Listen to the The Lesbian Testimony Podcast - Episode 1.

The Lesbian Testimony Podcast is a project born out of the Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimony to encourage greater engagement with lesbian oral records. Each week host Callie Hitchcock will talk to a donor of the archive about one of their submissions or talk to an oral historian involved in lesbian oral testimony. Our first guest is the inimitable Elise Chenier, director of the archives and professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her research focuses on gender and sexuality in twentieth century Canada and the United States. Elise's interviews recorded during her research of butch and femme bar culture in post-WWII Toronto were the first contribution and inspiration for the archives. In this podcast, Elise and Callie discuss the inception and raison d'être of the archives. They discuss why the archives are important and what the possible implications of having a podcast are. Then they play a clip from the archives of Elise’s interview of Helen Carscallen where she discusses her first lesbian experiences. After a discussion of the clip, we hear from the archives’ archivist Mary Corbett about how to register for the site.