Lavender Ranks

This is an episode from Story Girl: The Life of Lucy Maud Montgomery , a 7-part podcast in which we explore L.M. Montgomery's childhood, literary journey, and the timeless impact of  Anne of Green Gables  on generations of readers. In this episode, the final in the series, we explore queer interpretations of  Anne of Green Gables. In conversation with playwright Rosemary Rowe and ca...

This episode was produced by Queer Collective and previously published on their feed. The feral, gender-defiant life of a Canadian WWI veteran who ditched a wealthy upbringing, lived alone in the woods, enlisted three times, fought on the Serbian front as a man, got captured as a prisoner of war, fell in love in a prison camp, and spent decades confusing barbers and bureaucrats alike. We’re queeri...

And the were “roommates”... or at least that’s what some historians would like you to believe. This is episode three of Lavender Ranks, in which we enter our Hallmark era to share a great sapphic love story between war-time Nursing Sisters Ellanore and Murney. Today, hosts Em and Karbon are digging deep to explore how women-loving women relationships were seemingly able to slip under the radar dur...

For much of history, queer lives were criminalized, and what survives of us is too often filtered through police files and court records; stories told by those who sought to erase us. But every so often, a different kind of record survives: a story the community protected; a story someone loved enough to keep alive. Charles McDonell's is one of those rare stories. His life was captured not by the...

What if I told you the roots of Canadian drag weren’t in a nightclub, but in the mud and mayhem of the Western Front during the First World War? In this episode of Lavender Ranks , hosts Em and Karbon introduce you to Ross Hamilton, adored by audiences as “Marjorie” and remembered today as one of Canada’s earliest drag performers. Under the guise of “boosting morale,” the military somehow became t...

lavender (noun) /ˈlæv.ən.dər/ A symbolic colour associated with LGBTQ2S+ identity, queer culture, and queer resistance. ranks noun / ræŋks / The members of a military force considered collectively. Hosted by The Queer Collective’s Emily and Karbon, Lavender Ranks explores the stories that didn’t make it into the official record because they were too tender, too queer, or too dangerous to preserve....