iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 02/10/2026

So good to see QUEER ORIGINS in my local public library! I love spotting the different ways that bookshops and libraries categorise the book. Some put it in their science section, others history, others (as here) LGBTQ. All are correct! 🌈📚🦋🗃️ #books #booksky #reading #histsci @yalebooks.bsky.social

Row of queer-themed books on a library bookshelf. Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life is in the centre, front-facing. Above the books is a blue banner which reads 'LGBT'.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 01/10/2026

Beautiful plate, grim subject: parasitic castration of bees by Stylops, a genus of twisted-wing parasites. It accompanies French zoologist Jean Pérez's 1886 description of the phenomenon. 🐝🗃️ Source: Biodiversity Heritage Library #histbio #histsci #hstm #sts #nature #bees @biodivlibrary.bsky.social

Colour plate with 18 separate figures depicting different stages of parasitic castration of various Andrena bees by Stylops, a genus of obligately endoparasitic insects. Top left: an uninfected male Andrena trimmerana. Top right: an infected male Andrena trimmerana exhibiting external characteristics of a female.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 26/09/2026

This bot thinks I've published a book about Aristotle. Oh dear. 🙄🏛️📚 #books #booksky #reading #writing #authors #AI #spam

Screenshot of spam email. It reads: 'Dear Ross Brooks,

I hope this finds you well.

I am reaching out directly from the production team at BBC Radio 2.

Our team has been following the reception of Aristotle: The First Teacher, and given your compelling biographical approach to classical philosophy and making ancient thinkers vibrantly relevant to modern readers, we are keen to feature your work in an upcoming national broadcast segment exploring philosophy, history, and intellectual heritage.

So much deep historical research and narrative clarity goes into translating classical wisdom into engaging literature for today's audience.

Frankly, it is a disservice to our wider listeners, many of whom are history enthusiasts and lifelong learners, when the scholars illuminating these foundational figures remain outside the national conversation.

We want to give your work the national platform it warrants.'

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 25/09/2026

I turned up at Waterstones in Worthing to sign some new stock of QUEER ORIGINS and was absolutely bowled over to be greeted by this in prime position in the shop window! It's so uplifting when booksellers get behind one's book. 💜🌈📚🦋🗃️ #book #books #booksky #authors #reading #histsci #queerhistory

Photo taken from outside a shop window. There's a copy of Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life: A History of Sex and Science by Ross Brooks displayed upright. Next to it is some text about the book in a wooden frame. It reads: 'Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life' 'Dr Ross Brooks' 'What did Darwin and Linnaeus really think about sex? In this iconoclastic history, Brooks shows how queerness was at the heart of evolutionists’ thinking about the natural world. From hermaphroditic slugs and sex-changing birds to male pigeon lactation, pregnant male seahorses, and bisexual pigs, Darwin and his fellow naturalists were privately in awe of nature’s sexual diversity. These encounters fundamentally shaped their understanding of plants, animals, and humans, even if they were never fully acknowledged in their published writings. Brooks radically exposes us to the hidden queerness of Georgian and Victorian science—and shows how nature has always been more sexually diverse than we’ve been told.'

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 24/09/2026

Lovely plate showing two gynandromorph large yeoman butterflies (Cirrochroa aoris). One is shown from above (top) and beneath (centre). From an 1880 article by English entomologist J.O. Westwood in the Transactions of the Entomological Society of London. 🌈🦋🗃️ @biodivlibrary.bsky.social #histsci #sts

Colour plate depicting three images of large yeoman butterflies in a vertical row. They are all gynandromorphs, exhibiting different patterning in yellows, browns, and white on left and right sides. Source: Biodiversity Heritage Library.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 20/09/2026

I just stumbled across this: the cover design for the forthcoming Japanese edition of A Little Gay Natural History by the brilliant @joshlukedavis.com. It's gorgeous — congratulations, Josh! 🏳️‍🌈📚🦋 www.kagakudojin.co.jp/book/b102031... #books #booksky #reading #queer #nature

Book cover featuring two gynandromorph butterflies with brown and blue wings against a vibrant abstract watercolour background. The title of the book, the author's name, and the translators name are written in colourful Japanese lettering. The publisher's name appears at the bottom.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 19/09/2026

DARWIN AND THE QUEER ORIGINS OF LIFE . . . THE MOVIE! One of the less lovely things about publishing a book is the amount of AI-generated spam one receives. I've had several offers to turn Queer Origins into a film. This one even came with a script! 🌈📚🎞️🦋 #books #booksky #reading #writing #authors

Screenshot from email. It reads: "Hi Ross,

What immediately stood out to me about *Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life* is the tension between the neat, familiar story of sex in nature and the much stranger reality your research uncovers.

The image of Darwin and Linnaeus encountering hermaphroditic slugs, sex-changing birds, male pigeons producing milk, pregnant seahorses, and bisexual pigs gives the book an unusually compelling visual question: what happens when nature refuses to behave according to the categories we expect it to?

That gave me an idea for a short cinematic piece built around the moment those assumptions begin to break apart."

Screenshot of email: "**Here’s the vision:**

Black screen.

**“We think we know how sex works in nature.”**

A Victorian naturalist's notebook opens.

Male bird displaying.

Female watching.

A neat illustration of courtship.

**MALE. FEMALE. COURTSHIP.**

Everything looks orderly.

Then the page turns.

A hermaphroditic slug.

A bird changing sex."

Screenshot from email. It reads "A male seahorse carrying eggs.

A male pigeon feeding its young.

A pig.

Another page.

The neat categories begin to disappear.

The sound of pen scratching across paper becomes faster.

**“But nature was never this simple.”**

Darwin studies an illustration.

Linnaeus turns a page.

Cabinets of specimens.

Botanical drawings.

Animal skeletons."

Screenshot from email. It reads: "Handwritten observations.

And everywhere, examples that refuse to fit the conventional picture.

Then the screen goes completely black.

**SEX.**

Pause.

**GENDER.**

Pause.

**NATURE.**

Then:

**“What if evolution was always stranger than the story we were told?”**

The imagery shifts from Victorian illustrations into modern scientific footage and back again, connecting the observations of nineteenth-century naturalists to the much larger question your book raises about how science has understood sex and sexuality.

And finally:

**“Nature has never been as tidy as we imagined.”**

*Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life*

I think that could capture what makes your book so intriguing without reducing it to a simple “history of sex.” It puts the reader inside the discovery itself, where every new observation challenges an assumption they thought they understood."

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 17/09/2026

As a Fellow of the Linnean Society, it was also a special pleasure to pop into Burlington House on Piccadilly to sign a copy for the Society's magnificent Library. Huge thanks to @willbeharrell.bsky.social. 🌈📚🦋 #queer #science #nature @linneansociety.bsky.social

A copy of Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life: A History of Sex and Science by Ross Brooks, placed on a wooden table and opened to show the title page. It's stamped with the Linnean Society's stamp and I've signed it in blue ink 'For the Linnean Society Library, Queerly Yours, Ross Brooks'.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 17/09/2026

Fun day signing copies of QUEER ORIGINS in London bookshops. Check out Foyles on Charing Cross Road, Hatchards on Piccadilly, and Waterstones on Gower Street, where I was thrilled to find the book had been selected for a special mention! 💜🌈📚🦋🗃️ #booksky #histsci #queerhistory @yalebooks.bsky.social

Copies of Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life: A History of Sex and Science by Ross Brooks front-faced on a wooden bookshelf. Underneath the front copy is a hand-written recommendation from a bookseller. It reads: 'Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life: A wonderful queering of science by the brilliant Ross Brooks. Examining how scientists including Darwin always knew our natural world was queer.'

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 15/09/2026

It’s heartening to see QUEER ORIGINS finding its way into libraries — just in time for the new academic year! 🏳️‍🌈📚🗃️ Academics & students: if your uni library doesn’t have it yet, please ask them to stock it. 🙏 #books #booksky #libraries #lovelibraries #librarians #science #histsci #queerhistory

Screenshot from Library Hub Discover showing UK libraries now holding Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life. there are six listed: University of Birmingham Libraries, The Linnean Society of London, The London Library, National Library of Scotland, National Library of Wales / Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru, and University of Oxford Libraries.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 10/09/2026

A leading historian of science just sent me this pic, with QUEER ORIGINS nestled among some of the most respected books about Darwin. It's a huge compliment — I'm quite emotional! 😊 Do send me photos if you spot the book out 'in the wild' . . . 🏳️‍🌈📚🗃️🦋 #books #booksky #reading #Darwin #histsci #sts

Row of books on a bookshelf. They are, from left to right, Charles Darwin: Voyaging by Janet Browne; Darwin by Janet Browne; Darwin and the Making of Sexual Selection by Evelleen Richards; Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life by Ross Brooks; Life's Splendid Drama by Peter J. Bowler; and Darwin Deleted by Peter J. Bowler.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 08/09/2026

DARWIN AND THE QUEER ORIGINS OF LIFE is now published in the UK, Canada, and the US! 🏳️‍🌈📚🦋🗃️ Every recommendation helps get this extraordinary history into more hands, so please ask your favourite libraries and bookstores to stock it. Thank you! 🙏 #booksky #reading #libraries #histsci #queerhistory

A copy of Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life: A History of Sex and Science standing vertically on two others placed horizontally, with a vase of flowers behind them, on a table of other books. There's a bookmark visible in the vertical copy.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 02/09/2026

It's always a joy visiting #Cambridge, but especially so today as I popped into the legendary Heffers Bookshop to sign copies of QUEER ORIGINS. Yes, there are bookmarks too! Get in quick . . . 🏳️‍🌈📚🦋🗃️ #book #books #booksky #bookshops #newreads #reading #queer #history #histsci @yalebooks.bsky.social

Selfie taken outside Heffers Bookshop in Cambridge. I'm wearing a red and white checked shirt.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 01/09/2026

I never thought I'd see the day. Darwin is currently trending above two porn-related articles, Luke Evans, and Kit Connor in Attitude Magazine! 🙃 The power of #histsci . . . Thank you, one and all — please keep sharing. 👇 #sts #queer #reading #queerhistory #histsex @yalebooks.bsky.social 🐟🏳️‍🌈📚🦋🗃️

Screenshot of the front page of Attitude Magazine's website. Alongside a picture of Luke Evans, and a link to an interview, is a box headed 'Trending'. My article on Charles Darwin is No.1.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 26/08/2026

My Sussex Coast book tour continues at the Eastbourne Waterstones, where you can pick up a signed first edition (!) and fabulous bookmarks . . . if you're quick. 🏳️‍🌈📚🌞🌊🍦 Sun, sea, and sex-limited polymorphism - what's not to love?! #books #booksky #bookshops #Eastbourne #Sussex #SouthCoast #histsci

Three copies of Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life: A History of Sex and Science on a table with other books and a vase of flowers behind them. There is a bookmark visible in one of the books.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 25/08/2026

Friends and neighbours on the Sussex Coast, I've signed some copies of QUEER ORIGINS for you at the Brighton Waterstones. And, yes, there are a few of those coveted bookmarks too . . . get in quick! 🏳️‍🌈📚🏳️‍⚧️🦋 #books #booksky #bookshops #newreads #Brighton #Sussex #SouthCoast #UK

Copies of Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life: A History of Sex and Science, with a sticker reading 'Signed by the Author', on a bookshelf surrounded by other books.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 20/08/2026

It's just magical seeing QUEER ORIGINS in bookshops, especially the iconic Gay's the Word.✨ I've just signed some copies there — nab one while you can (there are also some soon-to-be-collector's-item bookmarks)! #books #booksky #bookshop #newreads #histsci #histsex #queerhistory 🌈📚🦋🗃️

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 19/08/2026

QUEER ORIGINS is starting to arrive in UK bookshops! It's all round to The Book and Bottle in Hertford, where they've made it look very yummy indeed . . . 🌈📚🍷 linktr.ee/thebookandbo... #books #booksky #bookshop #newreads #readingcommunity @yalebooks.bsky.social @bookshop-org-uk.bsky.social

Screenshot of recent Instagram post by The Book and Bottle bookshop (Hertford). It features a photo of DARWIN AND THE QUEER ORIGINS OF LIFE with a bottle of red wine with and floral design on the label. The original post reads 'NEWBIES to the shelves!!'

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 10/08/2026

Please help me get QUEER ORIGINS 'out there' by recommending it to your favourite libraries! Academics and students can usually submit a request to their uni libraries. Public libraries all have a way for members to suggest a title. Thank you! 💜🌈📚🗃️ #books #booksky #libsky #libraries #lovelibraries

Promotional image for DARWIN AND THE QUEER ORIGINS OF LIFE: A HISTORY OF SEX AND SCIENCE. Above an image of the book is an endorsement from Kit Heyam, author of BEFORE WE WERE TRANS. It reads: 'As politically essential as it is compelling. A rich counter history of biology.'

Screenshot from Brighton & Hove City Council's 'Brighton and Hove Libraries' webpage. It's a completed 'Suggest a Purchase' form, filled out with the title of Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life: A History of Sex and Science'.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 05/08/2026

I would have been *first* in that queue . . . 🤩🌈🦋 News Chronicle, 25 October 1938. #gynandromorph #skystorians #1930s #histbio #histsci #sts #queer #queerhistory #nature

Newspaper article headlined 'QUEUE TO SEE A BUTTERFLY'. The text reads: 'An English cabbage butterfly may fetch a record price at an auction today at Steven's, Covent Garden, where insect collections have been sold at the rate of one or two a month for the past 150 years. Entomologists and agents for British and foreign museums queued up to examine it yesterday. Officially described as "a magnificent and unique dimorphous and gynandromorphous specimen," it looked exactly like the common garden variety, except that the left wing was lemon-yellow and the right creamy-white. A minimum price of about £50 for it was mentioned to the News Chronicle by Mr. O. J. Janson, insect expert to Steven's for half a century. Nine cabinets will be sold. One contains 20,000 butterflies of 1,200 kinds.'

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 28/07/2026

This morning I had the pleasure of guesting on an upcoming episode of BBC Science Focus Magazine's fabulous Instant Genius podcast, for which I was sent this fancy microphone! Here are two photos from the session: one of me setting up, and the other of me in action during the recording. 🌈🎙️

Selfie taken at my desk. A large microphone is in the foreground. I'm wearing a shirt with brightly coloured vertical stripes. In the background are bookshelves and a colourful metal gecko.

B&W photo of a young Judy Garland in a low-cut black dress. She's singing behind a large microphone.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 21/07/2026

🌞 For a limited time only (21-24 July), you can pre-order Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life with 25% OFF at Waterstones (online only)! www.waterstones.com/book/darwin-... #books #booksky #science #histsci #queerhistory @yalebooks.bsky.social 🌈📚🦋🗃️

Promotional banner advertising 25% off RRP Books Coming Soon at Waterstones. It has a yellow background, the jacket design of my book, Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life, a blue circle with the text 'Pre-order now with code: SUMMER26, additional text '21-24 July - Online Only', and some additional graphic design featuring coloured books arranged in circles.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 17/07/2026

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.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 13/07/2026

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.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 11/07/2026

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. 🔪🐷🩸

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 10/07/2026

'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.'

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 04/07/2026

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).

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 04/07/2026

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

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 01/07/2026

💜🌈📚🗃️✨ 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.'

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 01/07/2026

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.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 24/06/2026

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.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 21/06/2026

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'.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 09/06/2026

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.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 07/06/2026

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.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 26/05/2026

Here they are! 🐘🏳️‍🌈🐘

B&W photograph of two elephants standing with a zookeeper

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 19/05/2026

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.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 09/05/2026

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.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 07/05/2026

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

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 24/04/2026

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.'

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 21/04/2026

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

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.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 09/04/2026

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.'

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 05/04/2026

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.'

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 30/03/2026

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.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 19/03/2026

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.

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 11/03/2026

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.

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