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Showing posts from December, 2018

First, Do No Harm

I’ve been working on a research project with fans of  Holby City ’s Berena for almost two years now, and in that time I’ve had the opportunity to get to know a global network of viewers who have found something special in this rare onscreen romance between two older, professional women. I’ve written about the way that women talk about the impact of this storyline on their mental health and wellbeing  here . We’ve also worked together to produce a zine about these experiences, which you can  read online   too. For a number of people, the Berena storyline has been life-changing. Though we have often been talking about dark moments in our lives, this project has been an overwhelmingly positive experience, with a community of women who are funny and argumentative as well as extraordinarily caring and tender.  Spending the last several weeks seeing many of them in anguish, sometimes withdrawing from their social media accounts to try and protect themselves, sometimes finding