Red Emma’s

M. K. Thekkumkattil is an ICU nurse looking for ways to show real care for their patients in the age of COVID. When not working in critical care, they struggle with chronic illness, endure controlling partners, and write letters to former patients that wrestle with the violence of professional nursing. At the same time, their slow gender awakening and the new, kink-informed relationships that accompany it begin to shape a way out of the brutalities the hospital system requires.

In essays that blend memoir and manifesto, _The Sexuality of Care _builds a convincing new argument for how the present-day medical system fails both its patients and its laboring nurses, as well as how the vision of radical consent found in queer kink practices lets us imagine a future where hospitals are abolished, yet care thrives.

M. K. Thekkumkattil is a trans, disabled, kinky writer and nurse whose liberation is bound up with Palestinian liberation. They have received support from SmokeLong Quarterly, Tin House, Queer Art Mentorship, Lambda Literary, VONA, and Writing by Writers. Their work can be found in the chapbook Weaving Liberation as well as in Black Warrior Review, smoke and mold, \__figuration, _Year Round Queer, and In the Future There Are No Hospitals.

Tanvi Avasthi (she/her/hers) is a Certified Nurse Midwife, Women's Health Nurse Practitioner, nurse educator, and anti racism organizer. She has worked as a community health nurse, emergency department nurse, and nurse educator prior to working in reproductive health and has a background in Medical Anthropology.

The throughline of her work has been providing a space for radical care and empathy that centers patients in their contexts. As a midwife, her goal is to encourage and support bodily autonomy. She believes midwives are uniquely primed to support patients' desires to be seen and supported and is excited to support the Baltimore queer & trans community.

Tanvi is holds a Master's of Arts in Anthropology from GWU, a Master's of Science in Nursing from Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, and a dual Master's degree in Midwifery and Women's Health from Georgetown University.