Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by sucreslibrary
Bodies and Barriers: Queer Activists on Health by Adrian Shanker, Kate Kendell, Rachel L. Levine
2.0
well this was a disappointing start to pride month!
while the intentions in this collection are good, it is simply too surface-level to be of much use. this is aimed at health care professionals as well as activists and health policy makers, and i find it difficult to see much value being gleaned out of these essays. so much of the advice is boilerplate. I also realized very early on that my idea of health and the essay writers' were different. a lot of essays bring up that lgbt people are more likely to be "overweight" or "obese" and just let that fact hang there without bringing anything else up. 'cause as we all know, being fat definitely is up there as one of the worst things a person could be.
there's a distinct lack of diversity when it comes to the essay writers. out of 23 essays, 7 are written by trans men and only 1 by a trans woman. the foreword is also written by a trans woman, but is not counted as an essay in the book for obvious reasons. having such a distinct lack of trans women chiming in, especially in comparison to the representation of trans men, shows that not much care was put into picking who would be writing for this collection. trans women face many unique issues, including in the healthcare space, and deserved to have more than one measly essay in a collection that includes 2 about creating non-smoking spaces.
on that note, i was surprised to see 2 essays about creating non-smoking spaces but zero about sober spaces and the place alcohol holds in the lgbt community. there is an essay written by an alcoholic, but that is mostly about his personal journey and does not delve into the way alcohol companies have used the higher rates of alcoholism in the lgbt community to their marketing advantage or how they have managed to co-opt events like pride marches. this is a shame, especially because one of the essays about smoking tackled the tobacco industry in an informative way. it seems like a real misstep not to do the same with alcohol.
there was also an essay about suicide that spends 3 of its 4.5 pages to explain, in extreme detail, the author's suicide attempt including the multiple methods he planned to use. apparently this "trauma specialist" doesn't know the general rule that giving that level of detail is severely frowned upon as it can be extremely triggering plus basically gives an instruction manual to anyone considering their own suicide.
there were a couple essays that severely focused on the marketing of different campaigns, and while I can understand that from a political and health perspective, one of these essays really just felt like a weird ad for Grindr. the author is the "vice president for social impact" at Grindr and goes into detail about different changes they've made to the app to make it safer for its users. this includes the ability to change the icon to look like something innocuous (in case someone is snooping through the users phone and tries to out them) but notes that this feature is only for paid users in many countries (they so graciously make it free in countries where "anti-LGBT violence and its discrimination is most pervasive and devastating" but i wonder how they go about making that call. just make it free for everyone!).
lastly, 11 out of the 23 essays come from people who live or have lived in Pennsylvania with the majority of their work in lgbt circles being done in PA. the editor for the collection founded a community center in PA and serves as the executive director for said center, so it really feels like he just called up a bunch of people in the area to contribute instead of reaching out to places throughout America (not to mention including voices outside of the US). the majority of the remaining 12 essays were from people on the east coast, with a couple written by Californians. there's hardly anything said about the south (where I live) and so I felt incredibly removed from so much of the advice given in this collection. it just felt very strange going every other essay reading about PA again and not feeling like a lot of examples given fit into my own experiences. there is an essay about organizing for lesbians in rural communities, but it has a real issue with transmisogyny which was upsetting to read.
all in all this was not what I wanted it to be. I should have expected that my own ideas of health and the kind of bodily autonomy I believe in would not be front-and-center of this collection, but I was surprised by just how reductive and behind-the-times a lot of it felt.
while the intentions in this collection are good, it is simply too surface-level to be of much use. this is aimed at health care professionals as well as activists and health policy makers, and i find it difficult to see much value being gleaned out of these essays. so much of the advice is boilerplate. I also realized very early on that my idea of health and the essay writers' were different. a lot of essays bring up that lgbt people are more likely to be "overweight" or "obese" and just let that fact hang there without bringing anything else up. 'cause as we all know, being fat definitely is up there as one of the worst things a person could be.
there's a distinct lack of diversity when it comes to the essay writers. out of 23 essays, 7 are written by trans men and only 1 by a trans woman. the foreword is also written by a trans woman, but is not counted as an essay in the book for obvious reasons. having such a distinct lack of trans women chiming in, especially in comparison to the representation of trans men, shows that not much care was put into picking who would be writing for this collection. trans women face many unique issues, including in the healthcare space, and deserved to have more than one measly essay in a collection that includes 2 about creating non-smoking spaces.
on that note, i was surprised to see 2 essays about creating non-smoking spaces but zero about sober spaces and the place alcohol holds in the lgbt community. there is an essay written by an alcoholic, but that is mostly about his personal journey and does not delve into the way alcohol companies have used the higher rates of alcoholism in the lgbt community to their marketing advantage or how they have managed to co-opt events like pride marches. this is a shame, especially because one of the essays about smoking tackled the tobacco industry in an informative way. it seems like a real misstep not to do the same with alcohol.
there was also an essay about suicide that spends 3 of its 4.5 pages to explain, in extreme detail, the author's suicide attempt including the multiple methods he planned to use. apparently this "trauma specialist" doesn't know the general rule that giving that level of detail is severely frowned upon as it can be extremely triggering plus basically gives an instruction manual to anyone considering their own suicide.
there were a couple essays that severely focused on the marketing of different campaigns, and while I can understand that from a political and health perspective, one of these essays really just felt like a weird ad for Grindr. the author is the "vice president for social impact" at Grindr and goes into detail about different changes they've made to the app to make it safer for its users. this includes the ability to change the icon to look like something innocuous (in case someone is snooping through the users phone and tries to out them) but notes that this feature is only for paid users in many countries (they so graciously make it free in countries where "anti-LGBT violence and its discrimination is most pervasive and devastating" but i wonder how they go about making that call. just make it free for everyone!).
lastly, 11 out of the 23 essays come from people who live or have lived in Pennsylvania with the majority of their work in lgbt circles being done in PA. the editor for the collection founded a community center in PA and serves as the executive director for said center, so it really feels like he just called up a bunch of people in the area to contribute instead of reaching out to places throughout America (not to mention including voices outside of the US). the majority of the remaining 12 essays were from people on the east coast, with a couple written by Californians. there's hardly anything said about the south (where I live) and so I felt incredibly removed from so much of the advice given in this collection. it just felt very strange going every other essay reading about PA again and not feeling like a lot of examples given fit into my own experiences. there is an essay about organizing for lesbians in rural communities, but it has a real issue with transmisogyny which was upsetting to read.
all in all this was not what I wanted it to be. I should have expected that my own ideas of health and the kind of bodily autonomy I believe in would not be front-and-center of this collection, but I was surprised by just how reductive and behind-the-times a lot of it felt.