🌈 Dr Ross Brooks

@rossbrooks

Historian #histsci #queerhistory. DARWIN AND THE QUEER ORIGINS OF LIFE (Yale University Press). Curator of queeroxford.info. LGBTQ+ life & culture. Classical music. Seaside living (near Brighton). He/him. rossbrooks.co.uk. Agent: www.philippasitters.co.uk.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· 25d

It's been a whirlwind of a week in #Edinburgh: attending a massive history of science conference, evoking the ghosts of Burke and Hare (archive.is/xsFGg), launching my new book (www.youtube.com/watch?v=coKM...), and discovering the city's magnificent waterfront. 🌈📚💀🌊 1/2

Selfie taken by Edinburgh's waterfront. A marina, including a white lighthouse, can be seen behind me. I'm wearing a predominantly red patterned shirt.

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· 29d

It's wonderful being back in the great city of #Edinburgh! Lots of memories flooding back, especially from my PhD days when I did a lot of research here. 🌈🎓

Selfie taken outside St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh. It's a sunny day with clear sky. I'm wearing a checked shirt.

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Jul 11

2/2 It's about the extraordinary sexological theories of Scottish anatomist Robert Knox, whose embroilment with serial killers William Hare and William Burke in 1828 is notorious. This print, produced to shame Knox following the murders, depicts him dissecting the genitals of an intersex pig. 🔪🐷🩸

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Jul 10

'a fascinating and revelatory history that challenges long-held assumptions about sex, gender and evolution' . . . 'eye-opening' . . . 'a timely and important contribution to both scientific and cultural history'. I'm tickled pink with this in The Bookseller! 💜🌈📚🗃️ #booksky #histsci #queerhistory

Preview of my book, Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life, in The Bookseller. Beneath an image of the front cover, the text reads: 'Historian Brooks delivers a fascinating and revelatory history that challenges long-held assumptions about sex, gender and evolution. Drawing on overlooked scientific evidence and private writings, he uncovers the remarkable diversity that shaped the thinking of Darwin and other pioneering naturalists. Richly researched, this is an eye-opening exploration of how queerness has always existed within the natural world, offering a timely and important contribution to both scientific and cultural history.'

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Jul 4

Come and say hello at the conference or at Lighthouse, and ask me for an *exclusive* DatQOoL bookmark! #booksky 🌈📚

Photograph of some bookmarks spread out on a wooden table. One side features the jacket design of my book, Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life, including an image of a gynandromorph gypsy moth. One of the bookmarks shows the design on the other side, featuring a colour image of a fish (Serranus).

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Jul 4

Not long to go until the greatest history of science conference ever convenes in #Edinburgh. Lots of queer-themed papers to look forward to. I'll be speaking as part of this panel, which starts at 9:15am on Tuesday 14 July. 🌈🐠🎓🌱🗃️ hssonline.org/page/Edinbur... #ESHS-HSS #histbio #histsci #lgbtq 1/2

Listing for conference panel. It reads:
175. The Double Life of Sex: Queer and Feminist Interventions into the History of Biology
Organized Session
9:15 am to 10:45 am, Tuesday 14 July
EICC: Floor, Level 0 - Tinto Suite
Participants:
Uncovering the Hetero in Heterosis: Eugenics, Mendelism, and the Structural Valuation of Difference Yingchen Kwok, University of Pennsylvania
Queer Genealogies of Cross-sexual Transfer Ross Brooks, Oxford Brookes University
Migratory Desires: Ecological Imperatives and the Plasticity of Sex Banu Subramaniam, Wellesley College
Session Organizer: Yingchen Kwok, University of Pennsylvania
Chair: Rachel Mason Dentinger, University of Utah

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Jul 1

💜🌈📚🗃️✨ The most exciting thing of all . . . 👇

Promotional banner featuring front cover of Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life alongside an endorsement from Josh Luke Davis, author of A Little Gay Natural History. It reads: 'From Linnaeus to Darwin, Brooks brilliantly shows us how biology always has, and will always be, delightfully queer.'

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Jul 1

My book baby has arrived! 🤩 Not for the first time, my wonderful editors @yalebooks.bsky.social have delightfully surprised me: the colours on the jacket catch the light (I'm told it's called 'spot gloss')! It really is a thing of beauty. #books #booksky #histsci #queerhistory 🌈📚🗃️

An open box containing copies of my book, Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life: A History of Sex and Science. The jacket features a drawn image of a gynandromorph gypsy moth, with distinctive female patterning on its left side and male on its right. Against a black background, the image and text (title and author's name) are brightly rendered in a spectrum of colours resonant of the Progress Pride Flag.

A copy of my book placed on a wooden table in a shaft of light, the colours of the jacket design reflecting the light.

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Jun 24

Thrilled to receive a signed copy of Poking the Squid: What We Can Learn from Animal Sex by Perrin Roosevelt Ireland, including a gorgeous autograph squid! It's a fabulous book - highly recommended . . . 🦑🌈📚 wwnorton.com/books/978132... @wwnorton.com #booksky #queer #nature

Front cover of Poking the Squid: What We Can Learn from Animal Sex by Perrin Roosevelt Ireland. It has a yellow background with a colourful drawing of a squid in front of a blue circle.

Title page of Poking the Squid, signed in black ink 'For Ross Brooks From Perrin R Ireland, with a line drawing of a squid.

Photo of part of a page from Poking the Squid with colourful drawings depicting male parenting in seahorses and Perrin swimming underwater. Iconic trans evolutionary biologist Joan Roughgarden is quoted: 'No binary governs the whole individuals who make gametes, who bring them to one another for fertilization, and who interact with one another to survive in a native social context. In fact, the very sexual process that maintains the rainbow of a species and facilitates long-term survival automatically brings a cornucopia of colorful sexual behaviors. Gender, unlike gamete size, is not limited to two.'

Photo of top half of a page from Poking the Squid, headed 'CHAPTER 2: "LESBIAN" LAYSANS.' It features colourful draws and speech bubbles depicting female-female pair bonding in Laysan albatrosses.

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Jun 21

It's #FathersDay! ‘"Nursing Fathers": A Humorous Commentary,’ The Sphere, April 1927. It depicts good king penguin and seahorse dads. The seahorse fry are being eaten by a jellyfish, though. Not sure what's humorous about that, but it's nice that male parenting in nature was celebrated in 1927! 🌈🐧🗃️

B&W picture titled ‘“Nursing Fathers”: A Humorous Commentary’ by L. R. Brightwell. The caption reads: 'The upper section shows the king penguins "changing guard." The male and female stand shoulder to shoulder, the eggs resting on the lady's insteps. By a deft movement of her ankles she twitches the egg on to those of her husband and leaves him in charge. The lower portion shows the male sea-horse liberating the young from the brood pouch. As shown in the drawing, many fall victims to the small jellyfishes'.

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Jun 17

Three Lions #England #WorldCup 🏳️‍🌈⚽

Two adult male lions are copulating, one atop the other. The one on top has its tongue hanging out, the one on the bottom has its eyes closed. Next to them, a lioness lies on the ground looking in the opposite direction.

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Jun 9

Just arrived in Oxford to speak @spcoxford.bsky.social about my Queer Oxford project, which I began 20 years ago! Where does the time go? Wonderful to see the Progress Pride Flag flying prominently on the College's front lawn for #PrideMonth . . . 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Selfie taken outside St Peter's College, Oxford. It's sunny and I'm wearing a blue and white checked shirt. There's a Progress Pride Flag flying at the top of a pole situated on the front lawn.

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Jun 7

💜🧡💙

A picture of a book titled A Little Gay Natural History with a rainbow winged butterfly on the front cover.

Front cover of The Sexual Evolution: How 500 Million Years of Sex, Gender and Mating Shape Modern Relationships by Nathan H. Lents

Front cover of Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian

Jacket design for Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life: A History of Sex and Science by Ross Brooks. It features a historical, drawn image of a gynandromorph gypsy moth, with distinctive female patterning on its left side and male on its right. Against a black background, the image and text (title and author's name) are brightly rendered in a spectrum of colours resonant of the Progress Pride Flag.

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Jun 7

Lots of wonderful queer ecology-themed posts on here last week for #PrideMonth - keep them coming! 🦋🏳️‍⚧️🐦🏳️‍🌈🐘 Here's a lovely western capercaillie described by Swedish zoologist Sven Nilsson in 1832 as a female that had developed male-typical plumage. #histsci #queerhistory 🗃️

Colour plate featuring a bird with grey, brown, and green feathering, as well as a white dot, standing on a branch.

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· May 26

Here they are! 🐘🏳️‍🌈🐘

B&W photograph of two elephants standing with a zookeeper

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· May 19

Whoop, whoop! 🥳 My book has just been sent to the printers! It also features in @yalebooks.bsky.social's Autumn Catalogue, in some very illustrious company . . . #excited All shares and preorders much appreciated! 🙏 yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300... #booksky #queer #lgbtq #queerhistory #histsci 🌈📚🗃️

Cover of Yale University Press's Autumn Catalogue. It features a colourful painting of a building on a hill with a mountain in the background and other buildings in the foreground.

Page from Yale University Press's Autumn Catalogue featuring image of my forthcoming book, Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life: A History of Sex and Science, and accompanying spiel.

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· May 9

Magical evening in Oxford @morethanadodo.bsky.social with the brilliant Bi-Curious George, @connorbutler.bsky.social, and @jazzywildheart.bsky.social. Such a joyful celebration of queer ecology! 🐌🏳️‍🌈🐝🏳️‍⚧️🦖 George's new show is *FABULOUS* - catch it if you can . . . #drag #lgbtq #queer #nature

Photo of @connorbutler.bsky.social, @jazzywildheart.bsky.social, and myself on the balcony overlooking the main forecourt of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

Bi-Curious George, @jazzywildheart.bsky.social, @connorbutler.bsky.social, and myself standing alongside each other on stage in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History's main lecture theatre.

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· May 7

Ahead of Bi-Curious George's new show 'Snail Trail' @morethanadodo.bsky.social on Saturday, here are some lovely snails! 🐌🏳️‍🌈🐌🏳️‍⚧️🐌 'Mating of Snails' from Histoire naturelle générale et particulière des mollusques terrestres et fluviatiles (1820-51). #snails #animals #queer #nature #histbio #histsci 🗃️

B&W plate titled 'Accouplement des Limaçons' from Histoire naturelle générale et particulière des mollusques terrestres et fluviatiles (1820-51) by French naturalists André-Etienne de Ferussac and Gérard Paul Deshayes. It features seven figures, two depicting copulating snails and the others showing different parts of snail reproductive anatomy. Source: Biodiversity Heritage Library

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· May 4

Happy #StarWarsDay! 🚀👽🪐

Image with 'MAY THE 4TH BE WITH YOU' in yellow against black background (depicting space) with lots of tiny black dots (stars).

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Apr 24

I live in a second-floor flat, but I'm still thinking of getting one after reading this! #Brighton #SouthCoast #UK Wishing everyone a peaceful weekend . . . 💙

Poster hoarding (billboard) advertising Southcoast Home Improvements. It has a blue background. Written in large black letters is 'THE WORLD'S GONE MAD.' A smaller tagline reads: 'ORDER A NEW CONSERVATORY AND STAY INDOORS.'

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Apr 21

I'm bowled over by the first endorsements my forthcoming book has received. Such brilliant authors - WOW! You will love it too . . . 🐟🌈📚 UK: yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300... @yalebooks.bsky.social US: yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300... @yalepress.bsky.social #booksky #histsci #queerhistory 🗃️

Screenshot from the website of Yale University Press showing praise for my book, Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life. It reads: “Evolution from an intersex ancestor? What a wondrous Darwinian idea! In this electrifying book, Ross Books helps us see the canon of natural history as queer from the very beginning. Sharp, clever, and as replete with evolutionary diversity as a history of biology could possibly be.”—Alison Bashford, author of An Intimate History of Evolution

“Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life is an invigorating read pulsing with queer life. As politically essential as it is compelling, it's a rich counterhistory of biology which shows us how scientists always knew queerness was natural and nature was queer.”—Kit Heyam, author of Before We Were Trans

“Ross Brooks’ smart new book is as fun to read as it is useful for rebutting all the bad takes on sexuality and gender that clog contemporary discourse. He has a delightfully ‘queer eye for the hermaphrodite guys’ of life’s evolutionary history, and more than a few arch words for Darwin and other biologists who’ve straightjacketed an abundance of animate forms into an unnatural binary.”—Susan Stryker, author of Changing Gender

“Everything you need to know about sex and evolution, but were too indoctrinated by the cisheteropatriarchy to know to ask.”—Subhadra Das, author of Uncivilised

“From Linnaeus to Darwin, Brooks brilliantly shows us how biology always has, and will always be, delightfully queer. A much-needed account of the queer history of natural history.”—Josh Luke Davis, author of A Little Gay Natural History

“Few know of Darwin’s fascination with the queer biology of sex. This compelling, insightful, and original narrative illustrates Darwin’s (and others’) contributions and hesitancies in the enabling and restricting of queer evolutionary analyses.”—Agustín Fuentes, author of Sex is a Spectrum

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Apr 9

A Queer Scrapbook (@manchesterup.bsky.social) is a tremendous achievement: fun and informative, perfect for teaching in schools and universities. I'm delighted to be included, alongside this fabulous cover of Oxford student mag Isis from May 1973. #queer #lgbtq #Oxford #booksky #queerhistory 🌈📚🗃️💋

Photograph of part of a page from A Queer Scrapbook. It features an image of the cover of Oxford student magazine Isis dated 19 May 1973 featuring a picture of a head with red lips and the word 'gay' underneath. I'm quoted: ''Queer' Oxford was as dead as the proverbial dodo after the war right through the 1950s and 1960s. Things changed quickly through the emergence of student activism in the early years of the 1970s as Oxford's students began to organise and campaign in a major way. The front cover of the student magazine Isis from 19 May 1973 always makes me smile.'

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Apr 5

It's #Easter Sunday! 🌱 No cute bunnies or lambs in my files, I'm afraid. But I do have a *lot* of queer chickens. 🥚🏳️‍🌈🐤🏳️‍⚧️🐔 Here's a domestic hen with male plumage, described in the Memoirs of the Wernerian Natural History Society in 1821. #queer #birds #histbio #histsci #sts #HappyEaster 🗃️

B&W plate (with considerable age tanning) of what looks like a cockerel, but the caption reveals that it is a 'Domestic Hen with Male Plumage.'

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Mar 30

When I was younger, my mother took me to the Royal Albert Hall to see her favourite stars, among them Shirley Bassey, Liza Minnelli, and Frank Sinatra. I'm so happy to return this evening to see *my* favourite stars, the brilliant Stornoway (@stornowayband.bsky.social)! 🎸🐦🎹 #livemusic #London

Selfie taken outside the Royal Albert Hall in London this evening. I'm wearing a checked shirt and purple jumper.

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Mar 19

Hello again #Oxford! I lived, studied, and worked here for 15 years; visiting now always feels like a homecoming. ☀️📚🎓

Selfie taken outside the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford. I'm wearing a red and white checked shirt and a light brown jacket. The sky is clear and beautifully blue.

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Mar 11

I'm looking forward to celebrating the achievements of historian of science Dan Kevles in Oxford next week. I'll be talking about the mercurial associations between the pursuit of eugenics through the 20th century and ideas about sex selection. #histbio #histsci #sts @oxmedhum.bsky.social 🗃️

Front cover of the December 1928 edition of the New York-published popular science magazine Science and Invention. Under the headline 'Can We Control Sex?' the image features a god-like man carrying a test tube reaching towards a group of young children. It's really quite creepy.

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Mar 8

Happy #InternationalWomensDay! 👩‍🔬💜 Working on my forthcoming book, finding out about English suffragist and naturalist Lydia Ernestine Becker was a revelation. In 1869, she made an inclusive, science-based case for women's rights. Just awesome! 🤩 #Victorian #women #numerousintermediatevarieties 🌈🗃️

Excerpt from Lydia Becker's 1869 article 'On the Study of Science by Women' in the Contemporary Review. It reads: 'When a naturalist seeks to group a number of individuals into a distinct class, he fixes on some character or set of characters common to them all, and distinguishing them from other individuals. When he finds such a group distinctly defined, he calls it a species. But when he finds two individuals differing very widely from each other, yet so connected by intermediate forms that he can pass from one extreme to the other without a violent break any where in the series, he considers them to be of one and the same kind. If we apply this principle as an illustration of the variety in human intellects, taking the conventional masculine type of mind as one end of the scale, and the conventional feminine type as the other, we shall find them connected by numerous intermediate varieties, distributed indiscriminately among male and female persons ; that what is called a masculine mind is frequently found united to a feminine body, and sometimes the reverse, and that there is no necessary nor even presumptive connection between the sex of a human being and the type of intellect and character he possesses.'

Portrait of Lydia Becker by Susan Isabel Dacre. Becker sits in a black dress with a lace neckline with red flowers attached.

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Mar 5

It's World Book Day (UK & Ireland)! 🌍📚🤩 For young people brandishing book tokens today, there are are some marvellous queer-themed science and nature books out there . . . 🏳️‍🌈🦆🏳️‍⚧️ 🦋 #LGBTQ #booksky #skybooks #WorldBookDay #WorldBookDay2026 #LoveLibraries #QueerInSTEM

Front cover of Queer Ducks (And Other Animals): The Natural World of Animal Sexuality by Eliot Schrefer. It has Progress Pride colours and features two ducks with a heart between them.

Cover of Isn't Nature Queer? Coloring Book, written and Illustrated by Heather Charise.

Cover of 'Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature' by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishan. The cover is a light beige, with artwork of golden-outlined leaves with a raven and fruit coming out of the top left leaf, mushrooms sprouting from the top right leaf, and a stylistic black-and-gold snake wrapped around the leaves and vines toward the bottom left. The title is in large print under the raven, and the subtitle is in smaller, italic-like font to the right of the snake. The author's name is a the bottom, and the top has a quote from Robin Wall Kimmer: 'An antidote to the loneliness of our species.'

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Feb 27

Matt Cook's 'Writing Queer History' just missed out on my 'coming soon' list (by a week or so!), but it's definitely a *must read* for all #queerhistory fans . . . 🌈📚🗃️

Book cover: Writing Queer History by Matt Cook. The title and author's name appear in a pink circle. There are also two black and white photographs relevant to queer history.

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks@rossbrooks· Feb 26

. . . 2/2 @justinbengry.bsky.social, Matt Cook, @rebeccajennings.bsky.social, E-J Scott, Brigit Lang, Ina Linge, @katielmsutton.bsky.social, @rebeccajanemorgan.bsky.social, & @ajwestauthor.bsky.social. 🏳️‍🌈📚🏳️‍⚧️🗃️ #booksky #skybooks #LGBTHM #lgbthistorymonth