Oral Histories

Interview of Laura MacIntosh

Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Lives with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS). Gender queer artist and activist. Having experienced houselessness, they advocate for developing accessible social housing.
Series:
Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness
Topic:
Social Movements
Environmental Illness
Biographical Note:
Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Lives with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS). Gender queer artist and activist. Having experienced houselessness, they advocate for developing accessible social housing.
Interviewer:
Yiu, Wei Si Nic
Interviewee:
MacIntosh, Laura
Persons Present:
MacIntosh and Yiu
Place Conducted:
The interview was conducted using the Zoom video conferencing platform.
Supporting Documents:
Records relating to the interview are located in the office of the UCLA Library’s Center for Oral History Research.
Interviewer Background and Preparation:
This interview was conducted by Wei Si Nic Yiu, a graduate student researcher, for the Center for the Study of Women; PhD student in Gender Studies, UCLA. Yiu’s dissertation focuses on queerness and archives of Asia.
Processing of Interview:
The interviewer prepared for the interview by reading a pre-interview questionnaire completed by the narrator.
Length:
2 hrs
Language:
English
Copyright:
Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library.
Audio:
Series Statement:
Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness is a collection of interviews with over seventy individuals living in the U.S. and Canada whose family history, occupation, art practice, or activism have brought them into direct contact with illness experience and disability related to chronic, low-dose exposure to toxicant chemicals. The procurement of this collection (from March 2019 through September 2020) was sponsored by the UCLA Center for the Study of Women under the directorship of Rachel C. Lee, with interviews conducted by six undergraduates, five graduate students, two career staff, and two faculty members at CSW.
Personal Background--Being ill as a toddler, having negligent parents--Earliest memory of illness and sensitivity--Kicked out of parent’s home at eighteen--Getting sick at eighteen, discovering MCS from the internet--Qualifying for Disability Support program--Navigating the medical system as a genderqueer person--Initially dealing with MCS by avoidance--Family’s history of illness
Having different jobs--Being “locked in poverty”--Failures of a disability support system--Class and MCS--Illness’s impact on work--Online support groups--How MCS has affect their relationships--Relationship with people who react to chemicals--Getting into art through environmentalism--Developing social housing and vision of accessible housing--Reflection on their gender identity and race on their experience of MCS--Their vision of change regarding society's relationship with chemicals