All of us who teach Raewyn Connell's work will be interested to read this new interview with her! In which she also reveals that she's currently working on a trans book! www.smh.com.au/national/rae...

Some big news: the University of Birmingham is launching a new MA in Gender & Sexuality. It's interdisciplinary, with a focus on combining theory & practice. It's going to be amazing. I'm convening it: message or email with questions. www.birmingham.ac.uk/study/postgr... @unibirmingham.bsky.social

I'm surely late to the party, but @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social podcasts are so good! I'm getting so many bite-size intros to books I've been meaning to read

Museum of Cambridge are looking for a #Disability Heritage Research Volunteer, to work remotely, creating histories of people with disabilities in Cambridgeshire. www.museumofcambridge.org.uk/wp-content/u...

It is twenty years today since my first book Queer London: Perils and Pleasures in the Sexual Metropolis, 1918-57 was published by @uchicagopress.bsky.social and I am feeling contemplative. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

This is going to seem very random but I miss how the old bird app would have worked brilliantly for this: I’m looking for someone who can help me find information about how, and in what - if any - capacity, the Salvation Army might have been involved in adoption processes in London in the 1910s.

Had a spare five minutes, so taking the chance to boost mine and @medhistoryman.bsky.social's open access article on a sexual scandal from the 1820s! If you are teaching 19c sexuality, politics, masculinity, or religion why not add it to your reading list! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Hello modest number of followers: there is movement toward translating Feminism Against Cisness into Spanish and ppl have expressed enthusiasm abt translating The New Woman. If anyone knows of any presses or translators who might be into it please dm.

Can anyone recommend readings on *premodern* disability and sexuality, and/or disability and queerness? #disabilitystudies #history #queerhistory #lgbthistory #earlymodern

If you love women's history, sign up for the Women's History Network ‪@womenshistnet.bsky.social‬ annual conference. Running over 4-5 Sept, it's free, online, & packed with great panels on activism, archives, the arts and fashion, economic life, sexualities womenshistorynetwork.org/the-womens-h...

a fun book to review and delighted to (probably) be the first to get the phrase "demon twink" into an academic journal www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

If your research centrally involves the 19th-c. British press, you should for sure consider applying for a Curran Fellowship. Anybody can apply, and the process is blessedly straightforward. My late friend Eileen Curran would be proud to see all the fine projects that her generosity has assisted in.

19th-century ads indistinguishable from suggested videos on YouTube

Unsurprised, but disappointed, to see that Newnham College's JRFs are being defined as explicitly trans-exclusionary: newn.cam.ac.uk/research/res...

Available to read Open Access!

I'm going to @thenacbs.bsky.social this November (wahoo) in Montreal. My own funds are quite tight, does anyone know of funds available to ECRs to support attending I'd be really grateful!

Letter of the day (in the Times)

My first article is out! It examines the conjunction of fiscal policy and gender politics, highlighting the moment in 1920 when different income tax rates for the married and unmarried were first introduced into the British tax system 🧵 1/7 academic.oup.com/tcbh/article...

Update on withdrawals from the Polari Prize: Jason Okundaye, Sacha Coward, Amy Twigg, Mae Diansangu, Ciara Maguire have all withdrawn so far, in protest of the inclusion of John Boyne.

On Friday, Sept 26th, we'll be marking the retirement of @petermandler.bsky.social as Professor of Modern Cultural History at @camhistory.bsky.social with the launch of 'Democratising History: Modern British History Inside and Out', published by @uolpress.bsky.social. (Free) tickets available!

In 1908, means-tested, non-contributory Old Age Pensions were introduced in Britain, payable from the age of 70. Here, incredibly, are photographs of two of the first citizens to claim them (plus a dog).

And if that wasn't the moment, this is: goodlawproject.org/the-ehrc-is-... 53000 people responded to the EHRC. 26000 of them will be ignored. It was never a consultation, it was a stitch up. Just like Stephenson's appointment, just like the Cass/Levy reviews, just like Sullivan's report.

I'm excited to get stuck into this!

Oh boy, do I have some of these!

Campop blog #59: Some say rises in lone motherhood since c.1950 indicate breakdown of the nuclear family & call for returns to Victorian values. But 19C levels of lone parenthood & reconstituted families were similar to today's ... @camunicampop.bsky.social www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/07...

It's always exciting to finally get your hands on a book you've only read about. Written by Rupert Croft-Cooke and Michael Harrison in 1932.

🗓️ Save the date: Tues 25 November Join @mbhjournal.bsky.social at KCL for the 2025 Ben Pimlott Memorial Lecture, given by Prof Helen McCarthy on “Family Stories: Retirement, Old Age & Generational Thinking in Britain since the 1970s” 🔗 Register: www.eventbrite.com/e/modern-bri...

New book out later this year! Courtship, marriage, divorce, Scotland! All the best topics!

‘“What can be done?” the European diplomat might ask me today. For a start, call a spade a spade. This is an apartheid regime carrying out a genocide on a captive population. End military assistance. Suspend arms exports to Israel.’ Tareq Baconi on Gaza: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Our @jhistsex.bsky.social special issue on transnational histories of European HIV/AIDS activism is now out! Some wonderful new research coedited by me and @npapadogian.bsky.social. Shout out to our brilliant contributors and journal editors! @camhistory.bsky.social muse.jhu.edu/issue/55146

"Turning to the history of the sex/gender distinction, we can learn a lot about the ideological dimensions to present day (and past) investments in binary sex as a 'common sense' immutable fact." Emily Cousens on Virginia Prince and the construction of the sex-gender distinction.

Edward Carpenter died #OTD in 1929. My copy of his Iolaus (1915), an anthology of male friendship, is worth sharing this #PrideMonth. It was given by an unknown G to W, and the photos bound in are presumably of G. Lots of scribbles inside too. Such a touching record of a now lost relationship.

This is very effective at laying out, with detailed referencing, the targeted eliminationist campaign that has led directly to the UKSC ruling, the EHRC guidance, and other recent efforts backed by Starmer's government to make it impossible to transition and to exclude trans people from public life:

“Harford’s call for a ‘special law’—a neat statutory solution to the problem of his dual identities—highlights the fact that bureaucratic gender recognition in 1950s Britain was far from straightforward.” Read Adrian Kane-Galbraith's contribution to our #pride series at Broadsides. #skystorians 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

"Vuong has attributed his style – he claims, blasphemously, that it is a ‘19th-century’ style [...]"

Very pleased with the cover design for my new book, The Secret Life of the Hotel! Thanks ‪@bloomsburyhist.bsky.social

"As If!" by Chase Gregory explores the stylistically strategic, often campy, and productively fraught cross-identifications of early queer criticism. Read the introduction for free on our website! #LiteraryTheory #LGBTQBooks buff.ly/Cnz0S8L

Prof Peter Mandler’s (@petermandler.bsky.social) insatiable curiosity has fuelled an extraordinary career over more than two decades at Cambridge. As he steps back from formal teaching, the acclaimed historian reflects on a life of intellectual breadth, public advocacy—and no plans to slow down ⬇️⬇️

Hosting a workshop @mansfieldoxford.bsky.social on women, work and wages in the 1970s in September - please see cfp attached or feel free to email me for a normal sized one - students and ecrs especially encouraged

A charming read—one for all the queer historical scavengers

I love Manchester University Press, but does anyone else find their title capitalisation style incredibly stressful?

Trans people were lied to?? Using services based on “self ID” (the gender role in which they present) regardless of GRC is right there in the EHRC’s 2011 Code of Practice. It’s in the EHRC’s own 2022 guidance. The Labour Gov recognised this too a matter of months ago. This is horrific gaslighting.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Trans Liberation Now Conference - June 21st @ KCL Join @networkgender.bsky.social and over two dozen academics, lawyers, and activists to talk/strategize all things trans rights. Keynotes: @katymontgomerie.com and Joylon Maugham of @goodlawproject.org Sign up: tinyurl.com/kz9h86uc

🏳️‍⚧️ TRANS ARCHIVES PSA 📣 Are you a historian of Christine Jorgensen? Did you know that she donated SIXTY boxes of personal records to the Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen?? (I just learned this last week & suspect it is not well known. pls share! can also connect you with local Danish historians)

in one week: to celebrate the paperback of The Other Olympians, @leahtigers.bsky.social, @hughryan.bsky.social, @sabs.bsky.social, and I are presenting on our research obsessions hear about historical love affairs, sexually active popes, and much more June 3 @ 7 pm! register here: lu.ma/lnnvrmoh

Paul Parker said the Quakers would “welcome and affirm trans and non-binary people in Quaker spaces”, adding: “We must respect the dignity of each person to live with integrity, informed by the truth of their lived experience”.

Really excited about our upcoming interdisciplinary conference on the 'Legacies of Section 28' in contemporary history, education and activism, which will be held at UCL on 6th and 7th June. For more details and to register for this free event: www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...

Our article 'Feeling Old in Eighteenth-Century Britain' with @sarahfoxhistory.bsky.social is out online and OA in the JBS @thenacbs.bsky.social. It's about older people and the body and shows them having fun (as well as coping with the challenges of old age). ‪ doi.org/10.1017/jbr.2024.181

Is anyone aware of specific reasons for using the word "individuals" over "people"? I've always found the former to sound weirdly detached, but it's widespread in academic writing.

Delighted to have a contribution to this Reader on the history of everyday life, available to download for free! www.exeterpress.co.uk/products/min...