Episode notes
Susan Stryker is an author, professor, filmmaker, and heroine of the trans and queer rights movement. Her extensive bibliography includes two editions of The Transgender Studies Reader and Gay by the Bay: A History of Queer Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area; her documentary films include Christine in the Cutting Room, an experimental short film about Christine Jorgensen, and most recently, The Lady and the Dale, released in early 2021 by HBO. Adrian and Laura talked to Susan about performances of gender in the triumph of cinema that is MISS CONGENIALITY (2000), focusing on its constructions of drag, queer fictive kinship, the metrosexual of the 90s-00s, and the beauty-industrial complex. Also, Laura makes a shocking confession about a secret from her past.