1./ What can we learn about "gender identity" from the past? I was wondering about this when I paid a visit to one of the strangest places in Britain; one where you can simultaneously pay homage both to a pioneering feminist and one of the most fascinating of trans icons. 👇
2./ Old St Pancras church near King's Cross dates back to at least the Normans. Thomas Hardy worked clearing graves here during the building of the station. A tree has since engulfed some of the piled headstones to create a Hammer Horror type memorial. 👇london-walking-tours.co.uk/secret-london/…
3./ The graveyard is a geographical Forrest Gump, marking almost every serious event in the capital's history. William Blake used to walk past it regularly as he followed the Fleet River on his long trips to Hampstead. The river is now entombed under the road beside the church.👇
4./ Rimbaud and Verlaine lived nearby during their absinthe soaked exile from Paris. And it was here in 1814 that 16 year old Mary Shelley met Percy Bysshe Shelley to elope. Their rendezvous was her mother Mary Wollstonecraft's grave. Today, visitors often leave flowers. 👇
5./ Wollstonecraft spoke highly of someone whose individual grave was cleared from the same graveyard but is now marked in a collective memorial to important people whose headstones were lost. You can just see the name of Chevalier d'Eon etched on the now shabby memorial.👇
6./ At the time D'Eon claimed to be a woman who had hidden the fact she was female to pursue a career as a noted diplomat, warrior and legendary swordsman. Once safe in London he'd reverted to being she, or so she said. The National Gallery has a famous portrait of "her".👇
7./ Wollstonecraft used D'Eon as an uplifting example that proved women could do anything if given the education and skills. The Chevalier became a celebrity in in London in part by exhibiting her skills in swordsmanship dressed as the woman she said she was. He invariably won.
8./ I say he because when D'Eon died it was discovered his body was male and he was denounced as a trickster. Ever since people have argued about his significance. For the trans movement D'Eon is an early high-profile transgender icon. Some historians think that's simplistic.👇
9./ Gary Kames prefers to place D'Eon in the context of the times, noting it was much more gender-bending than we might imagine. D'Eon was sent on a mission to the Empress Elizabeth I's court in St Petersburg where a weekly cross-dressing ball was held. 👇vogue.com/article/cather…
10./ Female power was highly visible and contested with Madame Pompadour in France, Empress Maria Theresa in Austria, and Catherine the Great all in D'Eon's lifetime. Bridgerton's real Queen Charlotte in Britain was no cipher either. vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifes…
11./ And then there were the Macaronis, a wildly effeminate and theatrical contemporary subculture with towering wigs who shocked Britain by out-dandying the dandies. They were so called because they preferred foreign pasta to good English roast beef. Guilty as charged.
12./ Women playwrights were writing for the stage. And while that awful grump Rousseau denounced the "feminisation" of society, D'Eon demurred. His library was full of books celebrating women and he wrote many letters proclaiming women superior.👇
13./ During the French Revolution he even offered to raise a regiment of Amazons to fight for the cause. So what should we think now of this remarkable character? Did he really think he was a woman? Who knows, but there's a much more important point.
14./ Whatever D'Eon believed 'they' (let's give them the benefit of the doubt) tried to increase the space for women and their options. D'Eon wasn't invading the few spaces women had carved out for themselves, like some notable trans icons of today. 👇theguardian.com/sport/2021/jun…
15./ And who can deny the courage and individuality it took to make your own way in life like the Chevalier d'Éon? It was admiration for a similar attitude that would later win trans people their rights, not LGBTQ+ policing of other people's behaviour, views or zir/zie pronouns.
16./ Next time you're near King's Cross pop along to @OldStPancras where you can nod in respect to both a great feminist and a gender-bending trans icon; united by their shared loathing of limiting stereotypes as well as their determination to break free of them.
17./ In the end though try as she might Wollstonecraft could not hope to break free entirely of the limitations imposed on her; while D'Eon could embrace or play with them. Biology also brought its own dangers (she died in childbirth) which he would never face or understand.
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1. Climate Change Hyperbole.
How should we respond to global warming? In my latest article I examine how last year's flood in Valencia was misrepresented and misused to argue we should decarbonise our economy more urgently than we are already doing.👉
2./ The climate change lobby ignored the fact Valencia had flooded 75 times before and the geology of the region could almost be designed to produce flash floods. Flooding in Valencia got so bad in 1957 the city decided to reroute the river that used to run through the centre.
3./ Coverage of the flood ignored all this and the fact rivers flowing into Valencia emerge 5500ft up a mountain range. This steep gradient means when extreme rainfall occurs water rushes to the city in a torrent. Nor can it escape because of almost vertical ravine river banks.
1./ 🧵The Lies of Sarah McBride: The Sequel.
This leading trans activist claims the trans lobby now faces hostility cos it failed to take the time to convince the public. Yet it was McBride himself who ruthlessly championed the most extreme positions. 👉 nytimes.com/2025/06/17/opi…
2./ After @HRC failed to stop a law in North Carolina protecting women's spaces McBride led its revenge campaign to ensure its Republican Governor was not re-elected. "It would send a really important message: if you come for us we're going to come for you", warned McBride.
3./ Invading women's restrooms was such a complusion for McBride that in a 2018 Google seminar he admitted HRC killed a non-discrimination bill in Philadelphia protecting gay and trans people from employment discrimination just because it had an exemption for women's restrooms.
1./ Iran's Tran$ Plan. If you want to understand what drives trans ideology look at what's happening in Iran where a new national plan aims to increase revenue from medical tourism six fold; including from the country's booming gender clinics. Why does this matter?
1 of/11.👉
2./ In the West, trans activists and gender clinicians often try to disguise their homophobia. In Iran where homosexuality is punishable by death and trans ideology is officially sanctioned there's no such need. Gender clinics effectively offer to save gays. By mutilating them.
3./ My article reveals this gruesome money-machine is being boosted as Iran aims to make $6Bn a year from medical tourism. A key role will be played by its competing private gender clinics which are among the busiest in the world. Only Thailand does more 'sex change surgery'.
1./ Hezbollah Hypocrisy. It's a scandal a Jewish man was arrested for joking about the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. We should ALL applaud the elimination of this disgusting misogynist and anti-semite. And if you're gay you should especially thank @IDF. Here's why👉
2./ Two years ago Nasrallah called for violence against gays "with no limits". He hated gays so much he urged followers to use slurs rather than the word 'homosexual'. He and Hezbollah's inspiration had long been the rancid bigotry of Ayatollah Khomeini.👇
3./ Hezbollah posters in Beirut often cite the incoherent "thoughts" of this thankfully well dead fruitcake. A major feature of Khomeini's theology was his violent hatred of gays. One of the first laws he passed after he returned to Iran in 1979 was the death sentence for gays.
1./ 🧵The BBC's Transman Shame. In 2004 Sky's reality show There's Something About Miriam encouraged straight men to seduce a trans identified male. 21 years later the BBC has learned nothing as it encourages gay men to seduce a trans identified female. Will it end the same way?👉
2./ Sky was forced to apologise to the men it duped. It also had to pay them £500K for trying to engineer them into having sex with Miriam Rivera a troubled man who believed he was female. The same exploitative arrogance is in evidence today at @bbcthree and @twofourtweets.
3./@bbcthree may have told gay competitors about the trans status of 'Lars' a deluded woman who had her breasts sawn off and took testosterone in a desperate attempt to escape her female reality. But its alleged "honesty" is insufficient because this ignores how reality TV works.
1./ 🧵What does 'Queer' mean? In its new show the Tate claims Leigh Bowery is a queer icon. In my latest article I argue the designer's life and work suggest his kind of pathological narcissism defines Queer. I first met Bowery when I was filmed in a sex scene in his flat. Really.
2./ It was 1984 and I was having a fling with dancer Michael Clark who was being celebrated in a Channel 4 film following his life. He asked me to play a bit of rough trade. Typecast again. We would be filmed in Bowery's flat where he lived with his boyfriend Trojan.
3./ We are told now Bowery's provocative behaviour and wild designs represent an explosion of 'queer' creativity. Yet it's interesting, to say the least, the Tate ignores his casual racism. He called one of his favourite clubbing costumes 'Queer Pakis in Space'. How creative.