Thank you for calling the lesbian line d'Elizabeth Lovatt
While searching for archives on lesbians, the author discovered the ‘lesbian lines’ of the 70s, 80s and 90s. She talks about the callers, the volunteers, the archival work and the responsibility that entails (keeping records, making things visible, but not exposing intimacy to unhealthy curiosity), the fact that archives are living material; and she puts all this in parallel with her own story as a lesbian who discovered herself ‘late in life’.
Callers and volunteers talk about first crushes and break-ups, sex, loneliness, grief and the difficulty of not being recognised as the partner of your deceased lover, as well as much lighter subjects such as finding a gay bar to go to.
It's a great book that contributes to the work of remembrance, celebrating the everyday lives of lesbians, because our identities are not only shaped by great events or historical figures, it's also important to remember the reality of LGBT lives in different places and at different times.
In the end, the author doesn't dwell too much on the calls themselves; she uses them mainly to reflect on what it means to be a woman, what it means to be a lesbian, on all the different identities that this word can cover, on all the words that can be used for this identity, on all the possible intersections with other identities... and it's fascinating.
I'd recommend it to you if, like me, you're not particularly well-versed in the subject - it's a very good starting point.
