Notes From the Margins: From Sickle Cell to Save the Children to the Word ‘Queer

In this three-part episode of Rigour & Flow, we explore how race, gender, and language shape our lives,  and how health inequities, queer histories, and identity politics often get erased.

Aiwan opens with a deep dive into sickle cell and other racialised health disparities, reflecting on her own sickle cell trait diagnosis as a child and how the UK’s most common genetic condition continues to be under-researched and underfunded. 

Tamanda traces the forgotten queer history of Save the Children’s radical founder, Eglantyne Jebb. Plus the hidden twenty-year love affair that formed the backdrop to the charity’s early vision.

And together, we grapple with a question sparked by Tamanda’s mum, and our wonderful business partner, Travis Baxter: What does the word “queer” really mean, and who gets to claim it?

This episode weaves together personal story, public health, queer history, and language politics - from ringworm and fibroids to possibilities of Save the Children’s “lavender marriage”. It's a curious, surprising, and emotionally rich ride through the margins of health, history, and identity.

In this episode:

• Why sickle cell is still so underfundedm, and what that reveals about racial bias in healthcare. (Shout out NHS Race & Health Observatory and Sickle Cell Foundation, who released their own cogent analysis and report into this issue just weeks after we recorded the episode!)
• From fibroids to ringworm: the difference Black representation makes in diagnosis and care.
• Meet Eglantyne Jebb, radical founder of Save the Children, queer humanitarian, and badass rule-breaker.
• The surprising lesbian history behind the Declaration of the Rights of the Child.
• What “queer” means across generations, and what it means to claim or reject the word whatever your age or background.

On misnaming, identity policing, and why language still carries weight in Black and queer communities.

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