Review of Brown Boi Project’s new health guide: Freeing Ourselves

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Vanessa mentioned this new guide a few weeks ago, and I had the honor of receiving a review copy. For folks who aren’t familiar with the Brown Boi Project:

Is a community of masculine of center womyn, men, two-spirit people, transmen, and our allies committed to transforming our privilege of masculinity, gender, and race into tools for achieving Racial and Gender Justice.

I’ve been keeping up with their work since they were founded just a few years ago, and I think it’s pretty incredible. They are really starting to make an impact in the worlds of queer organizing, gender justice and people of color spaces. The term, “masculine of center,” which the BBP founder B. Cole coined, has started to gain popularity as well.

Freeing Ourselves is an incredible book. I’m still pouring over the pages, a bit in shock that such a guide exists at all. It is by far the most comprehensive and targeted publication I’ve seen that addresses health from a truly holistic perspective, centered on the experiences of masculine of center people of color.

The guide is a vibrant and diverse publication, with photos and drawings of people in the community. Bodies that are rarely in evidence, rarely on display as the norm, populate the guide. It is 130 pages, created in partnership with health care providers across the spectrum from traditional medicine to herbal and Eastern medicine. It’s beautifully designed, peppered with factual information, first person experiences, illustrations and poetry.

The guide has information about things that I’ve searched for in the past, and found little to nothing about. Things that even health care providers have struggled to explain. Every condition described here also comes with suggestions for herbal or non-Western treatments.

This is the kind of guide I want to be as prolific and easy to find as Our Bodies, Ourselves. For now, though, you have to purchase a copy directly through BBP. They are offering it at a sliding scale of cost from $25-60.

Just to leave you with a sense of some of the topics covered in the guide:

• Tools for achieving mental and emotional wellbeing, within the traditional mental health field and beyond it
• Coping with sexual abuse and trauma
• When to partner with a healthcare provider
• Navigating gynecological exams for trans and masculine of center people
• Pregnancy and birthing for trans and masculine of center people
• Gender transition, testosterone and beyond
• Energy, diet and physical practice

And so very much more. Check out the guide here.

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