Note: This was published under the name “Ashley Mardell,” but the author has since changed their name to “Ash Hardell,” so that’s what I’m using here.
What a useful, thoughtfully considered book. The ABC’s of LGBT+ is an introduction to a long list of LGBTQIA+ identifiers and terminology. This covers a huge range of labels. I am someone who’s been in queer communities online (and offline) for about 10 years, and I feel like I’m pretty well-read in LGBTQIA+ topics, especially current use, but I encountered quite a few words I didn’t recognize, which was exciting!
My favourite thing about this book, though, is that it is almost entirely people representing their own identities. Ash Hardell has gathered a huge amount of contributors, all writing about their own labels. On top of that, Hardell has gathered a lot of great, knowledgeable people representing different letters in the LGBTQIA+ acronym to edit and proofread the book. This makes for definitions that are obviously very well thought out, and tailored to be inclusive and allow for the many nuances that this conversation introduces. Hardell even includes a few discussions between different readers about the intricacies of some of the more thorny topics brought up–how these words might be used, or how they might be offensive.
If this sounds academic and dense, I’m completely misrepresenting it! Although I learned new words here, it’s also written to be very accessible to people who are new to learning queer terminology. It’s a lot of personal essays, and even the definitions attempt to be easy-to-read. There are also tons of colourful illustrations included, as well as photos of contributors.
I think this would be such an awesome book to have in school libraries, GSAs, public libraries—any place where people are questioning their identities! This could be hugely affirming for lots of people, especially since so many identities are accompanied by personal stories by people who share that identity. This way, people can not only find a label that might speak to them, they can also, at the same time, find representation of that label! And these essays are accompanied by links to those people’s videos, blogs, and various online endeavors, so anyone interested can find out more.
I did have some minor complaints. One is some minor typos and page formatting. The other is all the bit.ly links included in the footnotes. I love the idea! Seeing the videos and online lives of the people linked would be amazing! The problem is, even though they’re short links, it’s just not conducive to the experience of reading a book to put it down, pull out your laptop, and carefully type out the link as printed.
What might be a good solution is having a website that you can go to that has all the links, sorted as they appear in the book. So after reading Chapter 1, you can go the website and click through all the links and embedded videos that were mentioned in that chapter!
That’s just me getting excited about a way to make this book even better, though. It’s already an excellent text. I would highly recommend it for any school, library, or any other place where people might be questioning their sexual, romantic, or gender identities. I was already a fan of Ash Hardell, but this was even better than I hoped!
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