Hannah Yore

Hannah Yore, an end-of-life doula, public health practitioner, and oral historian, works at the intersection of illness, queer life, and collective care to support people through loss and transition. “I integrate storytelling, oral history, and intergenerational dialogue into the care continuum as core practice,” she says. Her practice is grounded in narrative medicine. “As a queer woman, I belong to a long lineage of people who have always known that care is political and who lifted the veil on illness, grief, and interdependence, and refused to let those things remain private, shameful, or unspoken.” Yore is also recognized for documenting lesbian elders’ stories across six continents through her In Time oral history project. “It is memory work and legacy work at once: an effort to ensure that what these women know, survived, and built does not disappear with them.” Yore cites The Lesbian Herstory Archives among her influences. “Across nearly every progressive movement of the last century, lesbian labor was absorbed, depended upon, and largely written out of the history that followed.” She continues, “I have been shaped by the lesbian elders I’ve conducted oral histories with, the lesbian caregivers who came before me in the HIV/AIDS crisis, and the people who have trusted me to help them during times of difficult transitions and diagnoses. My identity has been formed in community.” –MH