Finding Queer Soundwork

Abstract

Abstract Over the decades, community radio has played a key role in queer activism: as entertainment, a political project, a community space, and part of a larger queer information infrastructure. Radio shows such as The Lesbian Show and Dykes on Mykes offer a glimpse into a lesbian feminist past in which “visibility”—or in this case “audibility”—was key to establishing political rights and social education around women’s sexuality. At the same time, listening to these shows is not so different from listening to a queer podcast in the early twenty-first century. How might past practices of information activism in lesbian feminist media inform contemporary queer and feminist approaches to radio and podcasting? This feminist information study advocates for media scholars and practitioners alike to look to lesbian feminist radio practices of community safety, accountability, and discoverability as an activist media model toward more equitable future queer and feminist media world-making.