Anne Lister

Bad Gays

Huw Lemmey & Ben Miller

History

4.6 • 842 Ratings

🗓️ 11 February 2025

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

She was an industrialist, a lesbian, a landlord, a traveler, a businesswoman, a womanizer, a butch, a snob, a pioneer of gay marriage, a Tory. She was the original Tory girlboss, and19th century English diarist who coined such terms as "grubbling," for mutual masturbation. Ey up love, been grubbling? She was, of course, Anne Lister. Subscribe to Extra Bad Gays for monthly episodes, our advice segments, and to support our work. Check out our new merch, including hats, shirts, and socks. ----more---- SOURCES: Caroline Gonda and Chris Roulston, eds., Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’ (Cambridge, United Kingdom New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2025) Jill Liddington, Female Fortune: The Anne Lister Diaries, 1833–36: Land, Gender and Authority: New Edition (Manchester University Press, 2022) H. Whitbread, I Know My Own Heart: The Diaries of Anne Lister, 1791-1840 (New York: New York University Press, 1992) “Packed With Potential,” https://www.packedwithpotential.org/. Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Season 8 Episode 8 of Bad Gays, a podcast about evil and complicated queers in history.
0:22.7	My name is Ben Miller.
0:23.9	I'm a writer and historian currently at work on a biography of the fashion designer Rudy
0:28.4	Gerenrich.
0:29.4	And my name's Hugh Leni.
0:30.4	I'm a writer and author.
0:31.9	Last week we talked about Larry Kramer, who was a very angry and influential writer and AIDS activist. Who are we talking about
0:39.7	this week, Hugh? I think today's subject is one that many of our listeners will probably be
0:43.8	familiar with. She certainly saw one we've had many requests for, and with good reason, her story
0:49.2	is fascinating. She was an industrialist, a lesbian, a landlord, a traveller, a businesswoman, a womanizer, a butch, a snob, a pioneer of gay marriage, a Tory.
1:03.9	She contained multitudes, to kind of phrase.
1:07.0	So Ruth Davidson predecessor in history?
1:09.9	I think Ruth Davidson wishes.
1:12.7	She's kind of a much more complexity, I'd say, than Ruth Davidson.
1:16.4	All right.
1:17.7	Torre girl boss, lesbian.
1:19.8	She is the original Tory girl boss.
1:22.8	She was the 19th century English diarist, Anne Lister.
1:31.3	Oh yeah, I've heard a lot about her, but don't know much about her life, so I'm excited to hear more. Yeah, you might know her from a lot of TV series that was made about her life called Gentleman Jack.
1:35.3	We'll start with Lister's World. If like me you're a fan of the novels of Lister's life, even though she was a few decades
1:44.8	older than them being born in 1791. She was like the Brontes born in the West Riding of Yorkshire
1:50.6	and she was of solid Yorkshire stock. Like the Brontes, she was a middling sort. Their father
	...

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