Under pressure from Texas government officials, Angelo State University in Texas is banning all discussion or mention of the existence of trans people along with banning the LGBTQ pride flag from campus and forced misgendering of trans people. conchoobserver.com/2025/09/19/a...

A reminder that what we need is an end to the genocide, not the hollow gesture of recognizing a state that doesn't exist. www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250921-amn...

I got to talk to @npr.org about sheriffs, jails, and all the ways people have made money from locking up migrants. (Featuring many stories from my book!)

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...

The FBI is preparing to label transgender people as “violent extremists” in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder: www.kenklippenstein.com/p/fbi-readie...

Our new Autumn / Winter programme is out - an abundance of @womenslibrary.bsky.social joy to behold! Check it out here: womenslibrary.org.uk/2025/09/12/a...

"The Business of Migrant Detention" on @npr.org's Throughline featuring my colleague @briannanofil.bsky.social talking about her book The Migrant's Jail: An American History of Mass Incarceration (@princetonupress.bsky.social) www.npr.org/2025/09/18/n...

This is horrific, but just wanted to highlight this quote from a trans kid: “I don’t have to live my life as someone I am not. I am choosing to be brave and assert myself in my true identity, even though it is not socially acceptable. My name is MINE, and mine only. I own this part of myself.”

The destruction of the Gaza city mosque is a devastating loss to humanity as a whole. A part of our global medieval heritage destroyed in furtherance to a genocide. I despair.

a key reason they see an opening for such a blatant speech crackdown is that they already did one to Palestinian and anti-genocide activists and it got enthusiastic bipartisan approval

Come wake up with us to Save AIDS Research! Coming to the final hours of our 24 hour AIDS research livestream, but so much more good to come! Go to: saveaidsresearch.org. Also on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3wx... @saveaidsresearch.bsky.social

I don't know who needs to hear this, but it's been coming up a LOT recently: I am a man and I use he/him pronouns. Those are the only pronouns I use! It is not somehow more trans-friendly to they/them a trans person who does not use those pronouns!

I know we’re all on tenterhooks about when the new EHRC Code of Practice will be laid in Parliament. As it can only be laid on a “sitting” day, almost certainly this will now be after conference recess. The first sitting day after that is 13th October. Then it’s laid for 40 sitting days. So—😅 1/

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

A must-read essay from Joan Scott: “We are again confronting a massive attack on the very foundations of democratic education and, this time around, the stakes feel even higher. In the 1950s, the targets were individual teachers…and their left-wing unions. Now the target is the system itself.” ⬇️

“Demonstrators carried the Union flag of Britain… others brought American and Israeli flags and wore the MAGA hats of U.S. President Donald Trump. They chanted slogans critical of Prime Minister Keir Starmer & carried placards including some saying "send them home.” Some attendees brought children.”

I wrote my own Charlie Kirk obituary, and about valuing truth over manners: www.thenation.com/article/poli...

This proposal by Universities UK is about silencing academics, effectively ending academic free speech, nothing else.

As the only academic historian employed in a UK university who has 'LGBTQ+' in my job title, I think about this a! whole! lot!

'"You can’t have hobbyist research that’s unfunded going on in institutions. We can’t afford it.”' Such a badly formulated phrasing of the issues, so open to so many misinterpretations. If this is the level of thinking about research among sector leaders and policy-makers, be very afraid.

I've written a piece about the bomber's view of the past: how aerial archaeologists of the Middle East have looked at the region's past through the eyes (and lenses) of people who bomb it in the present. In fact they're sometimes the same people. www.historyworkshop.org.uk/empire-decol...

New on NOTCHES 🚻✨ “Dolled up to the nines to go to a flippin' public toilet!”: Cruising in Belfast During the Troubles by Niall Herron. How did queer cruising unfold during the Troubles, and what can it teach us about sexuality, space, and conflict? Read the full feature here: wp.me/p6JJ6S-4Pq

Not only is this coming for you, it is here and we are collectively behind in preparing.

Can't resist the temptation to offer some historical context on this, also! (Rutherford, Teaching Gender, p. 84)

We still think of going to university as moving out, loading up the car and trekking halfway across the country. But more than half of UK students <21 stay within 90km. Almost a third stay within 30km. (For context - that’s less than the distance between Leeds and Sheffield!)

🏳️‍⚧️ We know unis are now updating their policies following the EHCR guidance on single-sex spaces. Here, Anna Bull calls for decisions to be informed by strong evidence, & points to regulatory requirements for institutions to ensure safety of trans & non-binary students. wonkhe.com/blogs/safety... 🧵

”We usually understand ‘divide and rule’ as a tactic for dividing populations. But it also divides people from their own pasts.” Now online from our 50th anniversary issue, @samuelhayimbrody.bsky.social reviews three memoirs on the destruction of the Arab Jewish world:

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 of course deeply upsetting on its own terms; also, we should absolutely be worst-case-scenario contingency planning for how we are going to resist this kind of thing when it comes to UK universities.

BDS victory! The Scottish Parliament becomes the first in the world to endorse BDS against genocidal Israel. BDS calls for escalated civil society pressure on all states to impose legal and targeted sanctions against apartheid Israel similar to those that helped abolish apartheid in South Africa.

3. It means that any new restrictions on trans people's human rights that are brought in, will not be imposed because the government HAS to impose them, they will be imposed because the government WANTS to impose them. 4. The supreme court misjudgement & the EHRC transphobic "guidance" give... 4/5

Govt have total control over what happens next. They can require the EHRC produce a code that is compliant with the Human Rights Act and the public sector equality duty. They also have a range of legislative options open. If they choose not to act, they are responsible for every bit of harm.

We’re hearing that EHRC’s updated Code is now with the Minister for Equalities. Now, more than ever, it’s critical to write to your MP to get them to pressure her for a debate & vote in Parliament, not for this Code to become statutory automatically. Please do write; template letter linked below 🙏

"The screaming in the recovery room would not stop" Surgeon Victoria Rose describes having to amputate children's limbs & not having any anaesthetic to relieve the pain for when the children woke up after the operation.

🚨New Research 🚨 Ahead of the release of Wave 30 of the BES Internet Panel, the team has examined Labour's decline since the 2024 GE. Labour's support has splintered into mostly indecision or left-liberal parties, but they've also lost their few right-wing voters. 🧵⬇️ tinyurl.com/3m62exph

Whereas expressing opposition to genocide is terrorism.

Wikipedia editors trying to fend off the onslaught of AI crap have crowdsourced some telltale signs of LLM-generated writing; it might be handy for editors and proofreaders generally. Thanks to @ellenrykers.com for pointing me to it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...

“The community found refuge from white persecution deep in the Everglades swamps centuries ago. Together with environmental groups, they succeeded in forcing the closure of the immigration detention center built on their ancestral lands.”

There are plenty of ways to teach 'sexuality' and not all of them involve canonical texts, but I am once again setting out my stall that those who use Foucault might consider using Rubin instead!

Over 80 trans+ and LGBTQ+ rights orgs have signed a joint letter to MPs demanding full Parliamentary scrutiny of the EHRC’s new Code of Practice. If passed unchecked, it risks huge harm to rights and protections. Read our full statement here: tacc.org.uk/2025/09/01/j...

Job klaxon: full time, permanent lectureship in Liberal Arts at the University of Glasgow: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOM506/l...

I was delighted to speak about Teaching Gender with @llassabe.bsky.social on her excellent American Campus podcast! It's here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a... or Wherever You Get Your Podcasts.

This is because NHS111 assumes, against the facts, that trans identity is a purely psychiatric phenomenon with no physiological implications. That biological sex characteristics are fixed at birth and do not change or mutate with transition.

The iconic Adele Patrick on the history of the Lesbian Avengers in Glasgow! A must read! www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-arti...

I was delighted to speak about Teaching Gender with @llassabe.bsky.social on her excellent American Campus podcast! It's here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a... or Wherever You Get Your Podcasts.

The Code of Practice won't work - and we need your help to ensure it won't have this devastating impact. Please take a few minutes to email your MP and the MfE and let them know that trans people need to be able to access services and take part in everyday life. www.scottishtrans.org/emailfortran...

The proposed code of practice from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission could have a huge impact on the ways that trans people are able to safely and fully live their lives. Please email your MP and the MfE now - www.scottishtrans.org/emailfortran...