New Healthcare Consumer Anthology By Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center Executive Director Set for Publication in Early 2020

Bodies and Barriers: Queer Activists on Health is the first anthology of activist writing by LGBT healthcare consumers to inform the healthcare system

ALLENTOWN, PA -- Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center Executive Director, Adrian Shanker, has edited a new anthology of essays by LGBT activists which is set for release and distribution in early 2020. The book, Bodies and Barriers: Queer Activists on Health (PM Press, 2020) features essays by prominent activists in the LGBT community including a foreword by Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Rachel Levine, an Afterword by national LGBT leader Kate Kendell, and chapters by 26 activists from around the world, including Erie School Board member Tyler Titus. Bodies and Barriers is the first book written by LGBT healthcare consumers to inform the healthcare system and make it work more equitably for all of us. The book is structured chronologically to take the reader on a journey through the major stages of life for LGBT people.

The 256 page book is published by Bay Area publisher PM Press and has already received book endorsements from the President of GLMA (formerly known as the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association), the Executive Directors of the National Nurse-Led Care Consortium and the National LGBTQ Task Force, and the former director of the Rhode Island Department of Health.

Through artfully articulated, data-informed essays by twenty-six well-known and emerging queer activists-including Alisa Bowman, Jack Harrison-Quintana, Liz Margolies, Robyn Ochs, Sean Strub, Justin Sabia-Tanis, Ryan Thoreson, Imani Woody, and more-Bodies and Barriers illuminates the health challenges LGBT people experience throughout their lives and challenges conventional wisdom about health care delivery. It probes deeply into the roots of the disparities faced by those in the LGBT community and provides crucial information to fight for health equity and better health outcomes.

Jonathan Lassiter, coeditor of Black LGBT Health in the United States: The Intersection of Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation wrote in his endorsement of Bodies and Barriers: "Adrian Shanker and the contributing authors highlight the need for clinicians to up their game when it comes to caring for sexual and gender minority people in their practices. Bodies and Barriers serves as a guide with concrete suggestions for developing knowledge, awareness, and skills to provide holistic care for LGBT people from the cradle to the grave. This book is a gem in that it centers LGBT people's voices telling providers exactly how they want to be treated. It's time providers listen to and act on these recommendations."

Bodies and Barriers will be launched in Dallas, Texas on January 17th at the Creating Change Conference, the largest national LGBT movement building conference in the U.S. Book events are already scheduled in Washington DC, San Francisco CA, Oakland CA, Milford PA, York PA, and Allentown PA with additional dates and locations still to be announced.

More information about Bodies and Barriers: Queer Activists on Health is available at www.adrianshanker.com or at www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1079