Abstract
This unique, timely anthology addresses a range of issues facing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities through a variety of voices and topics related to social work education, policy, practice, and research. While the book focuses on LGBTQ communities and issues, it also takes an intersectional and anti-oppressive approach to working with and across marginalized groups and resists essentialized constructions of LGBTQ people and communities.
The book consists of 18 chapters divided into three sections: (1) Critical Reflections and Internal Tensions; (2) Fields of Service, Practice, and Organizational Change; and (3) Social Work Education and Pedagogy. The first section includes several chapters that offer insight into the complexity of LGBTQ identities and experiences as well as elucidating some of the oppressions that exist within and between LGBTQ communities. Part II focuses on organizational policy and social work practices that impact LGBTQ people in a range of settings. This section includes examples from the field and describes the way that a focus on intersectional LGBTQ communities can contribute to more liberatory social work practices and policies. The last section addresses issues related to LGBTQ within classroom discussions, curriculum, and field experience.
Although it is a Canadian text, the book has significant applicability to the U.S. context. The strength of this anthology is in its intersectional approach, its range of topics and contributors, and the diversity of issues it addresses. All contributors employ intersectionality differently depending on their specific topic, as the editors allowed each author to define terms, frameworks, and constructs for their own contributions. Chapters include personal narratives, critical essays, empirical studies, and pieces based explicitly on organizational, practice, and/or classroom experiences and are written by activists, practitioners, students, and scholars—all of whom offer important and complimentary perspectives on the content being discussed. The text also covers many issues that are often marginalized or even invisible within LGBTQ discourses in social work such as experiences of LGBTQ people of color, the intersections of gender, sexuality and disability, bisexuality, LGBTQ aging, explorations of classroom and curricular issues, and practice examples. As is often true of anthologies of this nature, at times, the collection feels uneven in terms of quality and depth of the pieces. It may also be a harder stand-alone text for those who are not at all familiar with any aspects of LGBTQ experiences or the multiple oppressions facing these communities.
Overall, this anthology is an excellent addition to the social work literature on LGBTQ communities. The book takes a transformational and invitational tone—raising questions and issues to help the field to be more critical, responsive, and thoughtful in the way that queer issues are considered and addressed. While many social work approaches have provided single issue and/or unidimensional views of LGBTQ communities, the contributions in this book expand this social work discourse in important ways. This collection would be useful for undergraduate and graduate students in social work as well as other allied fields such as nursing, counseling, gender studies, and education. In addition, chapters from this book may have utility for activists and practitioners working in varied practice settings with LGBTQ communities.