I'm trying to figure out why I was perfectly fine with On Savage Shores being written by a white scholar from England, and did not like at all that this was written by a white scholar from Australia. I don't think it came down to gender as much as a straight author writing queer history. Smithers certainly seemed to have buy in from the community, and interviewed a lot of names I know, and yet... Maybe just the vibe was off? I do appreciate that people from an out group can write about cultures not their own, but I'm still a little cautious of it as a concept. I gave it a try anyway, but wasn't finding anything strong enough to outweigh my misgivings, then noticed a couple errors, then gave up.

It did feel like that Beacon could've made its "Queer Perspectives" series #OwnVoices in a way that this wasn't. Could be okay as at a 101 level primer on the topic, but I'm left with a strong "but why tho?" feeling.