OUTTAKE VOICES
May 15th, 2020
In this exclusive audio interview Emmy Winner Charlotte Robinson host of OUTTAKE VOICES™ talks with Adrian Shanker about “Bodies and Barriers: Queer Activists on Health” the new critically acclaimed anthology that creates a road map for action that could improve LGBTQ health. With essays by twenty-six well-known and emerging LGBTQ activists the book challenges conventional wisdom about healthcare providers and probes deeply into the roots of the health disparities that worsens health outcomes for our LGBTQ community. This book couldn’t be more relevant as we deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the onset of HIV/AIDS in America LGBTQ people have struggled against healthcare bias and discrimination. Through contributing authors that include Alisa Bowman, Jack Harrison-Quintana, Liz Margolies, Robyn Ochs, Sean Strub, Justin Tanis, Ryan Thoreson, Imani Woody and more “Bodies and Barriers: Queer Activists on Health” provides us with crucial information to fight for health equity through clinical, behavioral and policy changes. Though our LGBTQ community has experienced great strides toward civil rights in this country our health as a community still lags. “Bodies and Barriers: Queer Activists on Health” provides an indispensable blueprint for change by some of the most passionate and important health activists in the LGBTQ movement today calling on clinicians to up their game when it comes to caring for sexual and gender minority people. We talked to Adrian about what he hopes to accomplish with “Bodies and Barriers: Queer Activists on Health” and his spin on our LGBTQ issues.
Adrian Shanker is an award-winning activist and organizer whose career has centered on advancing progress for the LGBT community. He has worked as an arts fundraiser, labor organizer, marketing manager, and served as President of Equality Pennsylvania for three years before founding Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center in Allentown, PA, where he serves as executive director. An accomplished organizer, Adrian has led numerous successful campaigns to advance LGBT progress through municipal nondiscrimination and relationship recognition laws and laws to protect LGBT youth from conversion therapy. A specialist in LGBT health policy, he has developed leading-edge health promotion campaigns to advance health equity through behavioral, clinical, and policy changes.
