Pop Culture Fix: Anne Lister Lesbian Lore Is Still Going Strong

Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could feel the way you feel riiiight after your first cup of coffee, all day long? Well, here’s the next best thing: Your mid-week Pop Culture Fix!


+ Author Emma Donoghue on her Anne Lister romance, Learned by Heart. “More than 30 years after reading Helena Whitbread’s collection of Lister’s decoded entries, I Know my Own Heart: The Diaries of Anne Lister, Donoghue has brought the rarely told story of Lister’s first love, Eliza Raine, to life in a tenderly written schoolgirl romance, Learned By Heart.” BRB buying this RIGHT NOW.

+ 125 days in, the Hollywood picket lines are still packed with queer solidarity.

+ Ode to My So-Called Life’s Jordan Catalano, unlikely lesbian icon.

+ Greta Garbo, the “furious lesbian,” and a Ccassic Hollywood love triangle.

+ Shudder’s Bad Things is the latest entry in the lesbian horror genre.

+ GLTA gets the Tennis Channel treatment on U.S. Open Pride day.

+ Ha! I knew it! Starfield’s Sam Coe actor says he played him as bisexual!

+ Miley Cyrus recalls how Beyoncé and Rihanna treated her like a little sister in 2008.

+ Stephanie Beatriz is giving you queer crumbs, and then some.

+ Everything we know about Heartstopper season three so far.

+ Send off summer with Them’s queer playlist.

+ Hear Molly Kate Britton out: The Devil Wears Prada is a queer Jewish masterpiece.

+ Ashnikko’s Weedkiller brings listeners into a queer dystopian world.

+ How Queer Eye’s Fab Five could make Emmy history with Best Reality Host win.

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Heather Hogan

Heather Hogan is an Autostraddle senior editor who lives in New York City with her wife, Stacy, and their cackle of rescued pets. She's a member of the Television Critics Association, GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, and a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer critic. You can also find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Heather has written 1718 articles for us.

4 Comments

  1. In the Garbo article, after reading this…

    “Isadora Duncan wrote passionate poems to Mercedes, extolling her sexual ability and writing paeans to her beautiful white hands”

    … I think from now on I’ll affectionately call my Fisting 101 t-shirt “Mercedes”

  2. I know people shat on Miley Cyrus a lot when she was younger, especially during the Bangerz era. I was one of them (I still don’t like that she twerked on Robin Thicke during that appalling song during the VMAs, UGH) But with her last two albums and her generally maturing, I’ve really gotten to appreciate her more.

    Also, her song “The Climb” has always helped me through really tough times.

  3. If you all are interested in historical fiction about queer women written by Emma Donoghue you should try to find a copy of Life Mask! It’s about a sculptor-IIRC around 1800?- and her various feelings/entanglements and it’s incredible.

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