SAYFTEE

Reviewer: Megan Tucker, Psy.D. (she/her/hers), Body, Race, & Gender Liberation-Focused Clinician

This book is a transformative journey of radical self-love/compassion and body justice. Sonya Renee helps readers to understand the ways that oppressive systems create and maintain the societal ideals that lead to body shame. Reference my affirmative couch article on being trans & fat…it's really connected to how the book is transformative!

Reviewer: Helen Staab, LICSW and SAYFTEE Clinician

I first became familiar with Saeed Jones through his poetry, and then through his Twitter (he’s very funny and has a great dog). In his memoir, How We Fight For Our Lives, Jones applies both his humor and his way with words to tell stories of his childhood and coming of age as a Black gay man from the South. The narrative brings the reader through experiences of joy, rejection, grief and transcendence. Please note that this book is decidedly for mature readers in terms of both themes and content.

Reviewer: Jessica Kant (she/her/hers), LICSW at SAYFTEE

Milstein’s anthology Rebellious Mourning includes authors from the past several decades of organizing within marginalized communities. With a special emphasis on centering LGBTQ+ and BIPOC voices, this gorgeous collection of essays comes from a wide variety of writers tackling issues critical to our time. Milstein begins the anthology by challenging the idea that pain and loss should be private affairs:

“One of the cruelest affronts, though, was the expectation that pain should be hidden away, buried, privatized-- a lie manufactured so as to mask and uphold the social order that produces our many, unnecessary losses."

Topics include, but are not limited to: police brutality, homophobia, transphobia, disability rights, and the AIDS crisis. In a time where we must face so much uncertainty and loss, Milstein’s anthology offers a history of hope and resistance that reminds us that we’ve survived this before, and that there’s power in collective grief.

Reviewer: Nic Wildes (they/them/theirs), LMHC and co-director of SAYFTEE

In her account of self discovery as a queer Muslim woman, the author reminds us of the importance of being seen and embraced for all of who we are.

Reviewer: Helen Staab (she/her/hers), LICSW and SAYFTEE clinician

This is not the first time that Alok Vaid-Menon’s work has been on SAYFTEE Reads. Femme in Public is a chapbook of their poetry, beginning with the question “what feminine part of yourself did you have to destroy in order to survive in order to survive in this world?” Menon’s work is intensely personal in a way that draws the reader in and creates a space to reflect on our own hurt, outrage, and radical hope.

Content Warnings: Violence, discrimination, sexual assault, abuse

Reviewer: Nic Wildes (they/them/theirs), LMHC and co-director of SAYFTEE

This collection of personal narratives from 30 different humans exploring and sharing their unique experiences of gender is a gift. We all need to see ourselves reflected in others and Nonbinary offers anyone exploring gender this opportunity.

Reviewer: Jennie Knott, LICSW (she/her/hers) is an independently licensed clinical social worker who has primarily worked with survivors of trauma struggling with alcohol and drug use for the last 8 years.

A great clinical tool, Holly's perspective was a feminist companion in a field of treatment and recovery that is still so deeply burdened by patriarchal approaches to healing.

Jennie is also intimately familiar with addiction in her personal life, and was deeply moved - relieved - by Holly's critical perspective on the culture of AA and dominant recovery-culture, in general. A great clinical tool, Holly's perspective was also a feminist companion in a field of treatment and recovery that is still so deeply burdened by patriarchal approaches to healing.

Holly's perspective helped Jennie continue to resist concepts dominant in AA that often perpetuate harm on female and gender non-conforming bodies, intuition, and wisdom; and helped Jennie continue to trust, explore, and embody alternative paths for healing that are, at their core, trauma-informed and responsive, and unique to people navigating systems of oppression while simultaneously learning how to thrive without the dominant influence of alcohol and drugs.

Reviewer: Helen Staab (she/her/hers), LICSW at SAYFTEE

You may be familiar with Lavery’s work as the co-founder and contributing writer of the Toast or author of “Texts from Jane Eyre.” Lavery’s wit and intelligence is equally sharp in Something that May Shock and Discredit You, but these essays are more explicitly personal than his past work. Using metaphors from theology and pop culture to invite the reader into his lived experiences, Lavery shares about exploring his own gender identity and coming out as trans. As always, Lavery’s writing is at once laugh-out-loud clever and powerfully insightful.

Reviewer: Even Paglisott (they/them), MPH and Rose Service Learning Fellow with SAYFTEE

I picked up this book in my early twenties at a used book sale in suburban Missouri, and it was the first book about queer experiences I read. The author (Neil Miller) is a cis white gay man who takes a road trip across the US during the 80s. Each chapter finds the author in a different small town or city, talking with lesbian and gay individuals who were quietly yet openly living their lives in seemingly discriminatory places in America. Miller's portraits of queerness are simple and full of warmth, and as a young adult, I felt filled with hope hearing how much acceptance and community gay and lesbian individuals could find in these conservative places. Miller's discussions of race and racism as it intersects with queerness is very limited and he does not discuss trans experiences.

Reviewer: Even Paglisotti (they/them/theirs), MPH and Rose Service Learning Fellow with SAYFTEE

This book has been hugely transformative for me! Adrienne Maree Brown draws on the work of other Black Feminist thinkers to establish that pleasure (in all of it's forms) is a birthright. She goes on to explore what it means to move out of a mindset of pleasure scarcity and into a mindset of 'enough', as in, "There will be enough for everyone.”

The book is made up of previous blog posts, interview transcripts, art, and feminist theory, with brown's commentary woven throughout, and I love that I can pick it up and read a random chapter in it of itself! This book is a must-read for anyone invested in social justice; it drastically altered the way I approach justice work.

Reviewer: Helen Staab (she/her/hers), LICSW at SAYFTEE

A perfect creepy fall read, Plain Bad Heroines is a delightful interweaving of queer women’s narratives into a lesbian pulp-fiction inception. This book has a lot going on - mystery, ghost story, Edwardian period piece, contemporary pop fiction, with Picnic at Hanging Rock vibes and references to countless lesbian fiction tropes. A fun book to read particularly alongside friends to compare notes, as everyone will get something different out of it.