Excited to announce that Liverpool and the Unmaking of Britain will be out in paperback on July 16. I’ll be doing a launch event that day with the wonderful people at West Kirby Books. See below for tickets! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/liverpool-...

You might like this if you are interested in where the fields of modern British history, intellectual history, & history of gender/sexuality are at atm! Or in my reflections on my intellectual & personal journey from PhD to permanent job. Also there is a summary of the book but it comes 55 mins in.

This is the rich, overlooked history of trans activism in Britain Deviants and Trailblazers is OUT NOW: www.plutobooks.com/product/devi...

Amongst many other things, what saddens me about the guidance is that it punishes openness. I’m “cis-passing” & am lucky enough to have been so for years, so people don’t know unless I tell them, & I like seeing the smile appear on trans people’s faces when I do share. I don’t want to be stealth.

Today’s the anniversary of the passing into law of Section 28 in 1988, the first homophobic legislation in a century. Politicians and media said it was our own fault, told us to shut up and give up. We didn’t. Dont you dare give up now on trans people.

Thread of incomprehensible excerpts from the EHRC’s new guidelines on single-sex spaces. No alt text in thread unfortunately, but there is a link to the guidance itself. The amount of bother involved in all of this, turning a thing that wasn’t a problem into a massive problem for lots of people 🤦🏻‍♀️

How are they even going to define “biological sex”? How can this even be policed?

happy 9th anniversary to the day we watched Zendaya fall madly in love with Tom Holland in real-time

if Anita Bryant was still alive and promoting Florida orange juice, you couldn't pay me enough to drink it. how is Harry Potter any different? here is a timeline of JK Rowling's transphobia: web.archive.org/web/20241225... & here is where her HP money is going: www.advocate.com/news/jk-rowl...

Fantastic funded PhD opportunity here in the School of Humanities at Reading - please share widely! www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

If you see this, don't participate. It's a rigged study by Lisa Littman and unethical researcher J. Michael Bailey meant to undermine access to care. Spread the word.

My first book, Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life, will be published by Yale University Press on 11 August (UK) and 8 September (US). Please help spread the word! 🙏 UK: yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300... @yalebooks.bsky.social 🏳️‍🌈📚🐵 US: yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300... @yalepress.bsky.social 🏳️‍⚧️ 🗃️🦋

my dad didn’t go to university and he was extremely happy to pay taxes for his four children to do so; and, indeed, for the doctors who treated him at Addenbrookes to have gone to university as well.

The Claudia Wickerman (1973)

There is money for "education" if and only if that money is being directly funneled to corporations. Anything involving actual learning, however, well there's no magic money tree

If you feel "hamstrung" by human rights laws and by health and safety laws - you are the person those laws were designed to protect us against. You need to be obstructed by those laws. Also, she's lying.

Worth remembering when looking at the horrific scenes in the US right now that both Reform and the Tories have pledged to bring in ICE-style organisations to the UK if they win power

From this moment forward (and before, but clearly now): -If you work for ICE. -If you vote for money for ICE. You are complicit. This is the gestapo. You're on the wrong side. You can't pretend not to know.

🤩 This is how it's done, folks! 'A lesbian couple at the centre of their community and a pair of brothers said to have been among the first people to medically transition are among the people whose stories are told in the Queer Norfolk archive.' 🏳️‍🌈📚🏳️‍⚧️📜🗃️ www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... #queerhistory

I’ve seen drafts of this guidance several times before, but I’ve only just come across it in its published leaflet form.

Sky's Rob Powell asks Nigel Farage that, given Robert Jenrick is the 7th person to have served in Boris Johnson's government to defect to Reform, how can his party be "a new, reforming force" when it is "bringing in so many people who caused the mess that you're trying to clean up"

I'm running a popular romance course at the University of Liverpool... but only if enough people sign up! Come and join us! www.liverpool.ac.uk/continuing-e...

Yesterday I saw MAGA freaks arguing that liberal women are on SSRIs and hallucinating so they're attacking ICE agents. In my naïveté, I thought "that's the most delusional explanation I'll see for awhile" just for this to come sliding in less than 24 hours later. These people's brains are gone.

good that they got coverage away from the politics team (chronic bothsiders) and to visual investigations (consistently excellent)

the nyt says that no version of events in minneapolis can be "verified independently." but that's not true! there are multiple videos proving that the ICE version of events is a total lie. maybe the nyt can, y'know, watch one of them? www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01...

Also we've fetishized "debate” in these spaces as some kind of civic good, when what matters is competence, trust, shared purpose. Medicine, engineering, boardrooms aren’t organized around debate or requirements of false balance. We've poisoned public discourse by insisting it be adversarial.

Very few women in responses to a post about actors with iconic voices, so: Holly Hunter, Jennifer Tilly, Joey Lauren Adams, Cate Blanchett, Jodie Foster.

Hello! I’m seeking volunteers to be interviewed for my PhD thesis on the cultural significance of the tailored suit within queer communities during the 1970s and 1980s. If you’re interested and would like more information, please contact me. Thank you, and feel free to share this with your networks!

🗓️ Mark your calendars for Trans+ History Week 2026 04–10 May Get the history lesson you never had, find our what’s in store, early-bird ticket alerts and a history article every day of Trans+ History Week with @wearequeeraf.com Sign up www.wearequeeraf.com/transhistory...

📣 New publication! The second article of my postdoc project on the far right and anti-gender mobilization is now out #openaccess in #GermanPolitics doi.org/10.1080/0964... It examines antifeminism in far-right party politics through the case of AfD Key findings: Antifeminism ✅ Radicalization ✅

What an amazing sci-fi archive! 💙💙🟦

Nothing illustrates the arseholery of the IOC and the British Press more than the use of the image of a not-Trans woman to illustrate a story about trans women being banned (because there are no current trans women competing at this level)

Me: *Tells a joke that gets a slight chuckle from a room full of students* Also me: Yeah, I could do stand up comedy.

This is a gorgeous history of dogs - and a perfect present for dog lovers!

This month’s suitably spooky blog post is from our Research Associate, who has been speaking with the dead in the archives of the Society for Psychical Research! Read here: www.thevictorianhand.uk/gallery/spir...

Tfw when a student cites people I know

Feels a bit early in the day to be posting this, but if I'm spending the morning with 18th-century sex therapist & supposed 'Prince of the Quacks' Dr James Graham then so can you 🍆

If anyone needs a freelance researcher in London (or across the UK), I'm your person! I've reasonable rates, lots of archive experience & great recommendations from academics globally. I'm only teaching 1 module this term, as the job market is what it is. Therefore, I'm open to all work. DM me!

This week, some of my classes are going to be thinking about @sarahebull.bsky.social's 2021 research on adult entertainment and early sexology. I highly recommend this article to anyone interested in the topic. journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Trump has strong opinions on your fanfic.

📣🏳️‍⚧️ Call for Papers We are inviting papers for our special issue, “Feminist Responses to the Regression of Trans Rights: Strategies, Alliances, Hope.” The issue will be dedicated to trans-inclusive feminist legal analysis that addresses attacks on trans rights & lives. Details below. Please share.

This is, I believe, the first official word from the Government on what happened yesterday in London. Not only inaction in the face of violence and hate, but a celebration of it. I passed through London twice yesterday with my two kids & what Labour seem to be missing is that people aren't just...

This is class solidarity. In case you’re at all confused.

The professor has been fired and senior administrators removed from their post. No mention of this in the New York Times, The Free Press, The Atlantic or other outlets who drove the campus speech moral panic.

Dear me, "students need to be exposed to challenging beliefs" season is over already