Episode #2
1002: Kay, Be Pretty with KB Brookins
Lez Hang Out is proud to be sponsored by Bellesa Boutique. EVERYONE who signs up to our giveaway wins a FREE spicy toy or gift card for toys! https://bbvibes.com/lezhangout #bbpartner ****************************************** Getting to create and grow our Patreon family has been one of our favorite experiences of the past 10 years. We have so many wonderful memories from watch parties, game nights, trivia, and even getting to meet some of you in person! Now, we’re asking our community to help us hit a very specific goal: 100 paid $10-tier patrons by October 1st. It costs us about $800 every month just to produce Lez Hang Out, regardless of how many people listen. And while we don’t currently pay ourselves for hosting and producing the show, we do want to continue paying our Production Assistant, Kristin, who keeps approximately 700,000 things running behind the scenes. Your Patreon support helps cover the real costs of making this show and allows us to keep compensating the person doing the behind-the-scenes work that keeps Lez Hang Out going. If you want to become part of our exclusive community (one of us, one of us!), you can join today for $10/month. Choose the annual option at sign-up for an automatic discount! 100 patrons at $10/month would make a huge difference for us. If you love Lez Hang Out and want to help us keep making it, this is one of the most direct ways you can support the show. Do you feel that chill in the air? Stock up now for hoa hoa homo season at bit.ly/lezmerch with our special collection featuring gay ghosties and the skeletons that refused to stay in the closet. ****************************************** Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that knows figuring out who you are is rarely a straight line. This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) is joined by award-winning author, KB Brookins (@earthtokb), for a discussion about their 2025 Lambda Award Winning debut memoir, Pretty, now available in paperback! In Pretty, KB explores the complicated gap between how we see ourselves and how the world sees us. Part memoir, part cultural critique, it’s a love letter to Black trans masculinity and a powerful call for all humans to question the assumptions and expectations we inherit from being raised within a structurally racist, cisheteronormative society. Using a mix of poetry and prose, KB reflects on growing up in the ’90s and 2000s, when “no homo” was a punchline, “that’s so gay” was a common insult, same-sex marriage was still illegal, and the language available for understanding queer and trans identities was often limited, stigmatizing, or outright harmful. Honestly, Emma Specter of Vogue said it perfectly already–Pretty, “at its heart is a carefully sketched-out–and often devastating–portrait of what it means to be Black and transmasculine in Texas, a state that continues to criminalize both of those identities”. While today’s greater visibility of trans and nonbinary identities gives people more opportunities to question, explore, and understand themselves, KB’s journey was also shaped by the specific cultural expectations and assumptions attached to being perceived as a Black girl in Texas. Pretty traces that winding process of unlearning those expectations, questioning who they were told they should be, and ultimately finding the freedom to recognize themselves as the Black transmasculine person they have always been inside. Don’t forget to support your local bookstores by snagging your own copy of Pretty at Bookshop.org. Lez Hang Out is an independently produced show. Find us on Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Tiktok and Bluesky (@lezhangoutpod) or email us at lezhangoutpod@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
