Queer Lit

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.  

References:
C. Jade MacDonald (2024) “The Alien Resonances and Queer Obscurities of Hyperpop’s 100 gecs” Journal of Popular Music Studies, 36.2, pp. 76-98.
C. Jade MacDonald (2025) "'A Story that Wasn’t in the Words’: Music, Mothering, and Minor Figures" in The Crossroads of Music and Literature: New Essays on the Muse of Song, edited by Kelly Baron and Andrew DuBois, pp. 113-28.
C. Jade MacDonald (2027) "Their Lover's Noise: Modernism's Queer Phonographies" in Routledge Companion to Literature and Sound, edited by Birgitte Stougaard Pedersen and Maria Engberg.
Foucault’s The History of Sexuality
Saidiya Hartman
Julie Beth Napolin’s "Unrecordable Sound: Media History, Technology and the Racial Unconscious" in Anna Snaith, ed. Sound and Literature (Cambridge UP, 2020)
Jonathan Sterne’s The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction (Duke UP, 2003)
Sara Ahmed’s Queer Phenomenology
Althusser
Gertrude Stein
SOPHIE
100 gecs’ “money machine”
Wendy Carlos
Dorian Electra
Charli xcx
A.G. Cook
Kodwo Eshun’s More Brilliant Than The Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction (Quartet Books, 1998)
alien sonorities
Alice B. Toklas
Edmund Husserl
Alexander G. Weheliye’s Phonographies: Grooves in Sonic Afro-Modernity (Duke UP, 2005) Grace E. Lavery’s Pleasure and Efficacy: Of Pen Names, Cover Versions, and Other Trans Techniques (Princeton UP, 2023)
Perverse sincerity 
Simon & Garfunkel
Shakira
Gorillaz “Feel Good Inc”
@C.jademacdonald
cameronjade.macdonald@utoronto.ca
Aoife Josie Clements’ Persona (Little Puss Press, 2026)  

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
     Why might noise be queer?
     How is voice usually perceived in music? What might the distortion and non-human quality that hyperpop can lend voices signify in relation to transness?
     What does Jade say about remixes and covers? Do you see them as queer kinship?
     Why does Jade speak about 100 gecs? What is this example illustrating?
     Please listen to at least one musician that you heard about on this episode and think about whether you can hear any ‘alien resonances’.

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.  
 
References: 
Stacey Copeland’s Lavender Sounds: From Lesbian Radio to Queer Feminist Soundwork (University of Michigan Press, 2026)
Amplify Network
Copeland, Stacey "Sustaining queer joy and potentiality: Through independent production with homoground music podcast." Journal of popular music studies 35.4 (2023): 111-124.
Betty Friedan
Lavender Menace
Michele Hilmes
Bluestockings Cooperative
bell hooks
Hannah McGregor
The Lesbian Show Fonds are held at the City of Vancouver Archives https://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/the-lesbian-show
Kaitlin Prest
Jennifer Lynn Stoever’s The Sonic Color Line (NYU Press, 2016)
Silva Tenenbein’s original interview with Stacey aired on FemRadio in 2018 https://soundcloud.com/scopeatryerson/the-lesbian-show
Dykes on Mykes is back on the airwaves at CKUT Montreal https://ckut.ca/playlists/DM
The ArQuives - https://arquives.ca/
‘Temporal drag’ is a reference from Elizabeth Freeman’s Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories (Duke University Press, 2010)
The Heart’s “Lesbian Separatism is Inevitable” - https://www.theheartradio.org/solos/2020/1/15/lesbian-separatism-is-inevitable
NK (Nicole Kelly)
Phoebe Unter
staceycopeland.com
Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives - https://www.nfb.ca/film/forbidden_love/
Studio D – The women’s film studio founded in 1974 under the NFB (National Film Board of Canada)   

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
     How does Stacey define lavender sounds and why is the colour lavender connected to queerness, historically and politically?
     What is soundwork? What is feminist soundwork?
     Why is audibility important to consider, not just visibility?
     What does Stacey mean when speaking about the everydayness of soundwork?
     Why does radio hold radical potential?
     How does sound relate to time in Stacey’s work?

Meet Ayse, founder of Queer Girls Book Club, defender of the heated debate, and dyke of the people. In this live recording from the amazing Out and Wild festival, Ayse tells me about why running a queer book club is not just about putting LGBTQIA+ titles on your reading list, all the work she is doing to nurture her bookish community, and a why disagreeing is a good skill to have. To quote Joelle Taylor: That’s community, babe!  

References
 Out and Wild
https://www.outandwild.co.uk/
Housmans
Joelle Taylor’s The Night Alphabet
Emily Witham
Grace Flahive
Polly Shute
Gillian Anderson
Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and Spent
Gay on Wye
Carol Ann Duffy’s Rapture and “Forest”
Jackie Kay
Lamya H’s Hijab Butch Blues
Zoë Berryman  

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
     Why did Ayse start Queer Girls Book Club? Have you ever thought about starting a group? What was/would have been your motivation?
     What does Ayse say about contributing to community? How do you feel about this?
     We speak about literature as being a protected space to practice debate and disagreement. Have you ever experienced this? Which example does Ayse give?
     How does Ayse speak about marginalised voices in the publishing industry? What can we as readers do to promote change?
     Are you coming to our next live recording?

In the sapphic launderette play Spin Cycle, the washers are loaded and so are the questions. Penned by Zofia Zerphy, Spin Cycle is an absurdist exploration of intense connections, queer memory and lesbian storytelling. In this summer special, I am joined by Zofia and Rhiannon Bell, who play the main characters and speak to me about crafting a play in queer community, why queer narratives can operate in different realms of sense and meaning making, and why exploring flawed characters is vital to queer and trans representation.  

References:
Berserk Theatre
The L Word
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Mitski’s “Washing Machine Heart”
Act On Tap
Bethan Rose
Edinburgh Dyke Bar
Ros Watt’s Trans People Are Awful
Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness
Joe Carstairs  

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
     Zofia and Rhi speak about the different responses queer and non-queer audience members had to the play’s absurdist elements. What do they say about queer narratives making sense and what is your take?
     Which trope(s) of sapphic storytelling do we mention in the episode?
     We speak about Spin Cycle using memory and forgetting in queer ways. What could queer memory mean? What does it mean to you?
     Rhi highlights the importance of showing flawed trans and nonbinary characters on stage. How do you feel about this? Can you think of another example of a flawed LGBTQIA+ character in literature or theatre?
     Have you ever seen yourself represented on stage? What was that like?

Who coined the term cis and why are some people calling it a slur? Amazing return guest Perry Zurn joins me to discuss what the concept of cis does, why it’s helpful to look at its origins and etymology and where it might oversimplify the project of gender. Not one to be missed!  

References:
Perry Zurn’s Cisgender: Disorienting a Category (Duke UP, 2026)
Perry Zurn’s How We Make Each Other: Trans Life at the Edge of the University (Duke UP, 2024)
John Hollister
Riva Lehrer’s Golem Girl
Marquis Bey’s Cistem Failure: Essays on Blackness and Cisgender (Duke UP, 2022)
Stephanie Clare’s Nonbinary: A Feminist Autotheory (Cambridge UP, 2023)
Jonathan Ned Katz’s The Invention of Heterosexuality (1995)  

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
     What does cis mean?
     Which term is older: cis or trans? When does the term cis emerge?
     Which community coined the term cisgender and why?
     What is Perry saying about simplified notions of cis and which example does he give?
     How does Perry put disability and race in dialogue with cisness and transness?