Radically Disfigured Podcast

07/11/2022

As many of you know my partner and co-host Lex passed away last month.

We created this podcast to bring attention to disfigurement related experiences, issues, and advocacy. All of which I think we have accomplished and can be very proud of.

While we discussed many things she wanted to happen in the event of her passing from ocular melanoma, the future of this podcast was not one of them. Maybe because it meant so much to us building it together, it was too painful to imagine.

I wanted to announce this on here and let people know that while I am taking time to grieve and reassess, that this podcast still means so much to me and meant so much to the both of us. There were topics we still planned to discuss, guests we imagined having on, and I hope to still do those things, it just may take me some time.

If you’d like to read her article published in the LA times, it is available in the link in our bio.
Much love, Charlie

27/08/2022

Part 2 of our interview with Dr. Bogart is out! In this episode we’ll be sharing the last part of our interview with Kathleen, discussing her article “A Hidden Community: The Fight for Face Equality” in Psychology Today.

The complete name of the memoir she mentioned by James Partridge, founder of Changing Faces and Face Equality International, is titled "Face It: Facial Disfigurement and My Fight for Face Equality."

Art credit: Saturn Morgan (instagram )

18/08/2022

She has arrived! Part 1 of our interview with Dr. Bogart, disability professor and FD advocate. In this episode Dr. Bogart reflects on her experiences at the recent Moebius syndrome conference and living with Moebius syndrome, as well as the intersections of disability, disfigurement, and having a .

You can visit her blog, Disability is Diversity, on at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/disability-is-diversity

Art Credit: Saturn Morgan



Image: Grayscale image of people gathered together. Two people are holding signs. The first sign reads "A Hidden Community:" and the second sign says "The Fight for Face Equality." In the left side in red font is "Part 1."

28/07/2022

Coming Soon! Join us as we sit down with a very special guest - Kathleen Bogart disability professor and FD advocate. You can check out her blog on Psychology Today (Disability Is Diversity) and stay tuned!

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/disability-is-diversity

Image: a headshot photo of Dr. Bogart. The background shows a wooden fence, a tree branch, and a lot of leaves. Dr. Bogart is wearing a beige cardigan with a blue shirt and a necklace and glasses.

08/06/2022

It has arrived! "Stop Erasing Disfigurement from your Disability Politics" is our first zine to come out by! Stop Erasing Disfigurement from your Disability Politics by discusses organizing, theory, and solutions for disfigurement organizing as a part of and distinct from disability justice.

Images:
(Slide 1): A picture of the disfigured anti-hero superhero Deadpool wearing his red and black suit. There are two text boxes on the left with black text on a white background. The first says "Stop Erasing Disfigurement from your Disability Politics." The second box says "by your angry, facially disfigured friends, Charlie Manzano and Lex Rivers."
(Slide 2): White text on black background. Text says: "Disfigurement (noun): Anything that spoils the appearance or shape of, or in other words, deforms.

Introduction: Disfigurement is a neglected human rights issue which is regularly ignored and erased even in many social justice movements and spaces. Disability politics and spaces are no exception, regularly dismissing disfigurement related topics, all the while claiming disfigured people and struggles for their own visibility. This zine hopes to address these injustices in disability organizing and pose solutions for undoing these harms."

11/05/2022

Hey y’all, it’s the moment you’ve been waiting for - or what you were unaware of and didn’t know you needed - our website is LIVE! You can find information about the podcast and your co-hosts, a disfigurement resources list, as well as zines & media by yours truly and more. Check it out and share with your fellow radical and radically disfigured friends! Visit us at radicallydisfigured.com.



Image
(Slide 1): A screenshot of the homepage for the radically disfigured website. White text on collage. Header text reads “Radically Disfigured Podcast”. The background image is from the cover of the zine “The Real: Facial Disfigurement and My Cancer Experience” depicting a facially disfigured person’s face, put together using a variety of scraps from other faces.
(Slide 2): Black text on white background. Header text reads: "A podcast for and by the facial disfigurement community about disfigurement topics, issues, and activism." A few lines lower in a smaller font text reads "Who are we?: We are two young adult facial cancer patients who wanted to create more resources for those struggling with FD (facial disfigurement and facial difference). We wanted a place to share ideas, engage in conversation with others from different walks of life, and the opportunity to create a platform advocating for facial equality."

23/04/2022

Newest episode is out! We are proud to present: Ugly. Listen in to hear us discuss ID labels including facial disfigurement and facial difference, as well as how concepts like ugly and beautiful impact our logics and organizing. A big shout out to our listeners and to who influenced this episode and podcast. -Your radically facially disfigured friends, Charlie and Lex ❤

Image: Black text on white background says "ugly" with black scribbles across the background.

16/02/2022

“Politeness devalues my appearance. And it devalues my experience”.
Can you guess what we’re covering in our next episode? That’s right - Ugly. Embracing ugly and disfigurement and moving away from beauty as moral goodness. Shout out to Robert Hoge and his revolutionary work for inspiring us and this podcast!

Image: First slide, a screenshot of an article about Robert Hoge including a picture of his face beside his book “Ugly”. The title is “If I’m not ugly, no one is”: Robert Hoge owns his face.
Second slide, a screenshot of SpongeBob SquarePants with the caption “Im ugly and I’m proud”.

09/02/2022

Hi I'm Charlie (he/him), co-host of the Radically Disfigured Podcast! I am 23 years old, and I have an acquired cancer related facial disfigurement. Outside of this podcast, I run the Young Adult Facial/Bodily Difference and Disfigurement Network (facebook), the Transgender Cancer Patient Project (), and the Transgender Cancer Network (facebook). I also write zines about my experiences and larger cancer related and FD topics that you can check out on the transcancerzine website!

Find me on instagram

Slide 1: a black and white cartoon of Charlie smiling with a scar across his face and neck indicated by a line.

Slide 2: a photo of Charlie sitting on a blue couch curled up in blanket smiling looking at camera. He is on his phone and has a little white dog beside him.

06/02/2022

Hello! My name is Lex, I use she/her pronouns. I am one of the co-hosts of the Radically Disfigured Podcast. I am 27 years old, and I have a recently acquired cancer-related facial disfigurement, for about one year now. I am also a Registered Nurse, not currently practicing due to disability, though I was previously working in oncology care. I very am passionate about nursing, and I also like to write poetry. Recently, I have been writing poetry about my experiences with cancer and FD. I also hope to write more publicly, critically analyzing topics related to both cancer and FD and more.

Find me on Instagram .lex

Image (slide 1): a cartoon drawing of Lex, who is wearing an eyepatch.
Image (slide 2): a photograph of Lex with plants in the background, Lex is wearing a black eyepatch and has wavy purple-black hair running down on her left side.

04/02/2022

Episode 1 is HERE!!! Check it out on Spotify and Anchor (links below). We are very excited to share this introductory episode, in which you meet the hosts (Charlie and Lex) and are introduced to a handful of FD topics.

https://anchor.fm/radicallydisfigured/episodes/Intro-to-the-Radically-Disfigured-Podcast-e1a9puk

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5EDoxUR5G2XuRow7FtCTa6?si=CXvvz07lQHy6n1H2shXVxQ&nd=1

Image: A preview of the Anchor link for the very first episode of the Radically Disfigured Podcast, featuring a black and white cartoon drawing of Charlie and Lex looking at one another. Lex has an eye patch and Charlie has facial scarring indicated by lines on his face and neck.

We hope to create and support a platform where the disfigurement community can engage in meaningful discussions, with the end goal of furthering justice and organizing with and for our community. We are your hosts Charlie Manzano and Lexis Rivers! In this episode, we will be discussing our backgroun...

01/02/2022

We are very excited to announce the start of the Radically Disfigured Podcast! Radically Disfigured is a new podcast for and by the disfigurement community. Join Lexis Rivers (she/her) and me, Charlie Manzano (he/him), as we tackle hotbed disfigurement topics and discourses happening in the facial disfigurement community, from terminology and labels to the fight for facial equality. We hope to create and support a platform where the disfigurement community can engage in meaningful discussions, with the end goal of furthering justice and organizing with and for our community. Stay tuned for updates on when episodes come out, and other important info!

Image: A drawing of two people facing each other against a white background with large red text on top: "Radically Disfigured." There is a beige colored text box in the bottom-right that reads "a Facial Disfigurement Podcast" and in black text on the bottom "with Lexis Rivers and Charlie Manzano." The person on the left is wearing an eyepatch and the person on the right has a scar indicated by a line drawn across his face and neck.