Exploration of lesbian fiction from the '50s, '60s asks how much has changed, really?

It was the 1950s when a desperate young woman, rejected by her family because of her sexuality,walked into a drugstore,intenton taking her own life that day.

Inside the shop, the woman spotted a book coverfeaturing two women a novel by American author Ann Bannon, the so-called Queen of Lesbian Pulp Fiction whose salacious stories of forbidden love served as one of the few representations of homosexuality at the time.

The young woman purchased the book and read it in one sitting on a bench, she later recounted toBannon, who askedwhat happened next.The woman said she went home, had dinner and decided to live.

"I mean, it still gets to me. It'll get to me forever," said Bannon, now 91, whosenovels includeOdd Girl OutandJourney to a Woman.

The struggles of the 2SLGBTQ+ community as viewed through the lens of lesbian pulp-fiction novels, includingBannon'sworks, were the subject of a recent event at the Halifax Central Library.

The presentation celebrated lesbian literature, but it also reflected on what these novels represented at the timeand prompted questions about what, if anything, has changed for the 2SLGBTQ+ community since their publication.

Source of hope and solace

Lesbian pulp-fiction novels were mass-produced and often featuredcovers depicting two women in provocative poses, offering solace and inclusion at a time when homosexuality was still illegal inCanada.It was decriminalized in 1969.

While some of thesenovelspunished their subjects by ending a torrid romance with tragedy, they also reflected the attitudes of the past that have persisted into the present.

"I think we like to read them and think we have moved forward, but I'm not sure we have," said Terrah Keener, anactivist for the 2SLGBTQ+ communitywho helped lead the presentation last Wednesday.

One person attending the presentation described friends who, at the same time these novels were published,were institutionalized because of their sexuality.

Anotheryounger attendee said the familial desertion that characters in these novels endured due to their sexuality is still a reality for many young 2SLGBTQ+ people.

"Unfortunately, that is still a narrative of many people's lives," said Keener, who also works as an educator at the Nova Scotia Community College. "The statistics of homeless queer kids has not changed in decades."

A reflection of issues today

Keener andco-presenterDenyseRodrigues said issues facing the 2SLGBTQ+ community today harken back to attitudes reflectedin the pulp-fiction novels attitudesthat compelled people to suppressfeelingsand any desire to explore gender identity. They citedthe number of 2SLGBTQ+youth amongNova Scotia's homeless population,book bans on the rise in Canadaand protests against2SLGBTQ+student rights in Halifax.

Rodrigues, a librarian at Mount Saint Vincent University,said thenovels often hold answers to what life for 2SLGBTQ+ people was like in the '50s and '60s, and how the community can move forward.

"The same kind of reactions that were happening then are happening in Nova Scotia [today]," Rodrigues said. "That's why I'm so fascinated by hearing how they did then and can we learn from any of those things today?"

Bannon, who produced six lesbian pulp-fiction novels from 1957 to 1962, said a lot haschanged in the decades since she penned her stories. Still, shenoted there are "many, many parts of the world" where people cannot be their authentic selves.

"My belief all my life has been that people ought to be allowed to be who they are," Bannon said from her home in California. "They live better lives if that can happen."