The title of this recording is "Sue Alexander - Lesbian clipping collection". It is described as: Sue Alexander talks about her lesbian clippings collections that spans over forty years. As part of LILACs 30th birthday celebrations, Sue curated an exhibition of clippings spanning the years of LILAC, 1994-2024 (when the interview was recorded). It was recorded in Lesbian Information, Library and Archives Centre (LILAC), Second floor, 187 Willis Street, Wellington on the 3rd November 2024. Sue Alexander is being interviewed by Gareth Watkins.  Their names are spelt correctly but may appear incorrectly spelt later in the document. The duration of the recording is 41 minutes. A list of correctly spelt content keywords and tags can be found at the end of this document. The content in the recording covers the decades 1950s through to the 2020s. A brief summary of the recording is: Sue Alexander’s interview delves into her extensive lesbian clippings collection, amassed over decades as a personal chronicle of lesbian history and cultural shifts. Conducted at the Lesbian Information, Library, and Archives Centre (LILAC) in Wellington, this discussion explores Alexander’s life experiences and her journey in assembling a collection of thousands of newspaper and magazine clippings documenting lesbian visibility, identity, and social evolution from the 1970s to the 2020s. Alexander, born in 1949, reflects on her childhood, marked by a sense of difference in a conservative social environment that emphasized traditional gender roles for women. By the 1960s, she found herself increasingly at odds with conventional expectations, encountering early experiences with sexism and rigid norms that prescribed passive roles for women, especially in interactions with men. Through her formative years, Alexander discovered lesbian identity as a path distinct from society’s prescriptive ideals, drawing inspiration from independent and non-conforming women she came across in literature and media. This personal awareness fueled her early interest in gathering clippings, initially on an informal basis. The collection started taking shape seriously in the early 1990s, reflecting evolving lesbian representation and societal attitudes. Alexander describes her role as a chronicler of lesbian history and the challenges faced in organizing and preserving these materials, especially as print media has dwindled in favor of digital content. The archives provide a unique lens on public perceptions of lesbian identity over the decades, capturing both supportive and sensationalist media coverage, from Hollywood’s portrayal of lesbians to coverage of significant local events and personalities. Alexander observes that mainstream press in New Zealand and beyond has gradually shifted from viewing lesbians as a fringe or scandalous presence to recognizing lesbian identities as part of the social mainstream, particularly following the advent of marriage equality. The interview captures Alexander’s anecdotes from living abroad in the 1970s, a period marked by liberation and activism in the UK. Alexander attended early meetings of the Gay Liberation Front in London, finding a burgeoning sense of community but also grappling with personal struggles to reconcile societal expectations with her identity. Her account includes vivid recollections of disco culture and social gatherings in a pre-AIDS era, as well as her evolving interactions with other lesbians and gay men. A pivotal theme is the changing landscape of lesbian identity and community cohesion. Alexander speaks to the increasing fragmentation within the LGBTQ+ community in recent years, noting that some younger lesbians resist labels or identification with older, distinct lesbian spaces. However, there is also a resurgence among some young women seeking dedicated lesbian spaces, both online and in physical spaces like LILAC. Alexander’s collection, as displayed in her recent exhibitions, functions as both a historical record and a mirror for shifts in social and media representation. The collection includes everything from early portrayals of lesbians in scandalous terms to the celebration of lesbian cultural icons like Ellen DeGeneres and Lucy Lawless. Alexander has organized the clippings chronologically, providing a timeline that demonstrates how media portrayals have moved from sensationalism toward more nuanced visibility, with lesbian relationships depicted in more normalized and varied contexts in recent years. The interview concludes with reflections on the future of the clippings collection. Alexander hopes to secure a lasting home for the archive, potentially within LILAC or similar organizations, preserving it as a testament to lesbian cultural history for future generations. Despite the challenges of archival work, Alexander is committed to continuing her collection and curating exhibitions that celebrate and interrogate lesbian identity, culture, and media representation. The full transcription of the recording begins:  There are tens of thousands of clippings culled from, um, print media all over the place. About four percent of it has been given to me, donated to me by other people. The rest of it I've collected myself over time. With tens of thousands of clippings, how do you, how, how do you even start to organize that? Well, it's with immense difficulty actually. Um, my most recent exhibition is now on the walls of Lilac, and it was a sort of background look at lesbian herstory, um, covering the same period that Lilacs been open, which is 1994 to 2024. I had quite a lonely childhood in terms of knowing what I felt about other people, especially when puberty hit. And, um, I'm quite old. I was born in 1949, so I actually lived through the fifties, sixties, and so on. And, um, I was a child, of course. in the 50s, but there was all the incredible stereotyping and getting the women back from the war that went on, and you had to be frilly and feminine and stay at home and have babies. And, um, I as a child never related to that, really. And when I became a teenager in the 60s, there wasn't much socially that I could relate to. Um, when I was too young, I'd seen some ghastly pornography. And then this strange Danish film on sex education came to Wellington. And a lot of my friends and colleagues have seen that. And it really was a big turn off when it came to child raising or bearing. Um, and when I, society. Um, I didn't really like, um, what I had to do as a female. I was not relating to, to roles given to women then. Um, so I just sort of read magazines and books and, and collected the odd clipping, but it, I didn't really start it as a clippings collection, it just sort of happened. And then I lived overseas for a couple of decades and I didn't sort of think much about it then, although I did collect a few things. And it was mainly about lesbians and in those days lesbians had more of an identity as lesbians. And in this clippings exhibition, incidentally, I can go into a bit of how the perception of lesbians has changed. Can you recall the first clipping you collected? Uh, yes, I think I've got it somewhere. Uh, not on the wall at the moment, but it was, um, I was a student over in London for a while, As a student, you tend to put things on your, your door of your room and all that sort of thing. And I had one which was something like, um, This is a world where women marry women. Drugs are the norm. Um, and that sort of went on like that. I've still got it, but not here at the moment. And, um, I just collected over time, uh, pictures of women who, um, didn't go the conventional so called feminine route. Um, and that initially meant, uh, could be straight women who dressed as men back in the days of wars, um, where they went off to search for their husband or, or just to be a patriot. Um, and that's what it is. Um, But then, I sort of, gradually it became more about lesbian women. And it was, uh, lesbians seemed to me to be the ones that, uh, had a way out from the usual social roles. When I was 15, my mother sat me down and said, gave me this little lecture, which still makes me laugh when I think about it, but at the time my jaw hung on my chest. And it was, you've got to sit up straight and cross your legs at the ankle like the queen. Um, when you go out with a boy, you must never talk about yourself. You must talk, uh, to him about his interests. You must bone up on his interests, research, and let him do all the talking. And, and, and it went on like this. And, uh, and I must never, uh, lose, uh, win at sports. So if I had a tennis match, I must always lose to the guy. And if I was doing swimming races or something, I must always lose. And the blokes, um, had to win. And, um, yeah. My jaw was hanging on my chest all this, and I went out, and I won at tennis, and I won at the swimming and all the rest. Yes. So do you think that was, was that a common conversation between mothers and daughters back then? Very much so. It would have happened in the early 60s for me, but the 50s in particular was all about girls looking ultra spice girl femininity. Um, And, uh, I think in the 60s it started to get a bit wilder when we got the pill. Um, and there was Carnaby Street over in London and, um, there wasn't much of that here, but, uh, um, Yeah, it started to get free up slightly in the 60s. And I hadn't heard about that sex education film. So what was that about? Um, it was a Danish made film and it was hilarious actually because schools all took school parties and I think it was in that old cinema that's no longer with us, His Majesty's It was in Willis Street, anyway, it was a big cinema. And, um, when I went there, I was at Sacred Heart College at the time. And I drove the nuns in, because you could get your license at, on your, around 15, which I did. And, um, We were expecting something fairly sedate and prude, and instead of which we had terrible Danish actors, um, and it was all the very worst things about pregnancy that you could even dream of. And, um, the boys around from other school parties were being sick in the aisles. And, um, I was pretty queasy myself. And it's a film that I've noticed a lot of other people, um, happen to see. And, um, it was very daring for its time because at one point you had a blackout on the screen and then, um, gradually this, This sort of circle appeared in the middle of it and we were actually looking at a baby coming out of a woman and it was right close up and personal and of course in those days, this was back in the sixties, um, that sort of thing was absolutely not done and um, as I say, people were being sick in the cinema and the um, Red Cross people were coming around Trying to get people sorted. And what did, I did notice there were four women, um, older women, sitting in the front row of the dress circle, which is where our party was, and they were all knitting, the four of them, and they knitted all the way through this film. Um, and, you know, it was nothing to them, but all these school kids were being ill around the place. So what was the purpose of the film? Was it like to turn people off sex? No, it was supposed to be a sex education film, but all you saw was some grunting. Um, the male and female stars were, uh, not very good actors. And, um, there was all this grunting and then the woman was next seen wandering around with a huge makeshift baby on her tummy and complaining about backache. And, um It was rather, um, all the bad things that, um, about pregnancy and, and, yeah, um, but that was a definite event, um, in the 60s and I can't remember who brought it over and it was meant to be sex education for school kids by the look of it, um, instead of which I think it turned a lot of us off for life. Just thinking about that, that, that same time period, and I wonder, what was the first kind of, uh, time you heard the word lesbian in New Zealand? Well, um, I was not a very sexual creature about trans people. In relation to myself, I tend to live in my head. Um, I was shut down emotionally for a lot of reasons which I won't go into. Um, I found one book until I left New Zealand in, when I was just turned 21 to go overseas to the Royal Academy of Music in London. And um, Um, I, I think it was a Valerie Taylor book and it might have been in a table in Roy Parsons um, down on the quay there and I think it was a Valerie Taylor and it had something like Journey to Lesbos or a title like that and that was the only thing I saw. And when it came to gay people, I knew a lot of gay guys. But, um, I was sort of like a mirror to the gay guys. They were preening and getting off with each other. And, um, we, theoretically straight girls, Um, were there because we liked their personalities. They weren't going to put the make on us. And, um, I was sort of acting as a mirror a lot of the time in those early days. Um, so the guys could say, Oh, what do you think I, do I look great in this? And, um, And I wasn't really aware of myself. Um, theoretically I came out in 1968, Um, when I must have been 19. I was more into my career at the time, which was music and, um, yeah, that's how I met a lot of people. I had a very protected, in some ways, upbringing out in Lower Hutt and, uh, um, I didn't dare go into town to bars like the Castro or anything like that because I was scared, rigid, that I'd get done to, um, because my. Parents didn't want their little girl to be in that unwholesome society. They were professional people and, uh, that wasn't in their social code. So I kept very, very quiet. And only when I went to London did I let rip a bit. What was that bar you mentioned? Where was that? The Castro. I think it was one of Carmen's. She ran things like the balcony. And, um, That was where a lot of gay people went, and, um, apparently, um, it, um, it was more a sort of working class environment, and my parents were very middle class, and, um, I didn't know which end was up, so, I was too afraid to go and explore. Well, coming out in the late 60s, I mean, that was right around the time of things like Stonewall, where we had all the gay liberation movement coming up, and that would have been a huge amount of things in the newspaper, I imagine. Uh, yes, it was mentioned. Yes, but really until I went to London in 1970, I didn't really get into the scene at all. I mean, I was afraid to to even have anything in the house, you know, so Yes, I got into all of that. In fact, I was one of the founder members of the British version of the Gay Liberation Front. Um, There was a meeting of about 25 people and, um, and then it moved to the London School of Economics in 1971 and I went to those meetings, um, and then, um, as you do after a while, um, uh, I was mixing with straight people through music and I did and try and see if I, um, would get on well with boyfriends and I got on really well with them as people, um, but it really wasn't my scene and the social mores were really not me and so I ended up getting heavily into the gay scene. They had a lot of gay boyfriends then too, I mean just friends, you know, and um, and I unfortunately got in with a really rough crowd when I first started in London and And, um, um, I think they were truck converters, a group of lesbians living together in a house, and they were truck converters and pretty rough folk, and they got into fights, and, and, um, uh, I was mad for one of them, but, um, it really wasn't a scene that was destined to work out for me. But in those times, there was a lot of disco happening, and, um, um, I love disco music and I love dancing, and the really good places to dance were gay discos, and the gay boys used to take me around and push me at other lesbians because I was too shy. And, um, um, but there were some good times had by all, and the strange thing was that in those days, um, I actually looked a character called Tadzio, who was in the film Saturacon, put out by Fellini in 1970, I think, and I was a dead ringer for Tadzio. So when I went into basically gay male discos, all these heads would whip up and they'd all stare at me and they'd get hugely disappointed when I turned out to be a woman. But it was great dancing times. It was really good. Yeah. So that would have been a, um, an amazing time to be in the UK at the time of gay liberation. It most definitely was. Um, uh, AIDS hadn't really raised its head then. And it was the tail end of the swinging 60s, the 70s, and people were still dressing up. And, and, um, my gay male friends would invite people over. Strangers off the street to party, and, and, uh, it was very wild and free. The only thing in, um, I was friends more with gay guys, by sheer accident, um, than with a lot of lesbian women, um, who didn't like my accent. And, um, um, the gay guys would shut off, Um, the lights at 11am and I had to go home and while they went on and partied. Um, and speaking of that Satyricon movie, the guy that played the blonde lead, is it Martin Potter, the actor? Um, he had a party and, um, They almost took me with them, but then decided not to. And I wouldn't have been very happy anyway with gay bodies all over the place. But it was a really good time and um, My gay friends would take me down to Hyde Park Corner and there was a forest there and you'd see all, you'd see the lights of the traffic in um, on the road, and you'd see all these silhouettes of gay men leaping around the trees and having sex on the grass and great times. So around that time, were you beginning to collect more and more press clippings? Yes, we better get back to the clippings, haven't we? Um, in those days, I just collected, um, the very odd, occasional clipping that there was in the print media. My clippings are really from print media. Lilac does the collecting of lesbian sources, and I do the rest, which is straight print media, sometimes gay, like, um, gay, gay Express or your, your ex. And, um. Uh, yeah, so mine tend to be print rather than online, um, now. Things have changed a lot. Um, and I didn't really take the clippings as, the collection aspect of it seriously until earlier this century actually, about 20 something years ago. And, um, I was trying, I was a member of the Lilac Collective, um, and I was trying to get them to take it seriously, um, that clippings would be really, really good. Um, and they weren't interested for years, and then finally I thought, oh, sod this, I'll do it myself. And so I went ahead and did it, and um, the first exhibition I did was not actually of clippings, it was of a lot of retro cards, lesbian cards that I had, big selection, and um, they really liked it. And I went around and talked about them. And then, um, the next exhibition was a couple of years ago, and that was a Clippings exhibition. And that was from 1983 to 2013. Um, And people really seem to like me wandering around my clippings and off the top of my head telling them what they're all about or the context or, and, and also I'm interested in how the print media through the ages has actually viewed lesbians and the perception of their articles. Um, so back in the, um, Um, the one I've got on the wall is 1994 to 2024, um, which is the time that Lilac's been open and things have really changed perceptions of lesbians in the print and out of the print. Um, and I've used the clippings as a sort of mirror. Um, as to how things have changed. Um, I have to say at this point, I'm not a professional archivist. I suspect that, um, archivists seeing how I store things would, would have a fit. Um, it has been suggested that That there are certain types of storage, uh, materials, um, but to me it's just always been fun and, um, interesting, very interesting, um, and, uh, so I've just put them in plastic, hopefully acid free, um, folders, and, um, the newspaper prints are beginning to yellow, um, and I'd love somebody to help me with this, but nobody wants to, so I'm just carrying on merrily doing it. What, what is the process that you go through for clippings, like how, how, how, how do you clip? Um, as you'd think, I might read a magazine in the doctor's waiting room or something like that, and I will, um, if it's got an article that I think would go really well in the clippings collection, um, I will ask the people at the desk if I could have the and they usually say yes. Um, and so I'll take it, clip out the article. Um, And then put it in big purple, uh, ring binders I've got here in plastic flaps, um, about, uh, they're chronologically ordered, um, that seems to be the main way I can do things. And basically it's, it's, I've had to make decisions about whether I include, um, trans women who identify as lesbian or not. And. I've always had this very strong perception of what a lesbian is and so I've gone with that in the clippings all these years and um, I've lived long enough to have seen that history tends to repeat itself and so after say you got queer politics in Britain in um, the 80s. Um, after that, you know, the, the men, women all joined forces and it was all hunky dory, but then women tend to separate off again when that happens because the guys naturally dominate, they're taller and they talk more, and they've also got a line into um, It's useful for them to be a part of the social mores of the time. For lesbians who are trying to get away from a male construct of femininity, it's really not in their best interests, in some ways, to do that. to, um, do queer politics, but, I mean, look, uh, this is very much off the top of my head, um, but I've, I've seen things happen. You get a lot of gender, um, uh, discussions, and, uh, things tend to go around in circles in about 30 years. So you start off with separation, then it joins together, then they separate off again, and so on. And I think at the present time, there's a bit of a separation for lesbians going on. Um, and that's come into this exhibition on the walls behind me, actually. Yeah. Should we go through the exhibition and just see some of the amazing clippings that are here? Okay, well this particular section of wall is 1994 through to about 2000 and a bit. Um, I've got date headings on. Um, it's 1994 to 99 and my perception of the 90s in New Zealand was party time. Um, there were lots of social groups forming all the time and lots of events. There are lots of lesbian ball events. Um, posters here. There are lots of photographs of hundreds of lesbians dancing in the old town hall and, um, various other places. And, um, there was a sense that lesbians knew who they were and it was a sense of group identity, um, socially. Um, and so this wall is all about, um, it's got calendars in it, um, I could have done an exhibition based purely on local stuff, but I, I thought it would be more of a celebration of what we were reading and looking, seeing and so on. And I've got, um, things, it starts with, uh, prospectuses for women's studies, um, Which used to be Happen, but now is no longer, and you've got Deneuve, which is an actual lesbian magazine, which changed into Curve. Um, which it now still is. And um, uh, these are all to be taken out of their folders and read, so you can look at the pictures, whatever. There are various photographs of groups on the walls. Um, Locally, you've got, um, posters and pics of an anti alcohol and addiction group, Lesbians. Um, you've got calendars, you've got an Alison Bechdel calendar there as an example of the genre. In 1997. four or five, there was, um, 1996, there was a Girls on Girls, um, which was a lesbian cabaret, which was held in, um, what was the depot, which is now Takirua, and that was music and song and writings, all with photographs, all done, um, by local lesbians, like Loray Parry and, um, um, Cathy Sheet and I was playing music for it and singing in some places and so on. You've got other things like the New Zealand Women's Circus, which was not strictly a women's circus at Aotearoa. It wasn't strictly lesbian, but my gosh, it had a hell of a lot of lesbians in it. And also things like the trade union choir that Helen Clark was so fond of, which was, um, it's got a few photographs with it. Um, it was a trade union women's choir. And I was, I conducted them for three years, and we did a CD of union songs and some compositions from the members, and Helen Clark loved it, and she loved our choir, so she actually launched that CD at Parliament, and there's some photographs there. What, what gets me about, um, what we're seeing on this wall is that it's, it's all about visibility. I mean, these are very, um, outward looking, um, uh, events, aren't they? They're right in your face events. They were wonderful actually. Now the, the print media. was still, um, rambling on about, especially about, um, Hollywood celebrities and pop stars, um, from Britain and America. And this is a classic article, Fergie Tells Drugs, Guns and Lesbian Romps. Um, there are some newspaper articles. I've got a lot of material and it was really hard to choose what went up on the wall. Because in an exhibition it's got to be partly visual. Um, but there was so much print material as well. And I've also put out quite a bit in previous exhibitions, so. It's a mixture, as I say, of local and overseas. Now, another overseas is Lucy Lawless, and there's a pack of dykes there dressed in Lucy Lawless costumes. Um, Alison Bechtel, who visited Lilac, actually, um, I've put a calendar there. She was a big influence on people like me, um, who was sometimes isolated, um, through work or through geography. Um, and I loved reading her books, her, her, um, cartoons, but, um, because, um, she's such a good writer, you know, and she had a really good look at lesbian life through the, you know, How do you think, I mean, so we're looking between, in the 1990s at the moment, but how do you think, um, or could you just describe what, uh, lesbian visibility was like in the 80s? Well, I was, um, I'd come back from Britain, and it seemed like it was stepping 60 years back in time, because, um, what, um, Um, we went through in the 70s in Britain, was, um, a bit of the flannel shirt stuff. Um, and then, when I came back to New Zealand, um, the lesbian police were out in full force. And, um, I used to play in the NZSO, and, um, I'd be in my Christian Dior, and I'd come along to, uh, Community Hall, where there was a, woman's dance, or a lesbian dance, and um, I still had makeup on, because your face disappears on the stage if you don't wear makeup, and I still had my Christian Dior on. Well look, it was like I'd dropped out of planet Mars, and I used to get challenged by some really heavy duty lesbian police at the door, who really saw me as not being, um, a lesbian at all, and um, also I talked different, and um, I had training in speech and drama. And was actually, um, as well as a professional musician, I did a bit of acting till, um, I was in my 40s. And, um, um, so back in those early dance days, um, they were, uh, I just was from planet Mars, you know, somewhere else. And, um, it was very, very difficult for me, and it wasn't until the 90s when I actually got to be really friendly with people, and they accepted people with more differences, like, um, lipstick lesbians were a no no back in the 80s when I arrived here, but, um, People were letting lesbians in that wore skirts, for goodness sake, and wore lippy, you know. And, um, but things have changed very much. Um, Ellen DeGeneres came out, And, um, I've, this is 2008, her wedding was 2008, so we're into 2000 to 2009. Um, I've got pictures of the drag kings, um, and Martina. There were all these famous people o overseas and locally who were terrific. And there were some really interesting stories like Patrice, uh, Patricia Cornwall, who wrote the case Scarpetta novels. Um, she had an affair with. The wife of the director of the, um, FBI and, um, he went absolutely crazy, um, tried to kill his wife and, and I've got stories like this which are fascinating, you know, and also some historical, um, cards here, um, the fun cards that we used to have, um, How would you categorize going from the 1990s through to the 2000s? What's changed? Well, up to 2009 you still got parties and groups forming, um, but they were slightly curtailed in numbers. Um, but it was really, um, sort of after that period. Um, when, you, you did, in, in the television media, you got things like bad girls. Um, but then, um, when, 2010 to say 2020, um, I've got written here and, um, The identity of lesbians as a group, lesbians, gradually fades as terminology changes and gender fluidity takes over. Um, but in the meantime the straight presses were still big on lesbian celebrity scandal. Um, But it was, in the 90s, the press saw lesbians as decadent, um, and, you know, they were not totally acceptable. They got slightly more acceptable, um, from about 20, through the 20s, you know, the, the teens of the, this, uh, century. Um, I've got here also, the lesbian magazines were still going out to the western world, uh, but the numbers are decreasing. And lesbians, um, Are harder and harder to spot in the gay presses or at gay events. Um, what else is happening here? Oh, we're getting more, uh, gossip on, um, Kirsten Stewart, the Twilight actress and all her different girlfriends. We're getting more prison, um, series like Wentworth and, um, Orange is the new black and I've got posters here for book group here in Lilac and uh that's Jenny Winterton, bending genders and genre. There's a lot here actually. Um, moving over to this, this is sort of late 20s and um, up until now. Um, I've got a comparison, a couple of articles on Ruby Rose, the Australian actress. Um, and there she's doing Cheesecake Pose, because that's what she was told to do. And, but she's really a, And there she is playing, um, or skateboarding or something with, um, her fiancé. And next to that I've got a lovely article on New Zealand Life and Leisure, which is a pair of really rich lesbians in their most gorgeous, um, house in the country. It's, oh, it's just fabulous. And I've collected quite a few of those articles in, um, where two women go out into the country and make a really lovely home. They're nice to read. And I've got things from the, um, local news like the Fringe Festival from the Wellington Regional News and, um, this is mixed in with, um, when Melissa Etheridge came to Christchurch and all the dykes there and, um, We've got Shortland Street, the gay stuff in Shortland, the lesbian stuff in Shortland Street. And then, um, marriage equality, when it was finally legal to get married, that had a huge impact on how lesbians were seen in the press, um, It almost got to a stage where the lesbian part wasn't mentioned, or if it was, nobody cared. And that's still the case, because they're legally allowed to get married. So, there has been a difference in how the press has treated things. I mean, it's gone from scandal, um, and perhaps not social acceptance to very much part of the mainstream, in many cases, and, um, no, you can give a damn, you know. And here's an article, um, on Holland Taylor and her, um, film star girlfriend, uh, partner, and, um, there's a 30 year age gap there, and for the, the press, it was not the fact that they were a lesbian couple, it was the 30 year age gap. Which really went wild in the press. Um, you've now got a lot more in the TV line. Um, in the Vigil series, which has been on recently. Um, you've got two women playing a lesbian couple in a Whodunit series. And then there's the other series, um, on the local, uh, lesbians who have babies. And it's more about the babies really and how they react. Um, that series is called. Double parked. Yes, that's been on recently. And you were saying that you're primarily Clipping things from mainstream media rather than kind of, um, queer publications. It's been a real mixture because my mum was a bit of a hoarder of magazines. And I started seriously clipping from Realite, um, French magazines which were in English. Um, and they had very androgynous women and, um, advertising which dealt with women in, who looked like a couple, and that was really rare in those days. Um, and, uh, from these magazines, Mum had a lot of other magazines, and I'd come to, um, collect a lot of magazines, and I clipped any lesbian articles in them I could see. Um, and really, um, It's random. I've got to say my clipping collection is random. So if I suddenly read a lot of your exes in one year, you're likely to get the few lesbian articles they have in that magazine um, um, more dominating, um, in terms of numbers. Uh, it could be the New Zealand Women's Weekly another year. It could be TV Guide another year. Uh, it just, it, It's very, very random, um, but again, it's what a sort of lay person might read, you know. And you were saying earlier just about how you can see the, uh, the, the kind of cyclic nature of, of history and it goes from, you know, uh, combining to separatism, to combining. Like, what do you think? Come over to the last wall of this exhibition. And believe me, I haven't said a lot of what's on, um, the wall. And there's so much I've got in my, the rest of the collection. This wall here is the tail end of the exhibition. Um, this is the slightly more controversial wall. Um, I've got an article here which was in a green magazine, Te Awa, by Jill Abigail. And what has happened is that, um, anybody who's, um, a lesbian feminist who, um, doesn't want trans women in their space, um, has gotten shut up. In terms of free speech. And I think some feminist women who are not lesbians have had the same thing happen. I think there have been premises burnt down because the books of Mary Daly have been found in them. Um, and it's a very difficult, um, situation. Um, at the moment for lesbians, I think, around the Western world, lesbians are being less and less a part of, um, gay, um, the overall gay society, I suppose you'd call it. Um, I like to see things where you've got this label gay, and then underneath gay, you've got Somebody, like a bisexual, um, place, you've got a trans woman place, you've got a trans men place, you've got a lesbian separatist place, you've got a feminist woman space, you've got gay men space, you've got drag queens, and I like to see them all having their own pad under the same roof, but that's not really what's happening with lesbians at the moment, especially in the, in the, uh, Um, and so I'm trying to document all this in my print exhibitions. Um, yeah. One other big thing that has changed is, uh, the, the, the rise of digital media. So, like, the, the reduction in, kind of, things that are printed. physically printed to what's online. How has, how has that affected your clippings? Well, some people do print out stuff. I've been known to print out the odd thing, but I've always stressed it's come from online. Um, I tend to do more the print media than online because online is a whole different ball game. Um, I mean you could get somebody doing that all on its own. Um, a lot of the younger lesbians, um, it's been strange. Over the last ten years you've got a lot of younger lesbians who wouldn't be seen dead calling themselves lesbian. Um, that's really old hat and, and, you know, they don't want to be pinned down to any label. It's sort of very fluid. Um, But then, we've recently seen in Lilac, we've got younger people, younger women coming in, who actually don't want to be, um, a part of the mainstream LGB, TQI, um, they're actually wanting to get away and have their own space, and quite a few of those groups are actually online. They meet online, and um, Um, a couple have just discovered Lilac, which is a space. And, um, Lilac is a lending library. Um, it has occasionally, um, seen social events. Um, like quiz nights and, um, Um, book groups and, um, various other things happening. We've been so lucky to have Val McDermott, um, coming in here and talking to us. And people like Alison Bechtel and there are, um, other local authors and, um, yeah, it's just a safe place for them. Uh, yeah. And just looking to the future for your amazing clippings, what do you think will happen with that huge archive? Place it. If I die, it'll just be here in lilac. It's all those purple books over there. Um, I have thought of contacting the Charlotte Museum up in Auckland. And I have talked to Roger Swanson about Legans. Um, and Linda Evans. And, um, Uh, I'm not sure what will happen to them, actually, uh, but, um, I normally keep half of them at my place and half of them here at Lilac, just in case of any violence, um, or the building catching on fire or something. There are a lot of different groups in here, from security to lawyers to all sorts of people. Um, Just so that at least we've got some of it if, if, um, the building goes down or an earthquake happens or something like that. Um, so I would probably in my will, um, which needs revamping, I might, um, leave it to, um, either LILAC, LAGANZ. The full transcription of the recording ends. A list of keywords/tags describing the recording follow. These tags contain the correct spellings of names and places which may have been incorrectly spelt earlier in the document. The tags are seperated by a semi-colon: 1950s ; 1960s ; 1970s ; 1980s ; 1990s ; 2000s ; 2010s ; 2020s ; Alison Bechdel ; Aotearoa New Zealand ; Auckland ; Carmen Rupe ; Cathy Sheat ; Charlotte Museum ; Christchurch ; Christian Dior ; Coming Up ; Curve (magazine) ; Deneuve (magazine) ; Denmark ; Ellen DeGeneres ; Events ; Federico Fellini ; Gay Liberation Front ; Gay Liberation Front (UK) ; HIV / AIDS ; Helen Clark ; Holland ; Hollywood ; Hyde Park (London, UK) ; Lesbian Ball (Wellington) ; Lesbian Information, Library and Archives Centre (LILAC) ; Lesbian and Gay Archives of New Zealand (LAGANZ) ; Linda Evans ; London ; Lorae Parry ; Lower Hutt ; Lucy Lawless ; Marriage Equality ; Martin Potter ; Mary Daly ; New Zealand Symphony Orchestra ; Orange Is the New Black (tv) ; Parsons Bookshop (Wellington) ; Patricia Cornwell ; People ; Queen Elizabeth II ; Return to Lesbos (book) ; Roger Swanson ; Roy Parsons ; Royal Academy of Music (UK) ; Sacred Heart College (Lower Hutt) ; Satyricon (1969, film) ; Space ; Stonewall riots (1969) ; Stuff ; Sue Alexander ; Tadzio ; The Balcony / Le Balcon ; United Kingdom ; Valerie Taylor ; Wellington ; Willis Street ; World War 2 ; Your Ex (magazine) ; acceptance ; accident ; acting ; addiction ; advertising ; alcohol ; androgynous ; bars ; bisexual ; books ; building ; cabaret ; career ; cartoons ; celebration ; cinema ; circus ; class ; code ; collective ; coming out ; community ; contraception ; conversation ; costumes ; dance ; dancing ; difference ; disco ; drag ; drag kings ; drama ; dream ; drugs ; dyke ; earthquake ; economics ; education ; environment ; equality ; exhibition ; face ; femininity ; film ; film star ; fire ; flannel shirt ; fluidity ; free speech ; french ; friends ; fun ; future ; gay ; gay liberation movement ; gender ; gender fluid ; hat ; hell ; herstory ; history ; hit ; identity ; journey ; knitting ; labels ; language ; legs ; lesbian ; lesbian feminism ; lesbian police ; liberation ; library ; lipstick lesbian ; love ; magazines ; mainstream ; makeup ; marriage ; marriage equality ; mary ; media ; meetings ; middle class ; mirror ; movement ; music ; musician ; nature ; news ; nun ; other ; parents ; parties ; perception ; period ; police ; politics ; pornography ; posters ; pregnancy ; press clipping ; print media ; prison ; puberty ; purple ; queen ; queer ; quiz ; reading ; research ; scene ; school ; security ; separation ; separatism ; sex ; sex education ; singing ; skirt ; social ; speech ; sport ; straight ; swimming ; television ; tennis ; the pill ; time ; top ; trade ; training ; trans ; trans woman ; transgender ; vigil ; violence ; visibility ; wedding ; women ; women's studies ; work ; working class ; yellow. The original recording can be heard at this website https://www.pridenz.com/sue_alexander_lesbian_clippings_collection.html. Please note that this document may contain errors or omissions - you should always refer back to the original recording to confirm content.