Thank You For Calling the Lesbian Line

Calling all studs, dykes, butches, and femmes! An exploration of lesbian identity through logs from the lesbian line, a call line for queer women.

Becky needs a ride to Pride; a caller rants to Cora about her cheating ex; Sharon wants to know: Is she really a lesbian? These are the hallmarks of the Lesbian Line. Elizabeth Lovatt was on her own journey, traversing dating apps and keeping meticulous lists of her own queer awakening, when she happened across the Lesbian Line. Curious about the single handwritten logbook tucked away in a London archive, she discovered a telephone call line for queer women seeking camaraderie, validation, a place to vent, a friend to call.

In Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line, Lovatt uncovers the lesbian history hidden in the pages of the Lesbian Line logbook, which captured calls from 1993 to 1998. With warmth and humor, she reimagines the voices of those who called and volunteered for the Lesbian Line, where a few stolen moments at a pay phone could turn into the courage to come out, find support, and imagine a happier future. In this mash-up of history, pop culture, and queer feminist theory, Lovatt boldly asks: What do we owe to our lesbian forebears? What informs lesbian identity? And how do we create a future for our community free from bias and division?

Relatable, tender, and fun, Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line amplifies pressing conversations often reserved to discussions among chosen family, online forums, rendezvous at the local gay bar, and sometimes just our own heads and hearts. Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line is a celebration of the ordinary lives of queer women and what it means to be a lesbian today, and a vital exploration of how lesbian identity continues to remake and redefine itself in the twenty-first century and where it might lead us in the future.