Our favourite queer breast cancer memoirs
While many things are similar, the emotional and physical impact of a cancer diagnosis brings distinctive challenges for 2SLGBTQ+ people. There are thousands of books written about the cancer journey. Books written by queer authors are rarer. Here’s our recap of four memoirs from the queer breast cancer stacks.
Cancer in Two Voices by Sandra Butler and Barbara Rosenblum
Cancer in Two Voices was published in 1988. It is a hybrid collection of journal entries, letters and essays written jointly by Butler and Rosenblum, a lesbian couple experiencing the end stages of life and the impact of loss. Rosenblum was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer at the age of 42, following several egregious misdiagnoses.
“On Valentine’s Day, February 14th, 1988, Barbara Rosenblum died. She was my partner, my friend, my love. Now I sit at a computer trying to carve shape and substance into the cold marble of memory”
The book is a unique and beautiful story that navigates the fraught territory of the experiences of the dying partner and that of the one who is left to grieve. Although this book is about the process of dying, it is also a beautiful depiction of what it means to love.
“There is also gratitude that balances my loss … She is still there inside her changing body—the body so different from the body I first touched and held. One breast still high and firm. I have two breasts, somewhat fallen and considerably less firm. My body, too, has changed, grown older, and softened. We have become clearer to each other and to ourselves though, our bodies less opaque. We can see through, into each other. We are living in changed and changing bodies—living with full hearts and open minds and great love.”
The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals is perhaps the most famous queer cancer memoir. Although written over 40 years ago, this immensely impactful book that contains journal entries, memoir and commentary still resonates with great political and personal power.
“I do not wish my anger and pain and fear about cancer to fossilize into yet another silence, nor to rob me of whatever strength can lie at the core of this experience, openly acknowledged and examined. For other women of all ages, colors, and sexual identities who recognize that imposed silence about any area of our lives is a tool for separation and powerlessness, and for myself, I have tried to voice some of my feelings and thoughts about the travesty of prosthesis, the pain of amputation, the function of cancer in a profit economy, my confrontation with mortality, the strength of women loving, and the power and rewards of self-conscious living.”
The emotions that Lorde expresses, her fear and “molten despair and waves of mourning” are universal, but Lorde’s viewpoint, as a black feminist and lesbian, is counter to the prevailing straight, white bright-siding narrative of the time. Lorde describes herself as a warrior, breaking the silence and speaking the truth. Her response to her breast cancer diagnosis and treatment, similar to her response to the numerous challenges she encountered throughout her life, is both a source of wisdom and compassion for fellow cancer travellers and a call to arms.
Flat by Catherine Guthrie
Catherine Guthrie’s Flat is a compelling account of her cancer diagnosis (and mis-diagnosis) and the effects of living through and beyond cancer treatment. Guthrie journeys from being deeply at ease with her body and queer sexuality to dealing with the debilitating physical and psychological effects of surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and post-treatment hormone suppressing drugs.
She describes the process of deciding to forgo reconstruction after her double mastectomy:
“Some of my straight friends assumed going flat was an easier choice for me because of my queerness. They knew that some butch-identifying lesbians bound their breasts to achieve flatness. But what they couldn’t know was that my breasts were a part of my queer-femme identity. That there was nothing easy about it.”
Shortly after her surgery Guthrie was visited by a nurse offering her “breast forms”, two “cottony white footballs” three times the size of her original breasts. She recalls the experience of Audre Lorde, who was encouraged to wear lambswool pads to disguise her surgery. When Lorde refused she was reprimanded for posing a threat to the other patients’ morale. Guthrie likewise rejects the “pink ribbon bullshit,” that surrounds breast cancer.
The book is also the moving (love) story of how cancer reshapes Guthrie’s relationship with Mary, her partner. Guthire has described Flat as “a story about finding the strength to forge an unconventional path — one of listening to my body — that, in hindsight, I’d been on all along.”
Kimiko Does Cancer by Kimiko Tobimatsu
Kimiko Does Cancer is a graphic memoir that avoids the usual cancer clichés. With thoughtful, expressive illustrations by Keet Geniza, Kimiko Tobimatsu, a human rights lawyer, shares what it’s like to face cancer in your twenties as queer woman of colour. This includes navigating drug-induced menopause, balancing work with treatment, dating and dealing with a mixed bag of reactions from friends, doctors, and other cancer patients.
The book neatly illustrates the effects of the hyper-feminisation and cis-heteronormativity of breast cancer. For example, we are introduced to Macy, Stacy, and Lacy, three straight, cisgender white women who represent breast cancer’s ideal patients. The trio are seen organizing fund-raising events and finding transformative meaning in their diagnoses. This is not Tobimatsu’s experience as she struggles to navigate a disease where racialized women die from breast cancer at a significantly higher rate than white women.
As with Lorde and Guthrie, Tobimatsu’s account show us the damage of societal expectations of femininity and the misogyny which is at the heart of much of the treatment of breast cancer. She is offered unwanted breast enlargement after surgery, for example and struggles to find representation beyond cisgender women.
You can find more information, read a few sample pages, and buy copies of the book at Arsenal Pulp Press.
Kimiko Does Cancer is dedicated “to our fellow sick queers,” a callback to a people whose needs are often overlooked and ignored. Likewise, all of these breast cancer stories shine a much-needed light on the experiences of a community that has long been marginalized within mainstream healthcare narratives. These stories do not just document illness; they reclaim agency and celebrate queer resilience, reminding us that healing is not one-size-fits-all - it’s personal, political, and powerfully queer.
If you want to buy a copy of one of our book choices, please consider buying local. Independent bookstores (and especially queer-owned bookstores) need your support!
