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We Can Do Better Than This

An urgent manifesto for how we can shape a better world for LGBTQ+ people

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We Can Do Better Than This

By: Beth Ditto, Owen Jones, Peppermint, Olly Alexander, Wolfgang Tillmans, Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, Amelia Abraham - editor
Narrated by: Amelia Abraham, Owen Jones, Peppermint, Amrou Al-Kadhi, Yasmin Benoit, Wolfgang Tillmans, Naoise Dolan, Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, Travis Alabanza
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

How can we create a better world for LGBTQ+ people? 35 extraordinary voices share their stories and visions for the future.

We talk about achieving 'LGBTQ+ equality', but around the world, LGBTQ+ people are still suffering discrimination and extreme violence. How do we solve this urgent problem, allowing queer people everywhere the opportunity to thrive?

In We Can Do Better Than This, 35 voices explore this question. Through deeply moving stories and provocative new arguments on safety and visibility, dating and gender, care and community, they map new global frontiers in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights.

Pabllo Vittar pleads for the end of hate murders, Olly Alexander champions inclusive sex education in schools, and Beth Ditto calls for a revolution in representation. Elsewhere, Mykki Blanco sets out a vision to end HIV stigma, Owen Jones demands improved LGBTQ+ mental health services, and Travis Alabanza imagines a world without gender policing.

Moving from the UK and USA to Russia, Bangladesh and beyond, this is a guide to understanding the crucial issues facing LGBTQ+ people today. But it's also a passionate call to action and an important manifesto for how - together - we can start to create a better future.

Edited by journalist and author Amelia Abraham, with writing from:

Peppermint - Wolfgang Tillmans - Olly Alexander - Jonathan Anderson - Pabllo Vittar - Naoise Dolan - Amrou Al-Kadhi - Shura - Beth Ditto - Owen Jones - Riyadh Khalaf - Tom Rasmussen - Mykki Blanco - Phyll Opoku-Gyimah - Travis Alabanza - Yasmin Benoit - Mazharul Islam - Kate Bornstein - Adam Eli - Shon Faye - Fox Fisher - Hanne Gaby Odiele - Sasha Kazantseva - Andrew Gurza - Holland - Levi Hord - Juliet Jacques - Leticia Opio - madison moore - Matthew Riemer (@LGBT_History) - Vincent Desmond - Juno Roche - Bobbi Salvör Menuez - Carl Siciliano

© ed. Amelia Abraham 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

 Biographies & Memoirs Essays Freedom & Security LGBTQ+ Studies Literature & Fiction Politics & Government Discrimination LGBTQIA+

Critic Reviews

With We Can Do Better Than This, Amelia Abraham has switched on every light in the queer village, illuminating the still-not-visible and giving space to many, important, intersectional voices on pregnancy and gender, for instance; refuge; ageing and queer community, or the dream of a trans-majority future. Let this be an invitation for us to read further on every pertinent subject and brilliant mind in it

(Paul Mendez, author of Rainbow Milk)
A queer selection box that's at once thought-provoking and powerful, and at times very funny. This is a snapshot of where we are now, and where we need to get to (Juno Dawson, author of This Book is Gay)
A vibey roundtable, an atlas charting global disparities but also interconnectedness, an expedition over the rainbow, a friendly and fierce survey of this critical juncture. Join up (Jeremy Atherton Lin, author of Gay Bar)
We Can Do Better Than This is a diverse and powerful collection of writing from 35 inspiring figures, as they reflect on their own experiences of being queer. It poses a simple but essential question: how can we create a better world for our LGBTQ+ family? . . . Urgent and vital (Uli Lenart)
Captivating . . . We Can Do Better Than This imagines the next step for our community . . . Digs deep to present a candid commentary on the LGBTQ+ community's ongoing issues and delivers hopeful, thoughtful solutions. Simply put, it's a must-read
Thoughtful and thought-provoking, this book embodies the rainbow-coloured diversity of the queer community and neatly articulates the struggles ahead. It is an education in why the concept of 'pride' remains not only relevant but critical (Mohsin Zaidi, author of A Dutiful Boy)
Read and be inspired! Global voices with ideas to shape a brighter LGBTQ+ future - a planet without criminalisation, discrimination and hate crime. This book is a reminder that it starts with us and now (Peter Tatchell)
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