall sweater at bit.ly/lezmerch & picking up Lez-ssentials songs on Bandcamp. Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that is begging for Britney Spears to release the non-binary edition of “I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman”.  This week, co-hosts Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with non-binary actor Robyn Holdaway (@robynholdaway) who you may recognize as Layla from Netflix’s Sex Education. Robyn is a prolific voice actor, as well as an educational creator on TikTok where they make videos with their wife about everything from exploring gender and sexuality to navigating physical and mental health challenges.  We talk with Robyn about LGBTQ+ representation across media, the differences between realistic/accurate representation and idealistic representation, and what it means to actually become the representation they wish they’d seen when they were younger. In examining the intersection of sapphic and non-binary identities, Robyn discusses the (unfortunately unsurprising) amount of backlash they’ve received online for explaining the meanings of words like ‘sapphic’ using gender-inclusive (and completely accurate) language. From there Robyn dives into explaining their non-binary identity and why their marriage doesn’t feel particularly ‘sapphic’ due to Robyn’s “Gomez Addam’s”-style masculinity, and we consider our own gender identities– concluding that Leigh’s gender is “Tiny Dad Mom” and Ellie’s is “Rainbow Unicorn Overalls”.  Give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod. Email us @lezhangoutpod@gmail.com. Connect with us individually: Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thank you so much for hanging out with us for 9 seasons! Join our Patreon to unlock 25+ full-length bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of our original songs, exclusive Discord access, and more. You can also support the show by gearing up for fall at bit.ly/lezmerch & picking up Lez-ssentials songs on Bandcamp. Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that thinks, “It’s not the time” to be glorifying traditional heteronormative values. This week, co-hosts Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) are back from summer break and more unfiltered than ever!  We have not even been away that long and in the meantime a really insidious conservative “family values” vibe has begun to spread through the queer community. Prominent queer celebs (cough Fletcher and JoJo Siwa) who built their brands on the backs of a predominantly queer audience are “reverse” coming-out publically as dating cishet men while our rights are crumbling all around us. It’s giving ‘I’m one of the good gays’ and we are really not here for it at this time in our political landscape. Keep in mind, we recorded this episode before the Betty Who debacle and we didn’t even need that to fill an hour-long podcast on the ‘tradwife’ of it all.  Now before you get out your pitchforks, we have ZERO issues with bisexuals. Our world of algorithms and click bait isn’t really keen on nuance and this issue requires it in spades. We are not denying that biphobia exists in the lesbian community and that lesbians need to do better; AND it is also true that queerness is about more than just who you’re dating. Like it or not, there is a political and cultural component to queerness and you cannot just opt out and expect to not piss off your fanbase. There is nothing wrong with being a queer woman and dating a cishet man, that in itself does not make you less queer. However, there is something deeply jarring about the sharp pivot from Fletcher straddling women on stage in leather pants for years to Fletcher making the very calculated decision to release “Boy” (the 2025 ‘trad’ equivalent of “I Kissed A Girl”) as the single for her album during one of the most politically fraught Pride months in recent history. When highly visible queer women like Fletcher and JoJo Siwa are behaving more “trad” than the Mormon wives on TikTok (you know the ones) at the exact same time that the Supreme Court is about to potentially rip away our right to get married, there’s a serious problem. Between the decline of political queerness, the rise of traditional gender roles (where did all the “bi wife energy” kings go?), and whatever the hell is going on with all these butter-churning performatively queer “pick-me gays” taking influencer jobs away from hard-working cottagecore dykes, the overall vibe is a mess™ right now. We don’t love that the world appears to be burning down around us; but, hey, at least we have each other. Give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod. Email us @lezhangoutpod@gmail.com. Connect with us individually: Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join our Patreon to unlock 30 full-length bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of our original songs, exclusive Discord access, and more! Right now, we’re retiring our lower tiers– so all new patrons who join at $5/month or higher (or upgrade!) by will be entered into a raffle to guest star on a bonus Patreon episode. Once we reach 100 PAID tier patrons, we will pick the winner! You can also support the show by grabbing your #pride365 gear at bit.ly/lezmerch & picking up Lez-ssentials songs on Bandcamp. Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that does its little dance on the catwalk.  This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with Lauren Chan (@lcchan), a Canadian model, TV personality, entrepreneur, and former fashion editor. She is also an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ+ and AAPI representation as well as an expert in the size-inclusive fashion world.  If you happened to walk by a newsstand recently and took enough time away from petting the bodega cat to peruse the magazines, you likely saw Lauren. She made queer history with her Sports Illustrated Swimsuit appearance as the very first out lesbian to appear on the cover! Can you believe it took until now for an out lesbian to be featured? While we may think Sports Illustrated is a male-gaze aligned space, Lauren says that’s what makes it so perfect for these kinds of stories. By meeting people where they are and introducing them to concepts and perspectives they may not have had a reason to think about, Lauren provides a gateway to nuanced conversations and increased empathy. Sure, straight men may initially buy the magazine for the bikini pics, but if they stay for the coming out stories that can go a long way in changing the narrative toward LGBTQ+ people.  Lauren came out in 2023, incredibly publicly, in her first appearance in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit where she made history as the first lesbian rookie! She discovered her sexuality in a very familiar way– with the lesbian masterdoc in hand, podcasts about coming out later in life on repeat, and an expanse of free time provided by the pandemic lockdowns. From divorcing her husband to now being engaged to be married again (but, to a woman) the short years since coming out have been a real whirlwind for Lauren.  We are obsessed with how Lauren takes the media’s long history of objectifying women and flips it on its head. She may look like just another hot girl, but Lauren is a catalyst for change, inclusivity, self-love, body positivity, and sheer gay audacity.  That’s a wrap on Season 8, lezzies! Thank you for hanging out with us this season, and we can’t wait to see you back for Season 9. Give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod. Find your fav tol and smol hosts Ellie & Leigh at @elliebrigida and @lshfoster. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join our Patreon family to unlock 25+ full-length bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of our original songs, exclusive Discord access, and more! You can also support the podcast by buying our original merch at bit.ly/lezmerch.  Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that is “back in black-and-white”.  This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out to talk about the 2025 Black Mirror episode: Hotel Reverie, for this Lez-ssentials episode, a recurring segment on the essential movies and TV shows in the lesbian canon.  Hotel Reverie stars Issa Rae, Emma Corrin, and Awkwafina in a bittersweet sapphic story that centers around a sci-fi style high-tech simulation of an old 1940’s classic film, “Hotel Reverie”. The premise is that Hollywood A-lister Brandy Friday (Issa Rae) will be playing the lead role of Dr. Alex Palmer (in spite of the original actor being a white man) in the remake; and to do so, she will be sent inside a fully immersive simulation of the film complete with “people” who think they are real, but are they?  Of course as soon as Brandy enters the simulation, she begins to fall for Clara, Dr. Palmer’s love interest in the original. Initially, Clara sticks to the script, but as the movie progresses, she begins to completely break the plot with her uncontainable gayness. The explanation is that the actor who played Clara, Dorothy Chambers, put so much of herself into the performance that “echoes” of Dorothy exist now in the simulated version of Clara. With the influence of Dorothy’s memories and a growing attraction to Brandy, Clara begins to be more and more openly gay and that is actually bad for Brandy– if she doesn’t manage to stick the landing and say the final line of the movie, she could be trapped forever in Hotel Reverie. Plus there’s that sticky little feature that if Brandy were to be killed in the simulation, she would die in real life. But for all the danger, Brandy cares about only one thing, Clara, their love, and the little simulated life they build while the movie is “frozen”.  We talk about the unavoidable comparisons to San Junipero, the many, many glaring plot holes throughout the episode, and the implications of Black Mirror consistently burying their gays and also only allowing gay characters to exist in simulations, video games, computers, etc. Additionally, we discuss the unsatisfying ending and why it didn’t feel as resolved or happy as it did for our lesbians in San Junipero.  At the end of the episode, stick around to hear our original song based on Hotel Reverie, titled “A Time You Don’t Remember”, written by Leigh Holmes Foster and produced by Ellie Brigida. Join us on Patreon at bit.ly/lezpatreon for instant access to mp3 downloads of all our original songs or find us on Bandcamp to purchase songs individually.  Remember, you can give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, Youtube and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod. Find your fav tol and smol hosts Ellie & Leigh at @elliebrigida and @lshfoster. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join our Patreon to unlock 30 full-length bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of our original songs, exclusive Discord access, and more! Right now, we’re retiring our lower tiers– so all new patrons who join at $5/month or higher (or upgrade!) by July 1st, 2025 will be entered into a raffle to guest star on a bonus Patreon episode.  You can also support the show by grabbing your #pride gear at bit.ly/lezmerch & picking up Lez-ssentials songs on Bandcamp. Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that still pledges allegiance to Heda Lexa. This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) hangs out solo with Regan Latimer (@thereganlatimer), director of the documentary Bulletproof: A Lesbian’s Guide to Surviving the Plot (@bulletproofdoc). We’ve talked a lot on this podcast about the longstanding BYG (bury your gays) trope in media and the “cancel your gays” version of today. The absolute slaughter of 2016 is what ultimately led us down the path of creating our own queer musicals with guaranteed happy endings and zero dead gays. Regan was inspired in a similar way, after one straw too many– the brutal killing of Denise on The Walking Dead. She decided to turn that outrage and pain into fuel for exploring the BYG trope, learning why these plot decisions are made, and even exploring the psychology behind why lesbian character deaths impact LGBTQ+ viewers so strongly.  For Bulletproof, Regan spoke with filmmakers, screenwriters, passionate fans, showrunners, and television industry professionals about their experiences and perceptions on lesbian representation in the media. They wanted to look not only at where representation stands now, but at where it started and where it may be headed. When the pendulum for LGBTQ+ rights and societal acceptance swings in either direction, the media landscape reflects those changes. The few positive examples of queer representation we have on screen right now are as a result of projects greenlit before the pendulum began its broad backswing. Regan reminds us to enjoy the representation we have right now, to cherish the precious happy moments of Ellie and Dina while we still can.  After all, the pendulum swings as society does; and we are at a particularly scary time for queer rights and acceptance, especially here in the United States. The real worry is about what types of projects may be getting greenlit right now, whose voices and stories are allowed to be told and amplified, and whether that push we saw after 2016 for more diversity in writer’s rooms continues or is abandoned. We’re already seeing more and more shows with prominent queer characters get unceremoniously cancelled– but it is not all doom and gloom. Even with queer rights and representation sliding backward, there remains more lesbian representation than we ever had growing up. With any luck, younger gays will never have to know what its like to not see themselves on their screens, even if the only representation left is, to Regan’s dismay and Leigh’s chaotic delight, problematic queer people on reality television shows.  Canadian listeners, you’re in luck (for so many reasons). Bulletproof: A Lesbian’s Guide to Surviving the Plot is streaming now. Not in Canada? Follow @bulletproofdoc on Instagram for release updates in your country.  Give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod. Find your fav tol and smol hosts Ellie & Leigh at @elliebrigida and @lshfoster. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lez Hang Out is proud to be sponsored by Olivia, the travel company for lesbians and all LGBTQ+ women! Join our Patreon to unlock 25+ full-length bonus episodes (including our brand new one on Bros), ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of our original songs, exclusive Discord access, and more! Right now, we’re retiring our lower tiers– so all new patrons who join at $5/month or higher (or upgrade!) by July 1st, 2025 will be entered into a raffle to guest star on a bonus Patreon episode. You can also support the show by grabbing your #pride gear at bit.ly/lezmerch & picking up Lez-ssentials songs on Bandcamp. Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that wants to wish everyone a Happy Pride Month, because queer joy is resistance.  This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with Jennie Wetter, the Director of rePROS Fight Back (@reprosfb), an initiative that fights for sexual and reproductive health rights and justice issues. Jennie is also the creator and host of the rePROs Fight Back podcast. Among the many things that rePROS does to fight back is to grade each of the 50 states on access to reproductive and sexual health rights and care (including access to gender-affirming care). They have recently released their 13th annual (fully interactive!) 50-state Report Card and spoiler alert: The United States as a whole gets an F. Fair warning, looking up your state’s grade might make your heart hurt (unless you’re like Leigh and live in one of the 5 states that actually got an A).  We talk with Jennie about what things have been like for rePROS since the reversal of Roe and whether our Gilead robes absolutely have to be red (it’s just not our color). Although it can be really easy to become overwhelmed by how bad things are, Jennie explains that there’s actually a lot to be hopeful about. Between the abortion funds and local clinics there are quite a lot of resources on the ground to help people access care, even in states with strict legislation. Medication abortion remains available and is a fully safe option. With the recent attacks on trans rights, initiatives like rePROS are fighting even harder to ensure access to gender affirming care for all who need it, including minors. Even though at the federal level, things are bleak (that report card is a real eye-opener), there are ways to fight back at the state-level and getting involved locally can really help keep that feeling of doom at bay.  Jennie reminds us that no one person can do or know everything (even if Ellie’s ADHD really wants her to try). Figure out which one cause you want to put your energy toward and focus solely on that. Even Jennie doesn’t know everything, but she makes herself a trusted resource by knowing what direction to point people in when they come to her for help. Take a deep breath and remember, you don’t have to take on everything yourself! Find your lane and follow it and know that others are doing the same in the lanes you didn’t choose. Burning yourself out trying to do it all won’t help anyone and certainly won’t help you feel any better. We see you, we appreciate you, and we want you to remember: no act of resistance is too small.  Give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod. Find your fav tol and smol hosts Ellie & Leigh at @elliebrigida and @lshfoster. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lez Hang Out is proud to be sponsored by Olivia, the travel company for lesbians and all LGBTQ+ women! Join our Patreon to unlock 25+ full-length bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of our original songs, exclusive Discord access, and more! Right now, we’re retiring our lower tiers—so all new patrons who join at $5/month or higher (or upgrade!) by July 1st will be entered into a raffle to guest star on a bonus Patreon episode! You can also support the show by stocking up for Pride at bit.ly/lezmerch & picking up Lez-ssentials songs on Bandcamp. Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that wants to take you to, “Bermuda, Bahama, Come on pretty mama.” 🎶 This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with Tisha Floratos-Silano, Executive Vice President and Cruise Director at Olivia Travel (@oliviatravels), the company that’s been making lesbian and all LGBTQ+ women’s travel dreams come true for over 35 years. We dive into the history of Olivia, from its roots as a women-run record label in the ’70s to the full-blown lesbian and LGBTQ+ women (trans and nonbinary inclusive!) travel company it is today. Olivia offers everything from small group adventure trips to full-ship cruises and all-inclusive resort takeovers, with themes like gay prom, pajama night, and under-the-sea (mermaids!!!), plus affinity groups for trans and nonbinary travelers, people of color, solo travelers, and more. Whether you’re looking for a quiet connection or full-blown sapphic chaos, Olivia’s all about creating spaces where everyone can show up as their authentic, unedited selves. Tisha has been on 105 Olivia trips and she even met her wife on one of them about 20 years ago. Now they have a beautiful life together with their daughter and their color-coordinated cruise and resort outfits. As far as we’re concerned, Tisha is literally living the ultimate dream lesbian life thanks to Olivia Travel and someday that could be you! If you’ve ever dreamed of a completely sapphic vacation where you can just be you (Hawaian shirt and all), you’re welcome– we totally found it for ya. And if you're ready to start planning, check out all of Olivia’s upcoming cruises, all-inclusive resorts, and adventure trips at olivia.com. Remember, you can give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod. You can find your fav tol and smol hosts Ellie & Leigh at @elliebrigida and @lshfoster. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lez Hang Out is proud to be sponsored by Olivia, the travel company for lesbians and all LGBTQ+ women! Join our Patreon to unlock 25+ full-length bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of our original songs, exclusive Discord access, and more! Right now, we’re retiring our lower tiers– so all new patrons who join at $5/month or higher (or upgrade!) will be entered into a raffle to guest star on a bonus Patreon episode. You can also support the show by stocking up for Pride at bit.ly/lezmerch & picking up Lez-ssentials songs on Bandcamp. Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that’s, “leaving on a midnight train”. This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with Devon Matthews, the Head of Programs for Rainbow Railroad (@rainbowrailroad), a global nonprofit that helps LGBTQ+ people get to safety worldwide. We talk with Devon about how Rainbow Railroad got started (spoiler alert: it took a LOT of gay audacity), what types of requests for help they receive, and how they organize with other nonprofit organizations and even government leaders to make the seemingly impossible, possible. We also discuss the challenges for Devon and the rest of the Rainbow Railroad’s staff of tireless advocates in providing trauma-informed care as people who mostly come from trauma-backgrounds themselves.  Content warning for discussions of trauma related to queer and trans identity, situations involving domestic and state-sponsored violence, and the distressing realities of forced displacement. Through the support of partner organizations on the ground in countries all across the globe, Rainbow Railroad has the extraordinary task of connecting queer and trans people who are in great need with critical resources and a pathway to safety. When a request for help comes in, the case managers work to meet individuals where they are and devise a plan specific to their unique circumstances. The realities of assisting a queer youth who is trying  to escape from domestic violence at home in a country where being gay is all-out illegal to assisting a trans adult in Europe get to safety are vastly different and require different approaches. Devon explains that the more visible the organization becomes, the more requests from LGBTQ+ people in serious crises come in– a sad fact of Rainbow Railroad’s growth is that it is needed at all (and at an almost unimaginable scale!).  With over 120 million displaced people worldwide, there is an immense need for Rainbow Railroad and their partner organizations. But they can’t do it alone. The time is always now. There have never been a larger amount of requests for help from Rainbow Railroad than after the recent election results right here in the United States. If you are feeling fired up and ready to join the fight, consider donating to Rainbow Railroad, signing up to volunteer, or reaching out via email with ways that your access can help. There is always something we can do as individuals to fight for queer liberation– Whether you have a rich aunt ready to donate on your behalf, a property (or literally just a bedroom)  you’d like to offer up as a “safe-house”, or are really good at community-building on the ground– YOU can make a difference.  Remember, you can give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod.  Find your fav tol and smol hosts Ellie & Leigh at @elliebrigida and @lshfoster. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lez Hang Out is proud to be sponsored by Olivia, the travel company for lesbians and all LGBTQ+ women! Join our Patreon to unlock 25+ full-length bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of our original songs, exclusive Discord access, and more! Right now, we’re retiring our lower tiers– so all new patrons who join at $5/month or higher (or upgrade!) will be entered into a raffle to guest star on a bonus Patreon episode. You can also support the show by grabbing some merch at bit.ly/lezmerch or picking up Lez-ssentials songs on Bandcamp. Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that believes sharing our individual stories is a powerful way to inspire change. This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with journalist and historian Eric Marcus (@makinggayhistorypodcast), the creator of Making Gay History, the podcast that brings LGBTQ+ history to life through intimate, first-person stories from the people who lived it. This is a bit of a heavier episode than we usually do, so please take care of your mental health and listen mindfully.  From conversations with trailblazers like Sylvia Rivera and Frank Kameny to countless unsung heroes whose stories deserve to be heard, Making Gay History is a powerful reminder that queer liberation has always been hard-won. (After all, the first Pride was a riot.) These first-hand accounts offer more than nostalgia. They’re blueprints for a much needed resistance. At a time when book bans, anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, and chillingly fascist rhetoric are once again becoming the norm, Eric’s archive provides a pivotal look into our collective past so that we can all be better prepared for the road ahead. The struggle sadly isn’t new; but with a little courage and a lot of community, we believe that queer people will always persevere.  Eric shares the origins of Making Gay History (which originally started as a book in the late 80s!), the importance of preserving queer voices, and the deep responsibility of memory work in the face of erasure. This episode is both a tribute to the ancestors that fought for our rights and a call to action: to listen, to remember, and to keep telling our stories, especially now. You can explore Eric’s archive and the most recent season of the podcast (A 12-part series about the experiences of LGBT+ people during the rise of the Nazi regime, World War II, and the Holocaust) at makinggayhistory.org.  Remember, you can give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod.  Find your fav tol and smol hosts Ellie & Leigh at @elliebrigida and @lshfoster respectively. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lez Hang Out is proud to be sponsored by Olivia, the travel company for lesbians and all LGBTQ+ women!  When you join our Lez Hang Out family on Patreon you will gain instant access to 25 and counting full-length bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of all our original songs (including our brand new song based on PLL), an invite to our exclusive Discord channel, and more! We can’t wait to see you there.  You can also support the podcast by buying our original merch at bit.ly/lezmerch.  Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast where “two can keep a secret if one of them is dead”.  This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with return guest and founder of TGI Femslash, John Arrow (@jarrow272), to talk about the 7 season teen mystery drama, Pretty Little Liars, for this Lez-ssentials episode, a recurring segment on the essential movies and TV shows in the lesbian canon.  Come with us on a journey back to 2010, when television seasons were 26 episodes long and showrunners were just starting to figure out how to harness the power of social media to engage with fandoms in a big way. Pretty Little Liars itself does not age all that well in many ways, especially in the treatment of their one and only trans character; but back in the 2010s it was actually considered pretty progressive for having several queer characters and a lesbian showrunner. If you were queer or questioning in the early aughts you 1000% knew about Shay Mitchell as sporty lesbian Emily Fields who seemingly turned every woman within a 5 mile radius of her gay. If you are a lesbian of a certain age, Emily likely played a role in your own coming out journey too. For those of you who were part of the #BooRadleyVanCullen (like Leigh), you may recall more of the social fandom experience than you do the plot. Before Twitter became the cesspool it is today, there were the golden days of weekly live tweeted episodes of PLL with the cast members, the showrunner and the writers. The extremely unhinged plot made it the perfect group-viewing show and we highly recommend that if you have never watched PLL, you watch with a friend or three. While we do talk about a lot of the major plot points, the whole series is just too convoluted for us to really spoil anything for you. Even hardcore fans like John find something new in each rewatch.  At the end of the episode, stick around to hear our original song based on PLL, titled “A Liar”, written by Leigh Holmes Foster and produced by Ellie Brigida. Join us on Patreon at bit.ly/lezpatreon for instant access to mp3 downloads of all our original songs or find us on Bandcamp to purchase songs individually.  Remember, you can give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, Youtube and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod. Find your fav tol and smol hosts Ellie & Leigh at @elliebrigida and @lshfoster respectively. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lez Hang Out is proud to be sponsored by Olivia, the travel company for lesbians and all LGBTQ+ women!  When you join our Lez Hang Out family on Patreon you will gain instant access to 25 and counting full-length bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of all our original songs, an invite to our exclusive Discord channel, and more! You can also support the podcast by buying our original merch at bit.ly/lezmerch and by purchasing our original Lez-ssentials songs for as little as $1 each on Bandcamp. Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that wants to be forever young. This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out and talk about the overall experience of aging as a queer person in an ever-changing society. With Ellie and Leigh both having birthdays around the time of recording this episode, they thought it would be interesting to take a look at the nonlinear experience of aging and the differences between coming out back in the day and coming out now. The entire concept of queerness has evolved and changed throughout time both as a political identity and a sexual one. There is widely used language and understanding of queerness and queer identities that just did not exist in the same way when Ellie and Leigh were gaybies.  When Leigh got married, she was only able to do so because gay marriage had been legalized in the state of Massachusets (not the entire country, literally just that state). Back then, even just being able to get married at all was astounding and a huge win. And honestly, that was not that long ago! Ellie talks about how when she first showed her girlfriend The L Word, Bailey asked her if Bette and Tina were married. This feels like a wild question to us, because of course we know that it was illegal to be married when this show was actually being made and aired. But for younger gays that have grown up with gay marriage being legal for the majority of their lives, that huge shift in queer rights and overall societal attitude toward the community that we experienced just doesn’t register in the same way for them.  With the landscape of queer rights being continually nonlinear and unfortunately experiencing a backslide at the moment in many areas across the globe, it is so important for queer people of all ages to share our experiences with one another.  Remember, you can give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod.  Find your fav tol and smol hosts Ellie & Leigh at @elliebrigida and @lshfoster respectively. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you join our Lez Hang Out family on Patreon you will gain instant access to 24 and counting full-length bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of all our original songs, an invite to our exclusive Discord channel, and more! We can’t wait to see you there.  You can also support the podcast by buying our original merch at bit.ly/lezmerch.  Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that is forever in its Wachowski era.  This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) talk about the 2015 Netflix series Sense8 for this Lez-ssentials episode, a recurring segment on the essential movies and TV shows in the lesbian canon.  Sense8 is an incredibly queer show that we honestly cannot believe first premiered a whole entire decade ago. It truly ranks up there next to Orphan Black for us as one of the most impressive shows ever to exist on television. Although we really wish it had gotten more seasons, what we did get was an absolute masterpiece. Sense8 was nominated for GLAAD media awards in 2016, 2018 and 2019 for its queer representation and if you did not get a chance to watch it back then, we really cannot recommend enough that you watch it right now. Like for real, why are you reading this? Go watch Sense8 first and then listen to the episode, because this is full of spoilers from here on.  As you might recall from our episodes on The Matrix and Bound, we are big fans of the Wachowski sisters’ work. Sense8 is no exception. In fact, Lana Wachowski has said that much of Nomi’s storyline was autobiographical in nature. In terms of lesbian couples in media, it doesn’t get much more top tier than Nomi and Amanita. Honestly, they might still be at the top even now. We love that Amanita is so ride or die for Nomi; and in context of it being 2015 at the time, the scenes where she defends Nomi against her terfy friends hit even harder. But, as much as we are all in on Nomi and Amanita, they are not the only queer rep in this show. In fact, we’d argue that every single person in the cluster is queer simply by nature of being a sense8. By having this diverse group of people all across the globe suddenly psychically linked, the Wachowskis make a statement about the nature of sexuality, the value of shared experiences in relation to developing empathy, and what it means to be a “we” in all senses of the word.  At the end of the episode, stick around to hear our original song based on Sense8, titled “Sum of Our Parts”, written by Leigh Holmes Foster and produced by Ellie Brigida. Join us on Patreon at bit.ly/lezpatreon for instant access to mp3 downloads of all our original songs or find us on Bandcamp to purchase songs individually.  Remember, you can give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, Youtube and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod.  Find your fav tol and smol hosts Ellie & Leigh at @elliebrigida and @lshfoster respectively. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you join our Lez Hang Out family on Patreon you will gain instant access to 24 and counting full-length bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of all our original songs, an invite to our exclusive Discord channel, and more! We can’t wait to see you there.  You can also support the podcast by buying our original merch at bit.ly/lezmerch and purchasing our original Lez-ssentials songs for as little as $1 each on Bandcamp. Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that is going down the witch’s road.  This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with creator Lauren aka PoppyLaur (@hi.poppylaur) to talk about the gay masterpiece that is Agatha All Along. Never could we have anticipated such a queer show to have come out of Marvel and Disney+ and we need to talk about it.  When WandaVision first came to an end in 2021, Lauren asked the universe for more Agatha Harkness. In 2024, the universe delivered in a big way with the gayest Marvel show of all time. Although the show was expected to flop (and was predictably review-bombed by angry straight men), Agatha All Along surprised everyone by becoming an instant hit. We’re not sure how anything with such a powerhouse cast of milfs could ever flop; but in the agist world of Hollywood, it’s honestly amazing that this show even got greenlit.  We talk with Lauren about the Winnifred Sanderson to Agatha Harkness pipeline, the overwhelming amount of similarities between Agatha and Regina Mills, and how wonderfully refreshing it is to have a show that centers around queer women over the age of 23 for once. We also talk about the enemies to lovers of it all, our shared love of Patti LuPone, and our dreams for a Season 2 where we’d finally get to see how Agatha and Rio first got together.  Lauren and her girlfriend Alyssa are hard at work filming their sapphic vampire/human enemies to lovers web series, Pain in the Neck. The show is fully funded thanks to a successful Kickstarter and all episodes will be released on Youtube. Follow along @painintheneckshow for all the details! Remember, you can give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod.  Find your fav tol and smol hosts Ellie & Leigh at @elliebrigida and @lshfoster respectively. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you join our Lez Hang Out family on Patreon you will gain instant access to 24 and counting full-length bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of all our original songs, an invite to our exclusive Discord channel, and more! We can’t wait to see you there.   You can also support the podcast by buying our original merch at bit.ly/lezmerch and purchasing our original Lez-ssentials songs for as little as $1 each on Bandcamp. Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that is about to get itself cancelled. This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out and talk about why queer people are so drawn to specul-gay-ting, why certain celebrities ping our gaydars and others just don’t (sorry, Sabrina Carpenter - we still love you!), and why the straights seem to be speaking a totally different language from us a lot of the time. Our topic was inspired by Jane Wickline’s performance on SNL last month where she portrayed Sabrina Carpenter singing about why she deserves her own gay rumors. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s literally all over TikTok. The skit on Saturday Night Live is hilarious but also brings up an interesting talking point - why is it that we specul-gay-te about certain celebs but not others? Why Taylor Swift but not Sabrina Carpenter? Honestly it isn’t rocket science, but there is quite a bit of gay history involved. For centuries queer people have been creating and utilizing our own secret coded language to be able to flag to one another. This was especially important during times when being gay was a crime, but many forms of flagging are still popular today. After all, you don’t just keep the keys to your Subaru on a carabiner for nothing. This is why Sabrina blatantly making out with an alien dancer on stage and even kissing Jenna Ortega in the Taste music video, while delightfully campy, does not ping our gaydar; but Taylor Swift’s Betty does.  Remember, you can give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod.  Find your fav tol and smol hosts Ellie & Leigh at @elliebrigida and @lshfoster respectively. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you join our Lez Hang Out family on Patreon you will gain instant access to 24 and counting full-length bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of all our original songs, an invite to our exclusive Discord channel, and more! We can’t wait to see you there.  You can also support the podcast by buying our original merch at bit.ly/lezmerch and purchasing our original Lez-ssentials songs for as little as $1 each on Bandcamp. Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that wants to make two become one.  This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) kick off the new year by talking about the societally normalized weaponization of the “urge to merge” in a relationship and how, as usual, the problem is because of straight culture and cishet men. For the record, it is our belief that it is not codependent to actually like and want to be around your significant other(s)! That’s kind of the point of being in a relationship in the first place.  Is it really ‘U-Hauling' just because you want to spend all your free time with your partner? Are you really ‘whipped’ for being considerate of your girlfriend’s emotional and physical wellbeing? We really don’t think so and while the jokes may be amusing on occasion, the overarching culture is damaging for women, especially queer women.   The old “ball and chain” concept has been a staple of mainstream culture for longer than we’ve been alive. Think about the straight couples that you know. Have they merged their friends or do they hang out in mostly gendered groups doing separate things? We really think this comes down to straight men seeming to not really like women or spending time with them (outside of the bedroom). This negative attitude toward spending time together spilled over from the mainstream culture into lesbian relationships and we can’t help but wonder how much of that cultural spill links back to popular queer media like The L Word. Remember, you can give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod.  Find your fav tol and smol hosts Ellie & Leigh at @elliebrigida and @lshfoster respectively. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you join our Lez Hang Out family on Patreon you will gain instant access to 23 and counting full-length bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of all our original songs, an invite to our exclusive Discord channel, and more! We can’t wait to see you there.  Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that wants to welcome you to the house of dykes! This week Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with Juno Rosenhaus, curator of dyke artists and founder of the Dyke+ ArtHaus (@dykearthaus), a dyke-forward and wholly inclusive space in Philadelphia for queer and trans artists (of all kinds) to come together, create art, and build community. We talk with Juno about the process of creating the ArtHaus, the inherently political nature of the word ‘dyke’, and our personal experiences with vulva shame.  At its core, the ArtHaus is an extremely political space, with foundations in abolitionism, feminism, and intersectionality. It strives to be an anti-capitalist space that increases accessibility to art for all and serves as a safe space for everyone in the community. Although the ArtHaus centers dyke artists over 40, anyone of any age who identifies as part of the LGBTQ+ community is welcome. Whether you visit the Dyke+ ArtHaus for an artist residency, a weekend getaway in the guest room (that reportedly contains PORTALS TO OTHER WORLDS), an afternoon jaunt to see the current exhibit, “Twenty (Dyke Artists) over Forty (Years Old)”, or for a community event like the upcoming anti-capitalist gift-making workshop, you are sure to find yourself inspired.  In addition to learning all about the Dyke+ ArtHaus, we also spoke with Juno about her personal art project, “I Won’t Be Pretty For You: Vulvas Queered”, a series of varied and inclusive photographs of vulvas done in a fine art style to combat vulva shame, promote body and sex positivity, and normalize vulvas of all kinds (and don’t worry, the project is trans inclusive). Apparently vulva circles, where you literally sit in a circle with your friends and look at your vulvas in little mirrors and talk about them together, used to exist in the 70’s and we are deeply upset that this is no longer a common practice #bringbackvulvacircles!  We are heading to France from March 31st through April 6th for this year’s BIG GAY TRIP! Join Ellie and Leigh for a vacay to Bordeaux and Paris where we will tour a winery, explore the catacombs, and dance the night away at the best gay bars. Make a 25% deposit by January 1st in order to secure your spot on the trip. Space is limited, so sign up soon! Give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod.  You can find your fav tol and smol hosts Ellie & Leigh at @elliebrigida and @lshfoster respectively. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you join our Lez Hang Out family on Patreon you will gain instant access to 23 and counting full-length bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of all our original songs, an invite to our exclusive Discord channel, and more! A Patreon membership is also a great gift for making your loved one’s Yuletide (and next 12 months) as gay as possible.  Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that is a little bit obsessed with Beanie Feldstein.  This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) talk about the 2024 dark buddy comedy Drive-Away Dolls for this Lez-ssentials episode, a recurring segment on the essential movies and TV shows in the lesbian canon.  Drive-Away Dolls is a chaotic queer romp set in 1999. The plot follows Jamie and Marian, two lesbian besties who could not be more different from one another, as they take a road trip to Tallahassee while being pursued by some very inefficient goons. Coen brothers movies are known for a flavor of dark humor and a level of absurdity that can be polarizing, and this one is no exception. While Leigh (and her wife) found Drive-Away Dolls hilarious, Ellie won’t be rewatching anytime soon. If you’re hoping to find a new ship to stay up late reading about on Ao3, you’ll probably be disappointed. Although the level of lesbian shenanigans is off the charts from Jamie’s L Word vibe to the sheer number of dildos on screen at any given time, the sexual chemistry between the leads is not believable. While we can’t quite root for Jamie and Marian as a couple, we still found the movie enjoyable as an outlandishly gay comedy. At the end of the episode, stick around to hear our original song based on Drive-Away Dolls, titled “Member of Congress”, written by Leigh Holmes Foster and produced by Ellie Brigida. Join us on Patreon at bit.ly/lezpatreon for instant access to mp3 downloads of all our original songs or find us on Bandcamp to purchase songs individually.  Mark your calendars for our Black Friday Sale! From November 29th- Cyber Monday all of our original merch will be 20% off with code “LHOBlackFriday”. Check out our store at bit.ly/lezmerch and start making your wish list now.  We are heading to France from March 31st through April 6th for this year’s BIG GAY TRIP! Join Ellie and Leigh for a vacay to Bordeaux and Paris where we will tour a beautiful winery, explore hauntingly historical catacombs, and dance the night away at the best Parisian gay bars. Make a 25% deposit by January 1st in order to secure your spot on the trip. Space is limited, so sign up soon! Give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on BlueSky @lezhangoutpod and follow along on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. You can find your fav tol and smol hosts Ellie & Leigh at @elliebrigida and @lshfoster respectively. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that wants to travel the world with you! This week Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with Allyssa Leaton (@thelesbianpassport), a lesbian travel content creator, and talk about her experiences traveling as a solo queer woman. Allyssa grew up in the Bible Belt not knowing the word ‘lesbian’, let alone what it meant. Now she proudly serves as much-needed queer representation in the travel space, inspiring hopeful LGBTQ+ travelers and finding all the best gay hotspots around the world.  Although Allyssa has visited more than 20 countries at only 25 years old, she does not make her travel decisions with ticking boxes in mind. Instead of always going to a new country, she has made repeat trips to her favorite places, including Buenos Aires (the city she credits as having the most sapphic-inclusive queer scene) and Iceland (a place where being gay was such a nonissue that Allyssa felt cultural whiplash). As an introvert, Allyssa has found herself thriving as a solo traveler, loving the freedom provided by solitude. We talk with Allyssa about the safety of traveling alone as a lesbian, tips for finding queer spaces and making friends in a new place, and the challenges of traveling full-time.  Check out Everywhere is Queer for a simple way to find queer spaces all over the world.  If this chat inspired you to take a BIG, GAY trip, you can find more information about our next Big, Gay trip on our website.  You can support Lez Hang Out while unlocking a bunch of exclusive perks including access to our Discord channel, 23 and counting full-length bonus episodes, weekly ad-free episodes, and more by joining us on Patreon. You can also support the podcast by buying our original merch at bit.ly/lezmerch and purchasing our original Lez-ssentials songs for as little as $1 each on Bandcamp. You can give us your answers to our Q & Gay questions on Twitter @lezhangoutpod and follow along on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. Ellie (@elliebrigida) and (Leigh @lshfoster) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that is excited to have you at our group therapy session. This week Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with Elle Deran (@elle.deran), a trans and nonbinary actor, advocate, and content creator, and talk about the beauty and joy of embracing self-actualization and doing the work to live authentically.  After coming out as trans and nonbinary exactly 1 week prior to the start of the pandemic, Elle had the time to cocoon in their apartment and really take the time to uncover her identity. When they emerged and began to interact with the world again, Elle was disheartened to find that people were interacting with and responding to her very differently than they had been prior to presenting in a more gender-authentic way. Social media provided a path to community and an opportunity for a sort of group catharsis about shared transphobic experiences. This access to a like-minded community acted as a haven for navigating the challenges that came with choosing to embrace authenticity in place of perpetual people-pleasing.  While speaking with Elle, we talked about the reasons why being a “people-pleaser” is really doing a disservice to both yourself and everyone else. Although this sent Ellie into a bit of an existential spiral, it was an important door into a deeper conversation about the value of authenticity, trusting your intuition, and listening to your body in order to figure out who you truly are. We also discussed why it is actually so important for everyone, regardless of gender identity, to sit with and analyze their feelings about their own gender. This hit home for Leigh, who spent some time reflecting on the gender dysphoria she felt during her pregnancy as well as the recently realized gender euphoria she experienced through something as simple as choosing to stop shaving her legs. In the end, we realized that when you are able to feel joy in being your 100% authentic self, it is easier to feel that same joy when you see others being true to themselves too.  Elle has created a 5-part video workshop, “The Heart of Allyship: A Self-Reflective Approach to Trans and Nonbinary Support”. If you are interested in diving deeper into the concept of gender on a whole, reflecting on your own gender, and learning more about trans and nonbinary communities, you can access the complete workshop for a one-time fee of $49.99.  You can support Lez Hang Out while unlocking a bunch of exclusive perks including access to our Discord channel, 23 and counting full-length bonus episodes, weekly ad-free episodes, and more by joining us on Patreon. You can also support the podcast by buying our original merch at bit.ly/lezmerch (use code lhospooky for 20% off your purchase through November 1st!) and purchasing our original Lez-ssentials songs for as little as $1 each on Bandcamp. Give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Twitter @lezhangoutpod and follow along on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. You can find your fav tol and smol hosts Ellie & Leigh at @elliebrigida and @lshfoster respectively. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that fully supports your decision to get the iconic Kristen Stewart Love Lies Bleeding mullet.  This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) talk about Kristen Stewart’s 2024 sapphic crime-thriller Love Lies Bleeding for this Lez-ssentials episode, a recurring segment on the essential movies and TV shows in the lesbian canon. This movie is a wild ride, and we think it is more enjoyable to go into it with as little information as possible. Be sure to watch the film before listening, as there are many spoilers ahead! However, if you are super squeamish about blood and gore, you may need to sit this one out. The gore is realistic and not at all over the top, but we did find it a bit disturbing and uncomfortable to watch at times. Love Lies Bleeding introduces us to possibly the (and we say this with the utmost respect) dykiest Kristen Stewart character yet. Lou is a complicated, small-town lesbian working at a gym and sporting the gayest mullet we have ever seen. She has a clingy, obsessive ex-girlfriend named Daisy and a super messy relationship with her family. Refreshingly, Lou’s issues with her family are not because of homophobia. Instead, we learn that her dad is a shady, dangerous man who straight-up kills people, her mom has been “missing” for the past 12 years, and her sister is too brainwashed by her violent, misogynistic husband to be a half-decent sibling.  When Lou meets Jackie, a bisexual beefcake played by Katie O’Brien, it is like a moth to a flame and their passion quickly ignites into a full-blown toxic, obsessive relationship. They U-Haul after sleeping together one time and then Lou proceeds to get Jackie hooked on steroids to help her bulk up for an important bodybuilding competition. The film does an excellent job showing how the steroids are changing Jackie’s body and personality, shielding none of the horrors of addiction and obsessive love from the viewers. Several realistic sex scenes help to emphasize the problematic relationship dynamics between Lou and Jackie. It's not all violence and sex though, as we were laughing our heads off on multiple occasions from all the campy, queer chaos in a Bodies, Bodies, Bodies type of way. Even though Lou and Jackie’s relationship is 100% toxic and gets almost everyone in their path killed, we cannot help but be fascinated by these nuanced antiheroes and the movie's exploration of what it means to be a monster. At the end of the episode, stick around to hear our original song based on Love Lies Bleeding, titled “Destiny”, written by Leigh Holmes Foster and produced by Ellie Brigida. Join us on Patreon at bit.ly/lezpatreon for instant access to mp3 downloads of all our original songs or find us on Bandcamp to purchase songs individually.  You can support Lez Hang Out while unlocking exclusive perks, including access to our Discord channel, 23 and counting full-length bonus episodes, weekly ad-free episodes, and more by joining us on Patreon. You can also support the podcast by buying our original merch at bit.ly/lezmerch (use code lhospooky for 20% off your purchase through November 1st!). Give us your answers to our Q & Gay on Twitter @lezhangoutpod and follow along on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. You can find your fav tol and smol hosts Ellie & Leigh at @elliebrigida and @lshfoster respectively. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices