iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

This poem does not support Palestine Action hjosephinegiles.substack.com/p/this-poem-...

open.substack.com

This poem does not support Palestine Action

words on terror

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

I'm teaching a course at Moniack Mhor in September, with Hannah Lavery, & our guest is Roger Robinson. It's space to think about how politics & writing intertwine, what we can & can't do with words, the possibilities and frustrations of activist writing. www.moniackmhor.org.uk/courses/2537...

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

Some words from Poland on multilingualism, with a speculative translation of Màiri Mhòr at the end: I'm sick of English bullshit I'm really fucking sick Sorry not sorry my song's so long I'm sick of English bullshit hjosephinegiles.substack.com/p/in-transla...

hjosephinegiles.substack.com

In Translation

Notes on multilinguality

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

Orkney friends, we're coming home with Deep Wheel Orcadia a week today. www.scissorkick.co.uk/tour

scissorkick.co.uk

Tour Dates — Scissor Kick

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Christyn Parkes @parkesland.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

This hits very hard. I, and many of my trans colleagues, operated from this logic by default. Many now, I think, are waking up to its flaws. Some, sadly, still do not and cling to the hope of a quick fix or compromise.

Screen shot of text reading:

I strongly suspect that a major reason so many trans people remain wedded to ineffective tactics is that they – we – are trying to hold on to privilege we’ve lost. I’m speaking to people like me, white and from a middle-class background, who grew up expecting the state the guarantee a certain amount of safety and security. Now that the state has made it very clear that we’re disposable, we experience a certain outrage, or moral affront. “You mean you’re going to treat me like you treat all the people who were already disposable?” Faced with that, we try very hard, against all the evidence that it’s not going to work, to recover our position within the state. James Baldwin on white gay people also applies to white trans people. Instead, we have to recognise with whom our practical solidarity must lie, and act accordingly. The rewards are greater than anything the state can give.

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Nicolete Burbach @nicoleteburbach.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

"We cannot show segregation as the moral abhorrence, practical disaster and mechanism of terrifying social control that it is with open letters, symbolic protests and lobbying campaigns. We show segregation for what it is by collectively making segregation impossible to enforce"

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

"Your trans colleagues are receiving emails from their bosses saying that they have to use segregated facilities because they’re frightened of getting sued. "You have to be able to present those bosses with something scarier than the anti-trans legal budget." substack.com/home/post/p-...

substack.com

Stepping Over the Line

Notes on resisting trans segregation

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Sam Rutherford (he/him) @echomikeromeo.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

I started screengrabbing excerpts of @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social's latest to share, and then had to stop because I was screengrabbing all of it: hjosephinegiles.substack.com/p/stepping-o...

hjosephinegiles.substack.com

Stepping Over the Line

Notes on resisting trans segregation

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

I went to visit the last great auk. "This extinction belongs to me, and I belong to it. I’m named for it. It’s my history, in my place. I came to Fowl Craig to pay my respects to my King." hjosephinegiles.substack.com/p/klumsed

hjosephinegiles.substack.com

Klumsed

On losing voices

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

dàn beag ùr www.juliejohnstone.com/essence-pres...

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

I've been thinking about how to tend to a political fire: hjosephinegiles.substack.com/p/luntit

hjosephinegiles.substack.com

Luntit

On trying not to burn out this time

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

Want to come see my gay sci fi love story with live string quartet this summer? 26th June 2025 - St Magnus International Festival, Orkney 18th + 19th July 2025 - The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen 25th + 26th July 2025 - Eden Court, Inverness www.scissorkick.co.uk/tour

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

"We learn more about trans life from figures who are worrying and incomprehensible than we do from any potted biography of a political hero. If we look at our inauthentic origins and find them true, we can better live as the contradictions we are." hjosephinegiles.substack.com/p/on-transfi...

hjosephinegiles.substack.com

On Transfixion

William Sharp and Fiona Macleod: Epilogue

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 19/04/2025

If you're at a trans liberation protest today, here's some chants and songs for you! Print and share and use! Chants: transhealthuk.noblogs.org/resources-fo... Songs: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/zni6r...

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

If you want to do a practical thing for trans people, please support and share this fundraiser. We're organising blood tests for trans people excluded by healthcare. This is the work I wrote about yesterday! Thank you so much for you kind words and help. www.gofundme.com/f/blood-test...

gofundme.com

Donate to Blood tests for trans people in Edinburgh, organized by Josie Giles

We're raising money for a pilot scheme to provide free blood tests to trans peop… Josie Giles needs your support for Blood tests for trans people in Edinburgh

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

The Supreme Court is wishing a problem away and so gifting more problems to trans lives. Those lives can, must and will continue being lived in their fullness and their joy. My sisters, please give all your love to each other and none of it to the state. hjosephinegiles.substack.com/p/while-the-...

hjosephinegiles.substack.com

While the Supreme Court ruled, I tore up a fence

On being trans and living a life

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

What do H.P. Lovecraft, Jean Sibelius, Carson McCullers and a 1970s medium in the Isle of Wight have in common? That’s right, it’s our friend Fiona Macleod. hjosephinegiles.substack.com/p/on-ghosts

hjosephinegiles.substack.com

On Ghosts

William Sharp and Fiona Macleod, Part Four

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

If you thought the story of William Sharp and Fiona Macleod I've been telling couldn’t get any weirder, let me now tell you about how Tennessee Williams’ lover met them at a seance. hjosephinegiles.substack.com/p/on-ghosts

hjosephinegiles.substack.com

On Ghosts

William Sharp and Fiona Macleod, Part Four

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

hjosephinegiles.substack.com

On Ghosts

William Sharp and Fiona Macleod, Part Four

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

hjosephinegiles.substack.com

On Ghosts

William Sharp and Fiona Macleod, Part Four

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

In May I'm going to walk the outline of Gaza across Edinburgh and Midlothian, as part of a group raising emergency funds for displaced families from Gaza. I'd be really grateful if you'd contribute. www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding...

justgiving.com

Help raise £400000 to support families in Gaza – JustGiving Crowdfunding

Iʼm raising money to support families in Gaza. Support this JustGiving Crowdfunding Page.

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

My pal Dr Christina Neuwirth has today released the results of 7 years of research into gender inequality in Scottish literature. I'm so, so proud of them. www.quinereport.com

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

It's time to retire the Caledonian antisyzygy. Let a girl rest. hjosephinegiles.substack.com/p/on-the-gae...

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

"Cultural appropriation is not an ethical failing or a creative faux pas but a political strategy." A third essay on Fiona Macleod and William Sharp, looking at the uses and abuses of Gaelic in Scottish literature and politics. open.substack.com/pub/hjosephi...

open.substack.com

On the Gaelic Idea

William Sharp and Fiona Macleod, Part 3

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

With apologies to every lovely Fiona I know, I have written an essay on the origins of the name Fiona, which are much weirder than you might imagine. hjosephinegiles.substack.com/p/on-the-ori...

hjosephinegiles.substack.com

On the origins of the name Fiona

William Sharp and Fiona Macleod, Part Two

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

William Sharp's last letter: You will think I have deceived you about Fiona Macleod. I have not, however in certain details I have (inevitably) misled you. Only, it is a mystery. Perhaps you will intuitively understand, or may come to understand. The rest is silence. Farewell.

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 20/02/2025

In 2019, @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social’s scifi verse novel DEEP WHEEL ORCADIA was a work-in-progress, & we were delighted to feature an extract. Published in 2021, DEEP WHEEL ORCADIA won the 2022 Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction Book of the Year www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2019/07/the-...

thebottleimp.org.uk

The New Orkney Language Literature - an excerpt from 'Deep Wheel Orcadia: a Future Fantasy' - The Bottle Imp

“Space station V morning” by Les Chatfield is licensed under CC BY 2.0 Deep Wheel Orcadia is a space station orbiting a gas giant, a few hundred years in the future and a few light years from Earth. A...

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 20/02/2025

The New Orkney Language Literature @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social looks at “the minoritisation of the language, perpetuated not just through literary snobbery but also through an education system that beat out Orcadian with physical force” & a literary rebirth www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2019/07/the-...

thebottleimp.org.uk

The New Orkney Language Literature - The Bottle Imp

“Orkney Library and Archive, Kirkwall” by summonedbyfells is licensed under CC BY 2.0 For a small place, Orkney has produced an extraordinary literature. Simon W. Hall’s 2010 study, The History of Ork...

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

I am finally writing up my years-long obsession with William Sharp and Fiona Macleod. There is too much, so this is part one of at least four, looking at them through a trans lens. If you like it, I'd be very grateful if you'd send it on to one other person. open.substack.com/pub/hjosephi...

open.substack.com

William Sharp and Fiona Macleod, Part One

On Wilfion and the search for trans stories

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

On Wednesday I'm speaking at Lavender Menace about my number one weird obsession, the Scottish fin de siècle author William Sharp / Fiona MacLeod, a mad trans writer avant la lettre. I'm reading a story and some poems via spirit medium. Would you like to come? lavendermenace.org.uk/event/wilfion

lavendermenace.org.uk

Lyra Celtica: Harry Josephine Giles on Wilfion - Lavender Menace

Join us for an evening of readings exploring the work and legacy of genderweird Celtic Revival writer Fiona Macleod / William Sharp with Harry Josephine Giles.

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

Waas an Walls: On Toponymy and Ecological Memory "Ecology is always changing, & where language & place-naming is strong the toponymy would reflect shifting social knowledge: instead, we have withering local languages & maps that keep a fading memory." open.substack.com/pub/hjosephi...

open.substack.com

Waas an Walls

On Topynymy and Ecological Memory

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Josie Giles @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

open.substack.com

Waas an Walls

On Topynymy and Ecological Memory

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