Thank You For Calling the Lesbian Line
A Hidden History of Queer Women
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- £8.99
Publisher Description
'Compelling, funny, intelligent . . . Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line is a remarkable piece of work.' Kerry Hudson, Observer
'Utterly essential queer reading.' Lucy Rose, author of THE LAMB
'Deliciously informative and rigorously researched . . . I loved it.' Julia Bell, author of DIRTY WORK
With warmth and humour, Elizabeth Lovatt reimagines the women who both called and volunteered for the Lesbian Line in the 1990s while also tracing her own journey from accidentally coming out to disastrous dates to finding her chosen family.
With callers and agents alike dealing with first crushes and breakups, sex and marriage, loneliness and illness (or simply the need to know the name of a gay bar on a night out), this is a celebration of the ordinary lives of queer women.
Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line is a timely and vital exploration of how lesbian identity continues to remake and redefine itself in the 21st century and where it might lead us in the future.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lovatt's heartfelt debut draws on a 1990s logbook for the Lesbian Line, a London-based volunteer-run helpline for queer and questioning women, to expound on issues continuing to face the LGBTQ+ community and her own experiences as a lesbian. Scouring Islington's Pride archives, Lovatt discovered a deceptively "ordinary-looking notebook" that, through the jotted notes from Lesbian Line volunteers about their calls, revealed a world where "women could speak truthfully and privately without fear of being rejected." Captivated by the support given to callers and imagining how the Lesbian Line could have helped her come out before her late 20s, Lovatt combines historical research on LGBTQ+ helplines with personal recollections, sociopolitical commentary, and semi-fictionalized accounts of calls—including from closeted housewives, out teens and their homophobic parents, and repeat callers like "Becky," a disabled woman struggling to access transportation services. Though the merging of genres can sometimes frustrate, particularly when Lovatt delves into contemporary topics like online subcultures, it also serves a purpose, as she aims to expose the many gaps in lesbian history and find creative ways to bridge them. Lovatt also doesn't shy away from showing how the Lesbian Line, staffed by white cis women, fell short when it came to offering services to trans women and queer women of color. The result is a clear-eyed and moving addition to the still-expanding record of lesbian lives.
