Today is day one of a series where ShoutOut staff and volunteers pay tribute to their role models across the LGBTQ+ acronym! First up, some lesbian and queer heroes!

Pillow Queens

I’d like to see evidence that Pillow Queens aren’t the best band in the world. I can count on their songs for energy no matter what else is going on (for example: right now, as the world falls apart) and I often think about how much it would have meant to me to have a queer, punky, Irish band like PQs singing about Gay Longing™️ when I was growing up. As it stands, their iconic GCN cover hangs pride of place in the ShoutOut office as a kind of permanent moodboard. We are spoiled rotten to have them, and so many other deadly queer women, killing it in the Irish music scene today. 

Ruby Tandoh

Ruby Tandoh is my favourite writer. Her work dissects queerness, culture, politics, and mental health, usually through the lens of food. She always writes with such warmth and from a place of empathy for the marginalised. I’m taking comfort in revisiting her work at the moment - her book Eat Up!, the incredible zine Do What You Want put together with her partner Leah, and her many wonderful essays. This one on clementines is my all time favourite, packing so much love and beauty into 500-odd words. Clementines, and oranges generally, are a gay fruit. No further questions.

Ailbhe Smyth

Where would any of us be without Ailbhe Smyth? Ailbhe has a multi-generational influence in my gaff - my mam was a student of hers in the 80s at UCD, so we share a feminist hero. Ailbhe’s unwavering strength and resilience over years of queer and feminist activism in Ireland holds us all to a higher standard, and her hard work during the Repeal and marriage equality referenda gave any budding activists a shining example to follow. 

Dr Kathleen Lynn

Kathleen Lynn was a doctor, activist, and suffragette whose medical career was guided by her politics and a desire to build a fairer society. In 1913, she worked with James Connolly and Constance Markiewicz to provide free medical care and support to families of striking workers during the Dublin lock-out, and three years later served as chief medical officer during the Easter Rising. Maybe of more importance, she founded St Ultan’s Children’s Hospital in 1919 to provide care to impoverished mothers and infants in Dublin (it became the only hospital in Ireland managed by women) and worked till her death to improve medical outcomes for Dublin’s most vulnerable. She lived with her partner Madeleine ffrench-Mullen for thirty years and some historians wonder at the “remarkable closeness” these “friends” shared. Um. OK! Here’s a great lecture on her life and work by UCD’s brilliant Dr Mary McAuliffe, who has done excellent work to shine a light on the lives of queer Irish women in the Rising.  

Leslie Feinberg

Leslie Feinberg was an incredible writer, activist, and revolutionary Communist. Hir 1993 novel Stone Butch Blues chronicles the life of a working-class butch lesbian in 1970s America. It’s not an easy read, laced through with the pain of someone viciously persecuted for their difference, but it’s deeply moving and empowering for anyone who identifies as queer. The book is available for free at Feinberg’s website, as part of hir entire life work as a communist to “change the world” in the struggle for justice and liberation from oppression.

Some honourable mentions:

Stormé De Laverie, Joni Crone, Lena Waithe, Celine Sciamma, Sarah Schulman, Nicole Owens, Audre Lorde, Lily Tomlin, Ruth Hunt, Alison Bechdel, Syd Tha Kid, Julien Baker, Shura… Who are your lesbian and queer icons?