Happy Pride, Y'all!

Here's a beautiful story of Charleston couple John Zeigler Jr. and Edwin Peacock

Now that the kids are in summer camp, Hot Feminism is back! (Shoutout to all the parents and caregivers out there piecing it together trying to amuse children and do their jobs in this grinding capitalist hellscape, but also, yay summer!).

Last month we held our second annual gathering of the SC WGS consortium at the College of Charleston, where we had a rejuvenating three days with faculty, staff and students from WGS programs around the state (huge shoutout to Dr. Lauren Ravalico and Priscilla Thomas and all the faculty and staff at CofC for organizing). While some of our time was spent detailing the attacks on our programs, the overall vibe was one of resilience and resolve. I was honored to participate as a presenter in the Ms. Magazine writers workshop, and shamelessly solicited guest writers for the newsletter (please, reach out if you have any pitches!).

On the first day of the gathering we took an Untold Stories tour of the College with Dr. Julia Eichelberger, and one of the stops was the former campus bookstore, the Book Basement, run by life partners John Zeigler Jr. and Edwin Peacock. The couple opened the store on their friend Carson McCullers’ birthday in 1946, and it operated until 1971 in the house the couple had inherited from Zeigler’s family at 9 College Way.

Zeigler and Peacock were open about their relationship, and were a prominent Charleston couple. Zeigler donated over a million dollars in scholarships over the years, and to honor his legacy the College installed a plaque outside the house (now the home of the Department of Communication) in 2005. It referred to Peacock as Zeigler’s business partner, but made no mention of their actual relationship. In 2024, they replaced the plaque with a more accurate one (hopefully the SC Republicans don’t come after it).

I loved learning about their story and thought it especially important to share during Pride (happy Pride, everyone!!). LGBTQ folks have always been here and I’m thankful for the historians and scholars working to make these often untold stories available to the public.

I’m also thankful for brilliant women like Dr. Annie Andrews running to challenge Lindsay Graham for his Senate seat. She joins a group of Democrats that will run in the primary next year—looking forward to 2026 to get to work on some of these state-level campaigns. If you don’t want to wait until next year, make sure to support Tina Belge as she works to secure her seat on the Greenville City Council this November.

Of course on Saturday we have all the No Kings marches in the state and nationwide. Despite the administration’s attempts to cosplay being Macho Men (and wasting millions of dollars illegally deploying the military, as if the LAPD wasn’t historically fascist enough lol) and all the baby MAGA state-level people like our very own AG Alan Wilson parroting these stern admonishments that we better watch out about exercising our First Amendment rights, I’ll be out there, as will hundreds of thousands of other Americans who believe in the upholding the Constitution and rule of law. Hope to see you!