So Mayer
@suchmayer.bsky.social
They/them. Overthinker. Reads things, writes things. BAD LANGUAGE out now with Peninsula Press 🐉 THE WORD FOR WORLD (co-ed) out now with @silver-press.bsky.social 🌳 Website & newsletter: somayer.net. Won't age-verify so no DMs.
Pinned
So Mayer
@suchmayer.bsky.social
· Sep 16
It's here.
BAD LANGUAGE
13/11/25
"made with love and horror, & a guidebook for our time" — @adamzmith.bsky.social
"Mayer's words & a gift and a gateway" — @elizabethlovatt.bsky.social
"incantation & spell distil a complex argument" — Lola Olufemi
Pre-order: peninsulapress.co.uk/products/bad...
BAD LANGUAGE
13/11/25
"made with love and horror, & a guidebook for our time" — @adamzmith.bsky.social
"Mayer's words & a gift and a gateway" — @elizabethlovatt.bsky.social
"incantation & spell distil a complex argument" — Lola Olufemi
Pre-order: peninsulapress.co.uk/products/bad...
Reposted by So Mayer
"One of the uniting factors that binds together the six states in our immediate inquiry is that none of them have Native American reservations. That big blob of states in the middle of the country with zero Native reservations? That’s where the American cross-dressing ban was born." -Bethany Karsten
The Birth of American Anti-Trans Law – A Brief History of Transfeminine Literature, Pt. 4
A hyperbolic descent into the Antebellum period in search of the origins of American anti-trans law.
thetransfemininereview.com
February 14, 2026 at 7:54 PM
"One of the uniting factors that binds together the six states in our immediate inquiry is that none of them have Native American reservations. That big blob of states in the middle of the country with zero Native reservations? That’s where the American cross-dressing ban was born." -Bethany Karsten
Reposted by So Mayer
“We should learn to speak in a language that rich people who don't dream can't comprehend”
February 14, 2026 at 6:29 PM
“We should learn to speak in a language that rich people who don't dream can't comprehend”
Reposted by So Mayer
New post: LABOUR'S SECTION 28 IS HERE - ACT NOW.
I explain how the Labour government's proposed revisions to the guidance on "keeping children in education" are designed to erase trans children in England. But it's not a done deal - there is plenty we can do to oppose this.
I explain how the Labour government's proposed revisions to the guidance on "keeping children in education" are designed to erase trans children in England. But it's not a done deal - there is plenty we can do to oppose this.
Labour’s Section 28 is here – act now
In May 1988, the Conservative government introduced Section 28. This legal measure outlawed support for “homosexuality as a pretended family relationship” across Britain, especially in …
ruthpearce.net
February 14, 2026 at 6:20 PM
New post: LABOUR'S SECTION 28 IS HERE - ACT NOW.
I explain how the Labour government's proposed revisions to the guidance on "keeping children in education" are designed to erase trans children in England. But it's not a done deal - there is plenty we can do to oppose this.
I explain how the Labour government's proposed revisions to the guidance on "keeping children in education" are designed to erase trans children in England. But it's not a done deal - there is plenty we can do to oppose this.
Reposted by So Mayer
if you give artists simply the means to live they will make art and be in the world in an attentive way, because that's the curiosity and desire of being someone interested in making things
which we severely undervalue
which we severely undervalue
February 14, 2026 at 4:41 PM
if you give artists simply the means to live they will make art and be in the world in an attentive way, because that's the curiosity and desire of being someone interested in making things
which we severely undervalue
which we severely undervalue
Reposted by So Mayer
I don't think it is only our job to teach students how to read long novels; it may also be our jobs to teach them how to live without an online surveillance state. To learn without intrusive apps. To swap notes. To write in a book's margins. To exist in their communities in slow, clunky, human ways.
February 14, 2026 at 3:41 PM
I don't think it is only our job to teach students how to read long novels; it may also be our jobs to teach them how to live without an online surveillance state. To learn without intrusive apps. To swap notes. To write in a book's margins. To exist in their communities in slow, clunky, human ways.
Reposted by So Mayer
Happy Valentine's Day! If you're into queer love and also women having an active sexuality even once they become mothers, even after they (*gasp*) go through menopause, my first novel, ALL MY MOTHER'S LOVERS, has all of that and more!
bookshop.org/a/20948/9781...
bookshop.org/a/20948/9781...
All My Mother's Lovers: A Novel
A Novel
bookshop.org
February 14, 2026 at 4:19 PM
Happy Valentine's Day! If you're into queer love and also women having an active sexuality even once they become mothers, even after they (*gasp*) go through menopause, my first novel, ALL MY MOTHER'S LOVERS, has all of that and more!
bookshop.org/a/20948/9781...
bookshop.org/a/20948/9781...
Reposted by So Mayer
I'm going to be doing some short classes for the Ad Astra Institute! First up, How to Not Do Eugenics with Speculative Biology! It's a brief primer on the history of race science and eugenics with suggestions on how to avoid fantasy or science fiction racism. adastra-sf.com/courses.htm#...
February 7, 2026 at 12:08 AM
I'm going to be doing some short classes for the Ad Astra Institute! First up, How to Not Do Eugenics with Speculative Biology! It's a brief primer on the history of race science and eugenics with suggestions on how to avoid fantasy or science fiction racism. adastra-sf.com/courses.htm#...
Reposted by So Mayer
Much of my youth revolved around the website ZineLibrary. It went down around Occupy in a massive loss for a movement whose ideas and knowledge mostly doesn't circulate online but in person.
Anyway I've put it back online with a *thousand* anarchist zines:
zinelibrary.org
Anyway I've put it back online with a *thousand* anarchist zines:
zinelibrary.org
ZineLibrary
zinelibrary.org
February 14, 2026 at 12:53 AM
Much of my youth revolved around the website ZineLibrary. It went down around Occupy in a massive loss for a movement whose ideas and knowledge mostly doesn't circulate online but in person.
Anyway I've put it back online with a *thousand* anarchist zines:
zinelibrary.org
Anyway I've put it back online with a *thousand* anarchist zines:
zinelibrary.org
Reposted by So Mayer
When 90% of women in Iceland walked out of their jobs and homes one morning in 1975, refusing to work, cook or take care of the children, they brought their country to a standstill and catapulted Iceland to "the best place in the world to be a woman.”
The Day Iceland Stood Still screens 8 Mar.
The Day Iceland Stood Still screens 8 Mar.
February 14, 2026 at 3:19 PM
When 90% of women in Iceland walked out of their jobs and homes one morning in 1975, refusing to work, cook or take care of the children, they brought their country to a standstill and catapulted Iceland to "the best place in the world to be a woman.”
The Day Iceland Stood Still screens 8 Mar.
The Day Iceland Stood Still screens 8 Mar.
Reposted by So Mayer
Yeah, hi, I’m a person with “mobility challenges” (excuse me while I hurl). What we want, by and large, are not expensive, heavy devices that will “help us walk again”, but ramps.
I know, it’s not sexy, as technology invented before Christ, but it is overlooked in favor of…this. Repeatedly.
I know, it’s not sexy, as technology invented before Christ, but it is overlooked in favor of…this. Repeatedly.
Nike's battery-powered footwear system, which propels wearers forward, is part of a broader push to help humans move farther and faster.
'E-bike for your feet': How bionic sneakers could change human mobility
Nike's battery-powered footwear system, which propels wearers forward, is part of a broader push to help humans move farther and faster.
n.pr
February 14, 2026 at 1:16 PM
Yeah, hi, I’m a person with “mobility challenges” (excuse me while I hurl). What we want, by and large, are not expensive, heavy devices that will “help us walk again”, but ramps.
I know, it’s not sexy, as technology invented before Christ, but it is overlooked in favor of…this. Repeatedly.
I know, it’s not sexy, as technology invented before Christ, but it is overlooked in favor of…this. Repeatedly.
Reposted by So Mayer
The longlist for the 2025 Duais Leabhair na Gàidhealtachd | Highland Book Prize has been announced. The Prize celebrates the talent, landscape, & cultural diversity of the Scottish Highlands & is open to works of fiction, non-fiction, & poetry
💙📚
www.highlandbookprize.org.uk/longlist/
💙📚
www.highlandbookprize.org.uk/longlist/
Longlist - The Highland Book Prize | Duais Leabhair na Gàidhealtachd
Highland Book Prize 2025 Longlist Announced The longlist for the Highland Book Prize 2025 has been announced by the Highland Society of London and Moniack Mhor, Scotland’s Creative Writing Centre. Thi...
www.highlandbookprize.org.uk
February 12, 2026 at 1:44 PM
The longlist for the 2025 Duais Leabhair na Gàidhealtachd | Highland Book Prize has been announced. The Prize celebrates the talent, landscape, & cultural diversity of the Scottish Highlands & is open to works of fiction, non-fiction, & poetry
💙📚
www.highlandbookprize.org.uk/longlist/
💙📚
www.highlandbookprize.org.uk/longlist/
Reposted by So Mayer
It wasn’t Project Fear after all. It was Project 2025 all along.
The will of the rich and powerful: Brexit and the Epstein files
The will of the rich and powerful: Brexit and the Epstein files
The Epstein files reveal the role of Brexit in a global network which stands to gain from undermining democracy itself
eastangliabylines.co.uk
February 11, 2026 at 12:36 PM
It wasn’t Project Fear after all. It was Project 2025 all along.
Reposted by So Mayer
Ever grateful to people who can remember the books they read a year or more ago...
Ah also alt.present but TYGER too! 21st century British Empire, checkpoints, cages, mob violence, state violence...
February 14, 2026 at 9:53 AM
Ever grateful to people who can remember the books they read a year or more ago...
Reposted by So Mayer
I'll be tabling at Brixton Zine LGBTQ+ Fair at the Brixton Library next Saturday 21st of February, as part of LGBTQ+ History Months events! 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
📆 Sat 21st of February
⏰ 12-4.30pm
📍Brixton Library, London SW2 1JQ
Thanks @colettet.bsky.social for organising!
See you there! Support human artists!
📆 Sat 21st of February
⏰ 12-4.30pm
📍Brixton Library, London SW2 1JQ
Thanks @colettet.bsky.social for organising!
See you there! Support human artists!
February 13, 2026 at 12:15 PM
I'll be tabling at Brixton Zine LGBTQ+ Fair at the Brixton Library next Saturday 21st of February, as part of LGBTQ+ History Months events! 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
📆 Sat 21st of February
⏰ 12-4.30pm
📍Brixton Library, London SW2 1JQ
Thanks @colettet.bsky.social for organising!
See you there! Support human artists!
📆 Sat 21st of February
⏰ 12-4.30pm
📍Brixton Library, London SW2 1JQ
Thanks @colettet.bsky.social for organising!
See you there! Support human artists!
Reposted by So Mayer
Student housing has been, on the whole, as well thought-out as a contribution to the long-term health and needs of cities as student loans & debt has been since the big hike in fees. It is intersting to read about this example in Lewisham that attempts to model and enable intergenerational living.
Melfield Gardens intergenerational living: A pair of Passivhaus buildings in Lewisham by Levitt Bernstein brings older residents and students into close proximity, using shared routes, gardens and flexible homes to test a new, fully affordable model of intergenerational living
Melfield Gardens intergenerational living - Architecture Today
A pair of Passivhaus buildings in Lewisham by Levitt Bernstein brings older residents and students into close proximity, using shared routes, gardens and flexible homes to test a new, fully…
buff.ly
February 14, 2026 at 9:32 AM
Student housing has been, on the whole, as well thought-out as a contribution to the long-term health and needs of cities as student loans & debt has been since the big hike in fees. It is intersting to read about this example in Lewisham that attempts to model and enable intergenerational living.
Reposted by So Mayer
Call for papers!
INSCRIPTION 7 (out 2027) will be all about BLANKS. It will be (as ever) a BEAUTIFUL and MAXIMAL object.
Send us your ideas!
Historical / theoretical / creative / creative-critical -- or some strange blend.
First step: 400-word proposal + brief CV by 1 April 2026.
CFP attached.
INSCRIPTION 7 (out 2027) will be all about BLANKS. It will be (as ever) a BEAUTIFUL and MAXIMAL object.
Send us your ideas!
Historical / theoretical / creative / creative-critical -- or some strange blend.
First step: 400-word proposal + brief CV by 1 April 2026.
CFP attached.
February 14, 2026 at 9:27 AM
Call for papers!
INSCRIPTION 7 (out 2027) will be all about BLANKS. It will be (as ever) a BEAUTIFUL and MAXIMAL object.
Send us your ideas!
Historical / theoretical / creative / creative-critical -- or some strange blend.
First step: 400-word proposal + brief CV by 1 April 2026.
CFP attached.
INSCRIPTION 7 (out 2027) will be all about BLANKS. It will be (as ever) a BEAUTIFUL and MAXIMAL object.
Send us your ideas!
Historical / theoretical / creative / creative-critical -- or some strange blend.
First step: 400-word proposal + brief CV by 1 April 2026.
CFP attached.
Reposted by So Mayer
I fought long & hard to keep the pun/claim of "the pee in [free] speech" in BAD LANGUAGE. I will defend it with my life.
As I go on to say: "This is what makes peeing, and insisting on our right to pee, such an effective and mischievous protest against dominance."
As I go on to say: "This is what makes peeing, and insisting on our right to pee, such an effective and mischievous protest against dominance."
February 13, 2026 at 1:50 PM
I fought long & hard to keep the pun/claim of "the pee in [free] speech" in BAD LANGUAGE. I will defend it with my life.
As I go on to say: "This is what makes peeing, and insisting on our right to pee, such an effective and mischievous protest against dominance."
As I go on to say: "This is what makes peeing, and insisting on our right to pee, such an effective and mischievous protest against dominance."
Reposted by So Mayer
From “Saving Face” to “Montreal, My Beautiful,” the legendary actress tells Xtra about her queer career
Joan Chen is ‘attracted’ to queer stories | Xtra Magazine
The legendary actress tells Xtra about “Saving Face,” “Montreal, My Beautiful”—and the life lessons that came in between
xtramagazine.com
February 13, 2026 at 9:38 PM
From “Saving Face” to “Montreal, My Beautiful,” the legendary actress tells Xtra about her queer career
Reposted by So Mayer
Did you know that the first appearance of the word "Dystopia" was to describe Ireland, because it was being improperly managed by ignorant natives and insufficiently skillful Protestant settlers?
I wrote an essay about how it feels to be a historian at this particular point in history
everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/2026/02/13/o...
everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/2026/02/13/o...
On Being a Historian in Dystopian Times
by Katherine Blouin It is tempting to identify with Resistance and to say, “That is what I would have done.” Alas, we are far more likely to act, in parallel situations, like the Vichy majority. In…
everydayorientalism.wordpress.com
February 13, 2026 at 7:56 PM
Did you know that the first appearance of the word "Dystopia" was to describe Ireland, because it was being improperly managed by ignorant natives and insufficiently skillful Protestant settlers?
Reposted by So Mayer
Remember to give your comrades a socialist fraternal kiss on Valentine's Day
February 13, 2026 at 7:20 PM
Remember to give your comrades a socialist fraternal kiss on Valentine's Day
Reposted by So Mayer
This is what we're facing as the government does one tenth of fuck all to help
Sex Matters have already set up a fund for employees to sue companies if they find a transgender in the loo.
February 13, 2026 at 6:32 PM
This is what we're facing as the government does one tenth of fuck all to help
Reposted by So Mayer
Will be watching this. Sun Ra is an important figure in SFF who is often underappreciated.
Sun Ra: Do The Impossible - About the Documentary | American Masters | PBS
Discover the extraordinary life of poet, philosopher and music visionary Sun Ra, who self-produced more than 200 albums.
www.pbs.org
February 13, 2026 at 7:02 PM
Will be watching this. Sun Ra is an important figure in SFF who is often underappreciated.
Reposted by So Mayer
Charlotte’s new essay on why to make things and the metrics of (literary) success is so invigorating.
"I find myself thinking 'this isn’t sustainable' of the continual decimation of the media, which has been happening aggressively for at least ten years, but what do I mean by that? For whom isn’t it sustainable? In what way?" charlotteshane.com/blog/2026/2/...
Someone’s Gotta Write It — CS
The involvement of people I love, respect, or simply find interesting is ultimately the only incentive I need. I even kind of like doing things with people who piss me off since incompatibility can be...
charlotteshane.com
February 13, 2026 at 7:25 PM
Charlotte’s new essay on why to make things and the metrics of (literary) success is so invigorating.
Reposted by So Mayer
Archiving is a toll because you have to look at so, so much suffering interspersed with moments of joy and glimpses of the life before and then crush all those feelings down as you go back to sharing and also dissociate while doing that because of the horrors.
February 13, 2026 at 6:57 PM
Archiving is a toll because you have to look at so, so much suffering interspersed with moments of joy and glimpses of the life before and then crush all those feelings down as you go back to sharing and also dissociate while doing that because of the horrors.
Reposted by So Mayer
i have never been this accurately disrespected.
February 13, 2026 at 5:30 PM
i have never been this accurately disrespected.