introductory communist theory recommendations, more online LGBTQ discourse, & Gaylor Easter eggs: 1 year anniversary & season 3 finale

The Lavender Menace

Happy 1 year anniversary of The Lavender Menace Podcast! We are dedicating our anniversary, season 3 finale, and 2022 Easter episode to answering three listener submitted hot takes, going over all of Taylor Swift’s Easter eggs pointing to her being gay, and reflecting on the media recommendations we’ve given each other in the past year. In discussing being a communist on the day to day, we recommend some beginner level theory: Angela Davis books (Freedom is a Constant Struggle, Women Race and Class, Women Culture and Politics, Are Prisons Obsolete,) Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti, Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider, Lenin’s State and Revolution, Gender Accelerationist Manifesto, base and superstructure, Dialectical and Historical Materialism by Stalin, the podcast episodes Stalin was a mensch & Stalin a Marxist Leninist perspective. We also mention The Black Jacobins, Robin DG Kelley’s Hammer and Hoe, The Foundations of Lenininism by Stalin, The Castle of Truth and Other Stories by Hermynia Zur Muhlen, and Mao’s Combat Liberalism. (Also not mentioned in the episode but other really good theory recommendations: Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Neocolonialism by Kwame Nkrumah, Women’s Liberation and he African Freedom Struggle by Thomas Sankara). We respond to a listener facing biphobia allegations and give our thoughts on radical feminism/trans exclusionary radical feminists (aka TERFs) with leads us to talking about attraction and sexual orientation’s relationship to one’s politics, “monosexuals”, heterosexual women’s misogyny, gay men’s misogyny, centering and attraction to men, the Bechdel test, and opposing transmisogyny. For another listener submitted hot take, we discuss how “androphobia” isn’t real, break down the phenomenon of fetishizing of transmisogyny, and namedrop @butchboyfriend on Tik Tok. Renaissance then leads the conversation into material conditions in response to the gender binary and patriarchy, lesbophobia vs biphobia, visibility vs material conditions, the gender trinary, and trans men/butch history. Finally, we tackle the hot takes around lesbians and ‘genital preferences’ and the politics of attraction. For the shared media portion of this episode, Renaissance goes through the timeline of Taylor Swift’s queer coded Easter eggs and get into Dianna Agron and RED. Sunny rants about reputation and Lover’s gayness and breaks down Cruel Summer which leads to Renaissance bringing up illicit affairs, Karlie Kloss, more Swiftgron, and an emphasis on Taylor’s lyricism: “the world was black and white but we were in screaming color” etc. Also, “ME! Out now” on lesbian visibility day. For the final and third section of today’s episode, we go through the things we’ve previously recommended each other on the podcast and have since consumed and enjoyed: Fleabag, Fortune Favors The Dead, Conversations With Friends, Assassination Nation, Professor Marsten and the Wonder Woman, Stella Bomkivist, and of course, the our love lasts so long article. Finally, get excited for our 4/20 bonus episode coming soon on Patreon!!! We get high and talk shit, and get more details on our origin story. Get 2 bonus episodes a month, early access, exclusive merch & more by supporting us on patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheLavenderMenace

Thanks for joining us for this episode, and you can find us on twitter, instagram, Tik Tok, and letterboxd if you want to connect! Send your hot takes to [e-mail].