Books
Crisis and Care: Queer Activist Responses to a Global Pandemic reveals what is possible when activists mobilize for the radical changes our society needs. In a time of great uncertainty, fear, and isolation, Queer activists organized for health equity, prison abolition, racial justice, and more. Nobody who lived through the COVID-19 pandemic will soon forget the challenges, sacrifices, and incredible loss felt during such an uncertain time in history. Crisis and Care anthologizes not what happened during COVID-19, or why it happened, but rather how Queer activists responded in real time. It considers the necessity to memorialize resiliency as well as loss, hope as well as pain, to remember the strides forward as well as the steps back. Activist contributors Zephyr Williams, Mark Travis Rivera, Jamie Gliksberg, Denise Spivak, Emmett Patterson, Omar Gonzales-Pagan, Kenyon Farrow, and more provide a radical lens through which future activists can consider effective strategies to make change, even or perhaps especially, during periods of crisis.
“In Crisis and Care, Adrian Shanker and the contributing authors make the bold case that we are defined not by the bad things that happen in our society, but by how our community responds.” —Robyn Ochs, editor of Bi Women’s Quarterly
PM Press, 2022 (ISBN: 9781629639352)
Bodies and Barriers: Queer Activists on Health was called “comprehensive and relevant” by Gay City News, “a roadmap for action” by Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide” and “a valuable addition to the literature” by Philadelphia Gay News and was a 2021 finalist for the Golden Crown Literary Awards.
LGBTQI+ people pervasively experience health disparities, affecting every part of their bodies and lives. Yet many are still grappling to understand the mutually reinforcing healthcare challenges that lead LGBTQI+ people to experience worsened health outcomes. Named by Book Riot as one of the “six best books addressing healthcare system inequities“, one of “ten impactful books about public health“, and one of the top “11 books addressing bias against women in healthcare and medicine,” Bodies and Barriers informs healthcare professionals, students in health professions, policy makers, and fellow activists about barriers to care and challenging healthcare experiences of LGBTQI+ people, providing insights and a roadmap for action that could improve queer health.
This critically-acclaimed book challenges conventional wisdom about healthcare delivery. It probes deeply into the roots of the health disparities and worsened health outcomes experienced by LGBTQI+ people, and it empowers activists with crucial information to fight for health equity through clinical, behavioral, and policy changes.
The activist contributors in Bodies and Barriers look for tangible improvements — their stories are lessons learned for caring healthcare professionals, sympathetic policy makers, and motivated activists drawing lessons from the history of HIV/AIDS in America and from struggles against healthcare bias and discrimination. At a galvanizing moment in time when LGBTQI+ people have experienced great strides in lived equality, but our health as a community still lags, here is an indispensable blueprint for change by some of the most passionate and important health activists in the LGBTQI+ movement today.
“On-the-ground activists and health care professionals will be well served by this recommended anthology.” – Library Journal
PM Press, 2020 (ISBN: 978-1-62963-784-6). A free discussion guide is also available for download for reading or discussion groups.
Book Chapters
Authored “From SOGI Data Collection to Vaccine Promotion: The Journey of LGBTQ Health Activism During COVID-19” and coauthored “Utilizing State Level Risk Factor Data to Analyze COVID-19 Risk: Impact Among LGBTQI+ Pennsylvanians”, chapters in COVID-19, the LGBTQIA+ Community, and Public Policy edited by Wallace Swan (Routledge 2022). While some pioneering studies analyzing the impacts of the pandemic upon LGBTQIA+ communities have been conducted, and some efforts are being made to collect data which can impact the development of policy, reliable data resources are limited. This book explores precisely how the pandemic has affected these communities.
Co-authored “Queer and Quitting: Addressing Tobacco Use as an LGBTQ Issue”, a chapter in The Routledge Handbook for LGBTQIA Administration and Policy edited by Wallace Swan (Routledge, 2018). While a host of books have analyzed legal dimensions of LGBT public policy, this authoritative Routledge handbook is the first to utilize up-to-the-minute empirical data to examine and unpack the corrosive “post-factual” changes undermining LGBT public policy development. Taking an innovative look at a wide range of social and policy issues of broad interest, this comprehensive and cutting-edge volume will be a landmark reference work on LGBT administration and policy for decades to come.
Journal Articles
Adrian Shanker, Melissa Korniejczuk (2024). Collecting Data on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity: A Promising Practice for Improving Population Health and Advancing Health Equity, Public Health Reports, online ahead of print. doi:10.1177/00333549241308401 (peer-reviewed)
B. Kaye Hayes, Adrian Shanker (2024). MMWR Supplement on National HIV Behavioral Surveillance Among Transgender Women—Seven Urban Areas, United States, 2019-2020. Public Health Reports. doi:10.1177/00333549241231190 (peer-reviewed)
Mary Foltz, Susan Falciani Maldonado, Kristen Leipert, Rachel Hamelers, Adrian Shanker (2022). LGBTQ Community Archives in Small Urban Centers: Reflections on Community and University Partnerships to Build Awareness of the Lehigh Valley’s Rich LGBTQ History from AIDS Activism to Anti-Discrimination Legislation, European Journal of American Studies. http://journals.openedition.org/ejas/18365 (peer-reviewed)
Patrick Kelly, Paul D’Avanzo, Adrian Shanker, Katie Suppes, Anne Frankel, David Sawrer (2022). The Relationship Between Gender-affirming Procedures, Body Image Quality of Life, and Gender Affirmation, Transgender Health. https://doi.org/10.1089/trgh.2021.0081 (peer-reviewed)
Mary Foltz, Adrian Shanker, Liz Bradbury, Kristen Leipert (2022). A Litany of Saints: Remembering the Early Years of AIDS Coalitional Activism in the First Year of a New Pandemic, InterAlia: A Journal of Queer Studies. https://doi.org/10.51897/interalia/UBQQ8712
Patrick Kelly, Anne Frankel, Paul D’Avanzo, Katie Suppes, Adrian Shanker, David Sarwer, (2020). Psychosocial Differences Between Transgender Individuals With and Without History of Nonsurgical Facial Injectables, Aesthetic Surgery Journal Open Forum, https://doi.org/10.1093/asjof/ojaa050 (peer-reviewed)
Susan G. Kahlenberg, Adrian Shanker (2020). A Service-Learning and Integrative-Learning Model for Media Advocacy on Behalf of Nonprofit Organizations, Communication Teacher, https://doi.org/10.1080/17404622.2020.1834593 (peer-reviewed)
Image description 1: three images of the book cover of Crisis and Care: Queer Activist Responses to a Global Pandemic, a rainbow background with red and orange molecular spheres resembling the COVID-19 virus. Book is displayed on a tablet, a phone, and in print.
Image description 2: the book cover of Bodies and Barriers: Queer Activists on Health, a grey cover with black speckles and a rainbow of people from an infant to an older adult. The book is presented in ebook on a tablet and phone, and also in print. The logo for “Goldie Finalist” from Golden Crown Literary Society” is in the top center.
Image description 3: the book cover of COVID-19, the LGBTQIA+ Community, and Public Policy. The cover features a progress pride flag with bold text over a black and pink background.
Image description 4: the book cover of The Routledge Handbook of LGBTQIA Administration and Policy. The cover features a person with long blond hair wearing a blue hat. There is also a pride flag.