Even back in the 70s and 80s when I could be hassled by the police for walking while trans, no one ever tried to stop me pissing in the Ladies or tried to make me change into my swimsuit among men. There is no dignity or respect involved in taking away rights I have exercised freely for forty years

me on @cmatbaby.bsky.social’s EURO-COUNTRY and why it gives voice to a distressingly normalised post-recession malaise. i hope you read!

This week @larafreidenfelds.bsky.social argues that in a post Roe vs Wade world “Women who lose pregnancies, even before viability, are targeted in ways that strongly resemble early modern infanticide investigations.” nursingclio.org/2025/08/20/m...

I have a new article in Modern Italy on mothers, children in 1970s Italian feminist magazine Effe - a lot familiar in their discussions of emotions, expectations and experience of mothering although I especially like their ideas about the radical potential of maternal love doi.org/10.1017/mit....

from chandra manning's wonderful book "what this cruel war was over"

much easier to understand the sheer bloody intensity of the civil war when you have a good grasp on just how terrible slavery was.

If you want to put back statues and memorials and names of Confederate traitors while tearing down museum exhibitions on slavery because they don't show the greatness of the nation... the nation whose history you're celebrating is whiteness. The kind of nationalist you are is a white nationalist.

Registration now open for WHS conference. For the programme and details on how to register see below. ⬇️

The purpose of academic freedom is not to allow faculty to live cushy lives free from criticism or constraint. Its purpose is to allow them to investigate widely and report (or criticize) the results openly, instead of allowing politicians to decide what is true and what is not.

Today is official publication day of @cethompson.bsky.social and my little collection “Do Less Harm: Ethical Questions for Health Historians”. It has 28 essays on names, images, museum and archival practices, teaching, reparations, positionality, citation and more. www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/...

This is a disgrace. People have the right to protest against genocide. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

For international cat day, some cats from The Adamson Collection, composed of work created in the art therapy studio at Netherne Hospital in Surrey by individuals who were compelled to live there during the midC20th

Brilliant reporting by the galway advertiser. Absolutely perfect www.advertiser.ie/galway/artic...

Please consider emailing... [email protected] ...to make someone in the UK govt. listen, and help get my stranded wife back from the USA, and back under the ongoing medical care she needs. Reposts hugely appreciated too. Thank you. x

Authors, if you feel safely able to, please consider signing this open letter to the Polari Prize

I think there should be more press about this popular medical historian, author @drlindseyfitz.bsky.social & dual USA-UK citizen’s case. She needs to be in the UK for cancer treatment, yet is not allowed to leave US.

People need to stop imagining that eugenics is just about Nazis, Hitler and Nazi Germany. Eugenics was born in the UK, and rapidly imported to the US, where both positive and negative eugenics made rapid inroads into law and policy on disability, medicine, marriage, immigration and more.

Read this passage, please, about trying to provide therapy for trauma in Gaza, even though it should make you feel like you are stabbing needles into your eyes. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

👀

Speaking on Fascism in Ireland during the 1920s & 1930s, Friday August 1st, Shankill Road Library, Belfast, 12pm.

Have seen a few mentions on here lately about the 1980s ninja panic in the UK, so am reposting my piece about how this led to the BBC broadcasting the Teenage Mutant HERO Turtles in 1990 tribunemag.co.uk/2021/04/when...

The Childers Professorship of Irish History University of Cambridge - Faculty of History #skystorians 🗃️www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOC329/t...

There are a few findings in this article that I think will be of broad interest. First, it shows that eugenic sterilisation did happen in 1930s Britain, despite the failure of the eugenics society to secure legislation for it.

Really good piece by @annabull.bsky.social on how universities should respond to the EHRC's proposed segregation programme. The evidence points to trans people's heightened vulnerability to sexual harassment and violence - so single-sex policies must account for this.

All famines are man-made, all famines are political. Historians of empire and humanitarianism have known this forever. Gaza is not starving, Gaza is being starved, by Israel, and this starvation is enabled by our government and by every other government that does not step in to force food and aid.

While I would prefer that my historical research have less relevance, please read and consider what it was like to fall ill and die before germ theory. #histmed 🗃️ nursingclio.org/2025/07/21/d...

Israel needs to be stopped....

🎉 Delighted to see the publication of Penny Tinkler’s latest article in @mbhjournal.bsky.social: ‘What if?’ Early marriage and the ‘shadow selves’ of young women from the late 1950s to early 1970s.' Thank you for submitting it to us, Penny! Read it here: doi.org/10.1093/tcbh...

📣We are delighted to announce that Prof. Michael Roper has been awarded the Social History Society's Book Prize for 'Afterlives of War: A Descendants' History' (MUP, 2023)! Prof. Laura Kelly (@tortietabby.bsky.social) won the Runner's Up Prize. Read more below! socialhistory.org.uk/2025/07/11/r...

Thrilled to have been runner-up for the Social History Society Book Prize for ‘Contraception and Modern Ireland’! Thanks so much to @socialhistsoc.bsky.social for this massive honour and congrats to the winner Michael Roper. #SHSConf2025 @universitypress.cambridge.org @strathhumanities.bsky.social

so chuffed to see this out in the world! I have a piece on 'Race, Sexuality, and South Asian AIDS Activism in Britain, 1990–2000' muse.jhu.edu/pub/15/artic...

Having a fantastic time at #SHSConf2025 at the wonderful @bclivingmuseum.bsky.social in Dudley (best conference venue ever). Have heard some excellent papers and got to explore the museum in between. More conferences need to be in living history museums!

I am working on 'The Asian Mother and Baby Campaign' which ran from 1984-1986. I would love to interview any linkworkers who were employed by the campaign or any women who were supported by linkworkers. Please spread the word or get in touch if this is you! My email is [email protected]

Tebbit was one of the architects of Section 28 which sought to prohibit ‘the promotion of homosexuality.’ This law emboldened bigots and silenced many librarians and teachers, including some of mine. As a gay kid I was left without official support from my school. It was terrifying and cruel.

🗓️ 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...

"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.

A brilliant new special issue on transnational HIV/AIDS activism has been published in @jhistsex.bsky.social co-edited by the dream team of @npapadogian.bsky.social and @somakbiswas.bsky.social muse.jhu.edu/issue/55146 My contribution examines transnational US-Soviet AIDS activism (cont. below)

My article is on the history of Positively Irish Action on AIDS (PIAA), a London-based community group which worked with Irish people affected by HIV/AIDS & their families. Thanks to PIAA members for speaking with me & for their important work. And Wellcome for funding. muse.jhu.edu/pub/15/artic...

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

Really happy to see that this special issue on transnational histories of HIV/AIDS activism is out in the world. Thanks so much to @npapadogian.bsky.social and @somakbiswas.bsky.social for all their hard work bringing it together! #histmed [1/2] muse.jhu.edu/issue/55146

My book now has a cover! "Standardizing Sex" is the first book to trace the emergence of trans medicine in Scandinavia from the 1920s onwards. It explores the construction and negotiation of medical expertise among medical professionals, patients, and activists in press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

I wrote a book -- during lockdown and maternity leave -- about imperial culture in contemporary Britain, exploring how the empire shaped British society, politics and ordinary people's lives -- from the stuttering run up to the Second World War, to the televised end of the second Elizabethan age.

Feeling full of life again after seeing Sparks last night in Glasgow. Hard not to feel energised and inspired after seeing Ron and Russell. Amazing gig 🤩

And so abortion will be decriminalised in England & Wales, if partially Great to see support for stopping the prosecution of abortion-seekers Terrible to see it depend on a Bill that increases police powers, criminalises poverty & restricts protest rights www.alliance4choice.com/decrim-in-uk

From the 1920s onwards, Scottish authorities systematically targeted Travellers in an attempt to force them out of their traditional, nomadic way of life. Becky Taylor explores how sedentarism has been used to subjugate the Scots Traveller community. www.historyworkshop....

Between Greta Thunberg and her fellow activists being kidnapped by Israel and Trump turning LA into his personal war zone, I hope people realise that protest, no matter how peaceful, will always be met with violence by dying empires.

Neil Pemberton and Beck Heslop discuss their participation in Jo Longhurst’s installation, In Plain Sight? The graffiti installation uses images of bindweed to provoke questions about disability, belonging, and exclusion. thepolyphony.org/2025/06/05/i...

Great opportunity (with two lovely project leads) #histmed

Wow, this is the condom I wrote up in a blog post a few years ago having come across mention in sale catalogue a former colleague had passed on to me. Glad to see it has found a home where it can be appreciated and viewed by the public. lesleyahall.blogspot.com/2022/07/coll...