Show Notes
If you have not read A Black Queer History of the United States yet, you are so lucky to have this fantastic book in your future! And lucky for me that this is also an excellent opportunity to speak to two dream guests: C. Riley Snorton and Darius Bost speak about gender trouble in the Black queer archives, how Black and queer histories need to be thought together and why grounding oneself in community is part of what it means to survive.
References: C. Riley Snorton and Darius Bost’s A Black Queer History of the United States (2026) C. Riley Snorton’s Nobody is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low (U of Minnesota Press, 2014) C. Riley Snorton’s Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity (U of Minnesota Press, 2017) Darius Bost’s Evidence of Being: The Black Gay Cultural Renaissance and the Politics of Violence (U of Chicago Press, 2019) Cathy J. Cohen “Deviance as Resistance: A New Research Agenda for the Study of Black Politics” (2014) William Cathay/Cathay Williams Phil Black The Funmakers Ball Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman Erica R. Edwards Marsha P. Johnson Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) Combahee River Collective National Black Justice Coalition “Black Lesbian Thought” with Briona Simone Jones @c.rileysnorton [email protected] @windycitybq Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman’s Neptune Frost Jellicle Ball Essex Hemphill’s Ceremonies: Prose and Poetry
Questions you should be able to respond to after listening: Why do Black and queer history need to be thought of together? How are they sometimes separated? Darius speaks about the book having two parts. What is each about? Riley speaks about gender and sexual deviance as forms of survival or escape. What does this mean? Can you name an example? What does Darius say about the relationship between civil rights ideology and non-normative gender? Why is it important to speak about collectives as well as individuals when engaging with Black queer history?
More from Queer Lit
Welcome, children of the night, to a particularly shameless spooky special all about an eternally queer-coded fan favourite: the vampire. RJ Wade and Sarah Prescott join me to speak about bookish bloodsuckers, raunchy revenants, and sapphic succubi. The dramatic reading of a yet unperformed Carmilla play had me at the very edge of my seat and I also learned a lot about both the cultural and the literary history of vampirism.
Have you ever thought about your age as being assigned at birth? In this episode, Simon(e) van Saarloos and I explore how queer thought might allow us to move beyond preconceptions of age, but also about the manifold and intersectional consequences of ageism. Simon(e) reflects on how trans narratives might work without reliance on linearity and why age is such a powerful category when it comes to agency.
We all know that trans people have existed throughout history, but what about before that? S.K. Marley does fascinating research on queerness and transness that predates written history and joins me to speak about what antler headdresses and wooden dolls might teach us about transness. We also discuss how transness, walking and wellbeing are entangled, which landscapes are the most nonbinary, and why ‘prehistory’ is a contested term in itself. Since we’re chatting in a beautiful park in York, this episode has some bonus bird song and squirrel mischief.
What does sound have to do with sexuality? C. Jade MacDonald has some fascinating insights on the queerness of noise, on trans voices in hyperpop, and on sound in literature. Learn about the queer kinship created by remixes and covers in contemporary music, but also about which sound technologies are historically entangled with sexology. My favourite bit: hearing about how Gertrude Stein resonates with SOPHIE.
Listen, this episode is as delightful as it sounds. Audiophile Stacey Copeland tells me all about feminist soundwork, radical radio, and lesbian podcasts – all of which Stacey writes about in the excellent new book Lavender Sounds. Tune in for the sonic histories, stay for the moment when Stacey illustrating the crafted intimacy of podcasts will make you a little weak in the knees. If you are interested in the politics and potential of audio media, you will absolutely love this episode.