Lez Hang Out | A Lesbian Podcast

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 absolutely under no circumstances would ever talk about Bruno, no, no, no.This week we are rewinding the clock to when Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hung out with actor Jessica Darrow (@jessdarrow_) to talk about the myriad of reasons why Disney’s 2021 animated musical Encanto Should’ve Been Gay. When you think of queerness and Encanto the first character to come to mind is probably Jess’s character Luisa, the hunky beefcake older sister with a heart of gold. And yea, obviously she’s gay, but we’d argue that Luisa is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the queerness of Encanto. From the magic “miracle” powers bestowed on each member of the Madrigal family to the colorful, rainbow-filled casita where they reside, this film is practically overflowing with queer energy. There’s Camilo, a shapeshifter who frequently changes gender; Bruno, the misunderstood outcast who just wanted to be accepted by his family; Mirabelle, the main character whose coming out didn’t quite go as planned; and of course Isabela, the “perfect” (closeted femme) sister who is hiding her true self out of fear of ending up rejected like Bruno. One thing is for sure, Encanto Should’ve Been Gay. 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! 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

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 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! 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 has never seen a more intense UHaul than Veddie. This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with comedian, actor, and writer Jordan Myrick (@jordanmyr1ck), to talk about why Venom Should’ve Been Gay. If you’re familiar with Venom from the MCU, the comic books are canonically quite gay, but the movies try (and fail) to tone down the queerness. If you are entirely unfamiliar with Eddie and his sassy, affectionate, shape-shifting alien boyfriend, buckle up; because you are in for a wild ride. Is there anything queerer than being so attached to your partner that you literally have to do everything together (in the same body) or else you’ll die? We think not. As lesbians, we honestly have to give it to Veddie; because they are taking UHauling to a whole other level. Eddie and Venom are full-on biologically made for one another; they are compatible at the most basic cellular level. Venom may be a symbiote, but he can’t successfully merge with just anyone. His bond with Eddie is rare and special (and beautiful!). There is truly no straight explanation for how obsessed Venom is with Eddie. He is constantly trying to sacrifice himself to save Eddie and when they do briefly break up in the 2nd film, Venom is so distraught that he goes on a bender (at a freaking gay bar!). Aside from the “urge to merge” of it all, Venom themself is a nonbinary queer icon. At first glance you may think Venom is clearly a guy, but Venom is really anything it wants to be. He tries on multiple different gender expressions, even taking on a curvy, feminine form when merging with Eddie’s ex-girlfriend Annie- which he pretty much immediately uses to make out with Eddie (hello, Xena, we’ve seen this before). These two may bicker a lot, but they are quite obviously madly in love. We are convinced that a gay person was in that writer’s room, because Veddie’s banter reaches levels of camp that a straight person would just never think up. We know one thing for sure, Venom Should’ve Been Gay.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 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! 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 you to read banned books!This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with academic librarian Amber and nonprofit witch Lindsay of the Queer Liberation Library (@queerliblib). The QLL got its start in 2023 and has since curated a collection of 2,715 unique LGBTQ+ ebooks and audiobooks accessible to anyone in the United States (regardless of zip code) for the low, low cost of absolutely nothing! Once you sign up (for free!), you will be able to check out ebooks and audiobooks from an ever-expanding collection through Libby. They have everything from popular queer adult fiction to LGBTQ+ poetry, manga, and children’s books. In today’s environment of book bans and censorship, projects like the Queer Liberation Library are more important than ever as they provide access to titles that local physical library branches may not be able to stock.We talk with Amber and Lindsay about how the Queer Liberation Library got its start, going from “7 friends in a trench coat” with a big dream to create a nonprofit to “7 friends in a trench coat” with an extensive, fully functional digital library. We also talk about how the curation process works, the intricacies of licensing restrictions on book borrowing, and all the little behind the scenes things that make the project possible. One of the best things about QLL is the accessibility. While there are already well-established physical libraries dedicated to LGBTQ+ books, they are not accessible for someone like a queer or trans youth with unsupportive parents or someone living in a more restrictive state where the physical libraries may have less ability to combat queer censorship. Digital collections like the one at QLL are lifesavers in these cases because they can be accessed for free from anywhere in the US, providing a way around any potential local physical barriers to access.You can join the QLL today and start borrowing books right away by going to their website. And if you do happen to live in a less queer-friendly location and are in any way nervous about being caught browsing the site, the QLL provides an easy exit button that redirects visitors to weather.com in the blink of an eye. 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 at any paid tier you will gain 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! As a special treat for this week, we are sharing one of our bonus Lez-tracurricular episodes! If you enjoy this episode, there’s a bunch more waiting for you on our Patreon. We can’t wait to see you there. This week, Ellie and Leigh discuss the 2023 animated Netflix film Nimona based on the graphic novel by ND Stevenson (who you may recognize as the creator of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power!). The story follows Nimona, possibly the most nonbinary shapeshifter character ever made, as they team up with Ballister, an aspiring knight from a humble background who is set up and accused of murdering the Queen. Nimona is pretty disappointed that Ballister is not actually a villain mastermind, but decides to be his sidekick anyway in an attempt to help him clear his name.It’s all fun and shapeshifting sharks until Ballister starts to realize that his boyfriend Goldenloin really does not believe he is innocent and cannot see Nimona as anything more than a ‘monster’. Overwhelmed by the extent of the Director’s deception and the loss of everything he has ever known in his life including his relationship, Ballister turns on Nimona triggering flashbacks of being betrayed long, long ago. Things become intense and dark very quickly from here on, but honestly we get it. Everyone with any ounce of power in town would rather kill and destroy innocent lives than change or remotely challenge their worldview. They see Nimona as a monster simply because they are different and everyone grows up being taught to 'kill first, ask questions never'. We do ultimately get a happy ending, but not before being absolutely stabbed in the heart at least 12 times with the feels.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.Check out our original merch at bit.ly/lezmerch. Every purchase directly supports our little indie podcasting team. 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 not that girl! This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with Amanda Holland (@fruity.productions), award-winning comedy writer and filmmaker (who you may recall from our Frozen SBG) to talk about why the 2024 hit musical film Wicked Should’ve Been Gay.Now, you’re probably thinking, “But wait, Ellie and Leigh, the 2024 hit musical film Wicked is already gay”. After all, the source material, a literal Wizard of Oz fanfiction, is pretty much the gayest book ever. But, while we see the tragic enemies-to-lovers (and they were roommates!) of it all between Elphaba and Galinda on screen clear as day, it technically only exists in subtext (so far). We really don’t get how, but there are a wild amount of people that do not see Elphie and Glinda as anything more than “really good friends”. In our opinion the only thing that might be gayer than the Wicked movie is the Wicked movie press tour. Whatever was happening there between Cynthia and Ari, we support it 1000000%. In this episode we go through the entire movie song by song (with a few detours along the way). It was incredibly hard to keep this episode from being as long as the movie itself. In our defense, all three of us are massively passionate about Wicked. Amanda’s senior yearbook quote was taken directly from the lyrics of “Defying Gravity”, which we all know is a queer anthem (please hold space for the lyrics of “Defying Gravity”, thank you). Leigh, who insists she never had a “Wicked phase”, just isn’t that girl (but maybe she could be “that boy”). And Ellie is ready to call out Galinda’s name change for what it really is, “white girl activism”. We know one thing for sure, Wicked Should’ve Been Gay.Stay tuned on Youtube to @fruitytv where Amanda plans to release 6 episodes of her brand new queer indie television show throughout the year!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. 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 surfin’, surfin’ cause we’re gay.This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with queer comedians Erin Judge (@iamerinjudge) and Jenny Chalikian (@jchalikian) to talk about why Blue Crush Should’ve Been Gay. This 2002 Cali surfer film may only have a 62% on Rotten Tomatoes but it has a 100% in Erin’s heart. Blue Crush stars Kate Bosworth and Michelle Rodriguez as Anne Marie and Eden, two surfer girls in Hawaii who are 1000% in love with one another. Since it’s 2002, the movie tries to convince us that Anne Marie is interested in some football player dude, but we all know the truth. They even keep a third girl, Lena, around for the main purpose of making Anne Marie and Eden seem less gay for each other (but they aren’t fooling anyone). It’s a toss up for us when it comes to who is the queerest between Anne Marie and Eden. They both totally lose their minds over the professional surfer dykes with their wolf cuts and tiny bikinis and Eden makes zero attempt to hide her extreme jealousy when Anne Marie begins dating the football guy. We know one thing for sure, Blue Crush Should’ve Been Gay.Erin and Jenny’s new comedy album, Romantic Comedy: Live at the Ripped Bodice is available now; and if you happen to be in or near LA, you can check out the show in person! Find out more by following along @romcomshow. 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 having a resurgence of The Chicks in our lives.This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out to talk about why the music of The Chicks, formerly known as the Dixie Chicks, should’ve been gay. For this episode, we will not be speculating about the sexuality of The Chicks themselves as human beings, but rather talking about why their songs give such a queer energy. The Chicks write music from a political activist lens that is so incredibly different from the typical country music lens. To say their music resonates with queer people is a massive understatement. There are so many of their songs that were literally the gay music of the time. We didn’t have Chappell Roan or Hayley Kiyoko or those types of openly queer artists. So for us and other gays of a certain age (ie. over 35), Goodbye Earl is as gay as it gets. These ahead of their time icons write songs that feel inclusive, anti-patriarchal, and that have lyrics that sound gay af when we sing along. We talk about the gay specifics of songs like Goodbye Earl, a song that Ellie’s extremely queer band The Femmes performs all the time. This song honestly should be a whole musical by now. The music video for it is so gay and so good and if you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and watch it now. We also break down the lyrics in Long Time Gone, a song that is wildly gay for having been released in 2002. There is no straight explanation for this song, and to be honest… it’s giving Betty. We know one thing for sure, The Chicks music Should’ve Been Gay.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