This Monday, Jan. 8, Ms. Studios dropped the first episode of United Bodies—a new podcast about the lived experience of health. Hosted and co-produced by Kendall Ciesemier, an acclaimed health and disability advocate and writer, United Bodies examines how physical, mental, spiritual and social health impacts how we understand ourselves, how we interact with the world and how we may fight for a better one.
United Bodies premieres at a time, as Ciesemier says in the first episode, when “[o]ne of the most present themes in our lived experience of health … is the war on bodily autonomy.” Consistent attacks on reproductive freedom and gender-affirming care—which include the denial of treatment and the ability to live freely in one’s body—are steeped in a long history of social control. As Ciesemier explains, that control, often expressed through eugenics, racism or ableism, is “experienced in the everyday lives of disabled people.”
Episode 1, “Our United Fight for Bodily Autonomy,” features Imani Barbarin, a disability activist, creator and writer. Both Ciesemier and Barbarin were “born into disability,” and the two discuss growing up and living in a bodies that are “under consideration” at all times—but ones that are seldom considered: bodies that others want to put hands on, put under conservatorships or guardianships and talk about but not ones that others are willing to accommodate.
Ciesemier and Barbarin also explore the interplay of disability and racial justice. Barbarin connects the control and cruelty exerted over and shown towards disabled people to white supremacy: “racism disables people both mentally and physically,” she explains. When we consider histories of eugenics and racial domination, Barbarin says, we see that “[w]hite supremacy is the goal, and ableism is the toolkit.”
This first episode is just the beginning of an 11-episode season. Every Monday, Ciesemier will engage in conversation with activists, writers, comedians, poets and creators. Her guests range from Colorado’s poet laureate and renowned spoken word poet Andrea Gibson, to celebrated comedian and writer Samantha Irby, to acclaimed writer, activist and facilitator adrienne maree brown—and the subjects they cover span from the criminalization of mental illness to what it means to experience pleasure.
The first half of the season, as Ciesemier describes it, centers on “addressing and navigating the world we have.” The second centers on creating “the world we need.” The episodes can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or the Ms. Studios website.
Ciesemier hopes that when we explore the forces that shape our health and that, in turn, shape our identities, “we can meet both ourselves and others with more empathy and maybe even realize our fights for equity, justice, freedom, and accessibility are united.”
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