Lifting The Veil Of Meg-John Barker Queer Activist Work

Meg-John Barker is a writer, speaker and independent scholar. Holding a PhD in Psychology from the Nottingham University, they have worked as an academic psychologist and psychotherapist in the UK, specializing in sex, gender and relationships. A background that transpires in their writings and later work.

Meg-John has written on non-monogamy, bisexuality, non-binarity, queerness and BDSM. They focus on human sexuality and relationships, through a non cisheteronormative perspective - one could even say, through a queer eye (pun intended). A much-needed theory on queer and non-tradition sexuality and relationships by a scholar that is a part of the community. In particular, they have focused a lot on the bisexual, trans and non-binary communities.

Today, we wanted to focus in particular on some of their non-fiction books, published by ICON Books, an English independent publisher. Titled ‘Queer: A Graphic History’, ‘Gender: A Graphic Guide’ and ‘Sexuality: A Graphic Guide’, all three of them have been illustrated by Jules Scheele, a Glasgow-based illustrator that specialises in graphic storytelling and illustrations that help understanding difficult concepts.

A fantastic duo that has birthed fantastic books. ‘Queer: A Graphic History’ addresses the history of queer thought and movements, explaining how current views on the topics of sex, gender and sexuality came to be. It breaks down important theoretical concepts like Alfred Kinsey's sexuality spectrum or Judith Butler theorization of gender expression as a performance.

‘Gender: A Graphic Guide’ and ‘Sexuality: A Graphic Guide’ follow the footsteps of their predecessors, addressing topics such as toxic masculinity, gender neutral toilets, non-binary and trans identities, the fear and shame of sex, sexual ‘dysfunction’ and so on. Essential manuals on essential topics, if you ask us.

Why not browse down below for a snippet of the books, to see if they might be a right fit for you?