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Articles by Yves Rees
Virginia Woolf’s ‘Orlando’, the ultimate shapeshifter, is now a madcap graphic novel
“Orlando had become a woman – there is no denying it. But in every other respect, Orlando remained precisely as he had been.” “Orlando was a man until the age of thirty; when he became a woman and has remained so ever since.” With their unabashed acceptance of gender fluidity, these declarations ring with the politics of our present moment. They would be at home in a contemporary trans memoir or Instagram caption.
Australians are hungry for new history books – but historians are pressured not to publish locally
Amar/Pexels Even after decades of history wars, Australians still have a keen appetite for Australian history. According to recent research by UNSW, 83% of Australians believe history is relevant to society today – but only 57% feel we know much about it. Despite a welcome rise in history education through podcasts and social media, books are still among the best vehicles for it.
From the editors
11 hours ago Crucial Quote “Americans have gone from 4% to 74% of my business” since 2019, Latitude World’s Major told Forbes. Surprising Fact For the first time since the Great Depression, more people left the U.S. than moved there in 2025, The Wall Street Journal reported. While the Trump administration hails …
From the editors
If we turn to history to read the tea leaves of the future, this edition of History Australia offers a rich and revealing brew.
Dispatches from The Paris End’ by Cameron Hurst, Sally Olds, and Oscar Schwartz
In this new era of online literary self-creation, when everyone from Booker-shortlisted Charlotte Wood to my friend’s teenage son is now their own publisher on Substack, The Paris End (TPE) is a local success story. It is the Oz Lit equivalent of indie journalism platforms like ETTE Media, Lamestream, and Deepcut News.
Michelle Visage is now hosting Drag Race Down Under. It’s a milestone for cis women in drag
Drag Race Down Under is back for a fourth season, only this time something is different. The Australasian franchise is no longer helmed by the eponymous RuPaul. Instead, this season the main judge and host is RuPaul’s long-term “best Judy” Michelle Visage, a woman from New Jersey who came to fame in the late 1980s as a member of dance-pop group Seduction.
Michelle Visage is now hosting Drag Race Down Under. It’s a milestone for cis women in drag
Drag Race Down Under is back for a fourth season, only this time something is different. The Australasian franchise is no longer helmed by the eponymous RuPaul. Instead, this season the main judge and host is RuPaul’s long-term “best Judy” Michelle Visage, a woman from New Jersey who came to fame in the late 1980s as a member of dance-pop group Seduction.
Finding my way back to women’s history
A celebrity decorator with blue hair. A single mother who advised JFK in the Oval Office. A Christian nudist with a passion for almond milk. A century ago, ten Australian women did something remarkable. Throwing convention to the wind, they headed across the Pacific to make their fortune. Historian Dr Yves Rees tells their story in a new book called: Travelling to Tomorrow – The modern women who sparked Australia’s romance with America.
A novel’ by Dylin Hardcastle
In early 1971, two Newcastle teenagers are overcome with sapphic appetites. Each is inflamed with lust for her childhood best friend, the literal girl next door. What to do about this forbidden desire? The first – Limb One – acts on her hunger. She enjoys a golden summer of covert fucking, before being discovered by her parents in flagrante delicto. After being beaten and kicked out of home, she hitches a ride to Sydney. True to herself, she is homeless and alone at sixteen.
Australia’s feminists are finally being memorialised. Can we grapple with their racism?
In April, the City of Melbourne launched a funding campaign for a statue of Vida Goldstein, an internationally renowned leader of the Australian suffrage movement. The statue is the first in a series depicting notable women aimed at addressing the gender imbalance in Melbourne’s monuments, with only 15% currently representing women.
There’s something about Heide
Back in the late 2000s, I undertook a weekly pilgrimage. Each Saturday, I would catch two trains to the opposite side of Melbourne, walk for 30 minutes along a sun-baked main road, then stand sentry for several hours in an airconditioned room as still and silent as a chapel. The task was equal parts dull and stressful: nothing ever happened and the minutes crept by with agonising slowness, but hypervigilance was required as at any moment priceless artwork could be destroyed on my watch.
Yves Rees reviews 'A Real Piece of Work: A memoir in essays' by Erin Riley
A lot can change in a few years. In March 2020, on the eve of the Covid-19 pandemic, I wrote a review essay for ABR about the proliferation of trans and gender diverse (TGD) life writing. Back then, the most notable examples came from overseas, and – with the exception of established names like ABC’s Eddie Ayres (now Ed Le Broq), author of the 2017 memoir Danger Music – major Australian publishers had yet to take a chance on local trans voices.
Hidden women of history: disabled Australian author Dorothy Cottrell was 'the Liane Moriarty of the Jazz Age' but is almost unheard of here
In the late 1920s, poet Mary Gilmore – the woman on the A$10 note – declared she’d encountered only two instances of “genius” during her four decades in Australian literature. The first was a man who remains a household name: Henry Lawson, bush poet, author of iconic stories like The Drover’s Wife, who upon his death received a state funeral. Today, Lawson’s work is still widely taught in schools. But what of Gilmore’s second genius?
Hidden women of history: disabled Australian author Dorothy Cottrell was 'the Liane Moriarty of the Jazz Age' but is almost unheard of here
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Hidden women of history: disabled Australian author Dorothy Cottrell was 'the Liane Moriarty of the Jazz Age' but is almost unheard of here
Dorothy Cottrell pictured in the Saturday Evening Post, 10 June 1950. Trove In the late 1920s, poet Mary Gilmore – the woman on the A$10 note – declared she’d encountered only two instances of “genius” during her four decades in Australian literature. The first was a man who remains a household name: Henry Lawson, bush poet, author of iconic stories like The Drover’s Wife, who upon his death received a state funeral. Today, Lawson’s work is still widely taught in schools.
Queer togetherness and joy online: Yves Rees on the Archer #14 launch
The following is a short extract from All About Yves: Notes from a Transition (A&U, RRP $32.99) by Yves Rees and is available for purchase here. No one was talking about any of this. Our lockdown experience got no airtime. Instead, the media and politicians told stories of white picket fences and nuclear families. Homeschooling, sourdough starter, quarantinis, Bunnings projects, family Tiktoks. A run on rescue dogs and jigsaws. Hunker down, get cosy with the family. Grow a veggie patch.
Calling the racist a racist: Janaka Malwatta’s blackbirds don’t mate with starlings
Racism is the destruction of human relations and undoes the bonds of life. Newspapers and all versions of news distribution have historically played a key role in the reinforcement of racism and racist stereotyping, especially in empire-colonial countries, and have always been targeted for control, if not established as control, by loci of power.
Overland literary journal
When we talk about the influence of Silicon Valley, we often imagine how the design culture and business models influence our communities and identities in online spaces. In Paris Marx’s new book, Road to Nowhere, it becomes plain that the influence of tech industry is not confined to cyberspace, but reaches into our lived environment in insidious and powerful ways. Road to Nowhere spends time tracing the history of the automobile and how it has shaped our urban landscape.
Any Bozo Can Read an Autocue on Apple Podcasts
Clare and Yves are joined by journalist and broadcaster Tamara Oudyn whose latest ABC podcast series, ‘The Good Divorce’, tells the story of the seemingly elusive good divorce. Where does the research begin for a topic that’s still so taboo? The group discusses the key ingredients that make good talent, sources as a human archive, and balancing the light and shade in the world today.
Archive Fever on Apple Podcasts
31 episodes Archive Fever is a new Australian history podcast featuring intimate conversations with writers, artists, curators, fellow historians and other victims of the research bug. Each episode, co-hosts Clare Wright and Yves Rees talk to archive addicts about what kind of archives they use, how often they use them, when they got their first hit. Join us as we ask: what madness is this?
Akwaeke Emezi’s revolutionary imagination
Back in 2004, as the ‘war on terror’ heralded a new age of fear and violence, Rebecca Solnit published Hope in the Dark, an argument against despair in the face of an unknowable future. The book, which went on to be hailed as a Guardian ‘best book of the 21st century’, insisted upon the world-shaping power of storytelling. ‘Stories trap us, stories free us, we live and die by stories,’ Solnit wrote. To her mind, ‘politics arises out of the spread of ideas and the shaping of imaginations.
‘The book that changed me’: A historian’s take on Priya Satia’s ‘Time’s Monster’
I have always wanted to be a historian. From childhood, I was captivated by the idea of spending my days bringing the past to life. At first, I aspired to be a historical consultant on BBC period dramas. Later, I set my sights on becoming a professor. I have dedicated my adult life to this goal. I jumped straight into studying history after leaving school and never really stopped.
The book that changed me: how Priya Satia's Time’s Monster landed like a bomb in my historian's brain
Dave Hunt/AAP In this series, writers nominate a book that changed their life – or at least their thinking. I’ve always wanted to be a historian. From childhood, I was captivated by the idea of... In this series, writers nominate a book that changed their life – or at least their thinking. I’ve always wanted to be a historian. From childhood, I was captivated by the idea of spending my days bringing the past to life. At first, I aspired to be a historical consultant on BBC period dramas.
Adventures in the new Sobriety
Dang, sorry. This is only available to a Meanjin subscriber. But we can fix that. It’s just $100 for a print subscription, $5 for a monthly digital subscription, and $50 for an annual digital subscription.
Who is the Expert? (Live at the Adelaide Writer's Festival) on Apple Podcasts
Yves and Clare are joined by Professor John Carty and Dr Jared Thomas from the South Australia Museum to learn how the museum is grappling with its collection of unidentified Indigenous human remains — an archive of bones — and explore how the museum’s historical artefacts can operate as a “cultural seedbank” to facilitate the memory of and reconnection with Indigenous knowledges.
Archer Asks: SJ Norman, author of Permafrost
SJ Norman is a writer, artist, and curator who works across performance, installation, text, sculpture, video, and sound. He has won numerous art awards, including a Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship and an Australia Council Fellowship, and was the inaugural winner of the KYD Unpublished Manuscript Award. SJ spoke to Yves Rees about his debut book, Permafrost, a stunning collection of queer ghost stories published by UQP in October 2021.
Yves Rees reviews 'The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes' by Zoë Playdon
Biography A new trans history of modern Britain The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes by Zoë Playdon Bloomsbury, $29.99 pb, 413 pp Biography A new trans history of modern Britain In winter 2019, Victoria’s Labor government tabled legislation that would make it easier for trans people to correct the sex marker on their birth certificate. Previously, trans people were required to have surgery on their reproductive organs before they could amend this foundational legal document.
Torrey Peters Detransition, Baby
When, in late 2020, I first heard mention of a forthcoming novel called Detransition, Baby, I felt a jolt of alarm. A book with ‘detransition’ in the title? Surely this would be a TERF diatribe, companion to Abigail Shrier’s 2020 ‘social contagion’ screed Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. Based on the title alone, I quailed at the thought of a novel that deployed the rare phenomenon of detransition to cast doubt on the reality of trans identities.
They Are Not Their Deaths (Live) on Apple Podcasts
1 hr 1 min Clare and Yves are joined by Gideon Haigh for a special live episode. Gideon opens the batting for Season 3 with an eloquent ramble through cricket, inquests, insanity, activism, what happens when you turn up on descendants’ doorsteps unannounced and how, once seen, certain things you find in the archives can never be unseen. Archive Fever diagnosis: terminal. 1 hr 1 min Top Podcasts In History
Australian women broadcasters claim their voice, 1923-1956' by Catherine Fisher
Australian History A history of women broadcasters Sound Citizens: Australian women broadcasters claim their voice, 1923-1956 by Catherine Fisher Australian National University Press, $50 pb, 194 pp Australian History A history of women broadcasters A portrait photograph of Enid Lyons, a politician and broadcaster, taken in the 1940s (History and Art Collection/Alamy) In the era of perpetual Covid lockdowns, many of us can relate to the isolation of the mid-twentieth-century housewife.
Bibliophile | Yves Rees breaks through the gender binary in 'All About Yves' - OUTInPerth | LGBTQIA+ News and Culture
All About Yves by Yves Rees Allen & Unwin Dr Yves Rees is a Lecturer in History at la Trobe University, has a regular history segment on ABC Radio and co-hosts Archive Fever podcast. The award-winning writer Yves is trans and uses they/them pronouns, volunteers at Transgender Victoria and is a co-founder of the transgender writing collective Spilling the T.
Notes from a transition: The Diagnosis Game
What follows is an extract from Yves Rees’ new book, titled ‘All About Yves: Notes from a transition.’ It’s published here with full permission. I sink onto the red couch, clutching myself tight. I cross my legs, instinctive self-protection, then think better of it. Too feminine. Better to manspread a little. Before me, a coffee table houses a water jug, two glasses and a box of tissues. Typical shrink set-up.
All About Yves - Wavesound Pty Ltd
Product Number: MPCD6613 Released: 01 Sep, 2021 Business Term: Purchase ISBN: #9781004054725 Please log in to view pricing Description A timely and thought-provoking memoir about the trans experience. Was I always trans, part boy beneath my skin, or was it that I landed in a place where 'girl' was a container so small it could break your bones? I learn that a ready smile and sympathetic ear are the only props required to impersonate a woman.
All About Yves
A timely and thought-provoking memoir about the trans experience. Was I always trans, part boy beneath my skin, or was it that I landed in a place where 'girl' was a container so small it could break your bones? I learn that a ready smile and sympathetic ear are the only props required to impersonate a woman.
Ally Etiquette: 28 Gender Identity Terms Everyone Should Know
Here at Refinery29, we know that gender is a social construct, not an innate binary. And while there’s never been more evidence to support this fact, there’s also a disturbing amount of misinformation on the topic out there. That’s why allyship is so important, now more than ever. Of course, allyship can look different for everyone. And it's not about passing any tests or inherently knowing everything; it’s a work in progress. A horizon line rather than a destination one can reach.
When Trans Visibility Comes At The Cost Of Trans Safety
Getting a few trans people on screen is not the same as trans liberation. There’s no doubt that cultural visibility has turned ordinary trans people into prey. Last year, the trolls came for my blood. It was December, I’d just published an op-ed in The Age about trans representation and was now a Visible Trans Person. My article, combined with several tweets, provoked the ire of online TERFs and other transphobes. My words were picked up by reactionary publications.
Reading the Mess Backwards
Calibre Prize Calibre Prize Listen to this essay read by the author. When I’m ten or so, my brother appears shirtless at the dinner table. Ever the eager disciple, I follow his example without a second thought. It is a sweltering January day, and our bodies are salt-crusted from the beach. Clothing seems cruel in these conditions. As my brother tucks into his schnitzel, tanned chest gleaming, I grow conscious that the mood has become strained. Across the table, my parents exchange glances.
Hidden Women of Surfing History: Isabel Letham, Daring Australian Surf Pioneer
Lecturer in History, La Trobe University Letham with her surfboard. Photo: Dee Why Library/ Yves Rees, La Trobe University When we think of Australians who made history in 1915, the rugged Anzac is the figure who first springs to mind. A century after the Gallipoli campaign, that year has become near-synonymous with the mythologized soldiers who fought and died in the Dardanelles.
What I'm Reading
Back in early June, as Black Lives Matter activists took to the streets worldwide, I set myself a reading project: to avoid white writers for the rest of the year. For my standard ten or so books a month, I’d seek out authors who were anything but white. This resolution was an effort to de-centre whiteness in my cultural diet. After a lifetime of consuming stories authored by white people, it was time to listen to different voices. It was time to listen to colonised peoples instead of colonisers.
Follow the Object on Apple Podcasts
46 min Yves and Clare are joined by internationally renowned space archeologist Alice Gorman, who you may also know as Dr Space Junk, author of Dr Space Junk Vs The Universe: Archaeology and the Future (MIT Press, 2019). How do we catalog, access, and work in an archive suspended in the stars above our heads?
The Day's Residue on Apple Podcasts
49 min Clare and Yves are joined by author Helen Garner, whose latest book The Yellow Notebook (Text, 2020) is an edited collection of the author’s diaries--or what you might call a self-archive. Helen explores the psychic necessity of diary keeping, the tendency of memory to smooth over our own crimes, and the truth to be found in self-research.
Capitalism in Australia: New histories for a reimagined future
Altman, JC (2001) Sustainable development options on Aboriginal land: The hybrid economy in the twenty-first century. Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research. Available at: https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/40104/2/2001_DP226.pdf (accessed 30 July 2020). Google Scholar Arnason, J (2001) Capitalism in context: Sources, trajectories and alternatives. Thesis Eleven 66: 99–125. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals Bauman, Z (2002) The 20th century: The end of the beginning.
Secret Feminist Agenda — a treasured item in my 'feminist killjoy survival kit'
In our series Art for Trying Times, authors nominate a work they turn to for solace or perspective during this pandemic. In her 2017 book Living a Feminist Life, Sara Ahmed advocates the necessity of a “feminist killjoy survival kit”, her name for the assemblage of books, things, tools, creatures and joys that enable feminists — and feminism — to survive. When the world is exhausting, when life grinds you down, the Survival Kit is the place feminists turn for nourishment and solace.
Letting go | Inside Story
Something That May Shock and Discredit YouBy Daniel Mallory Ortberg | Scribe | $29.99 | 256 pages In a 1993 episode of the Simpsons, Marge is arrested for shoplifting at the Kwik-E-Mart. For her defence, the family turns to Lionel Hutz, a bombastic attorney known for his questionable ethics. In the courtroom, Hutz attempts to discredit a witness with photographic memory. “What colour tie am I wearing?” Hutz demands, turning his back to the witness.
Advances: Literary News - June–July 2020
Calibre Essay Prize When the Calibre Essay Prize, now in its fourteenth year, closed on January 15, there was an oddly shaped, menacing elephant in the room. Few people were aware of the coronavirus, though it had been detected in China the previous month. Not until January 25 was the first case diagnosed in Australia. By the middle of March, of course, the full extent of the catastrophe was apparent, with untold consequences for society, the economy, and the arts.
Reading the Mess Backwards
Listen to this essay read by the author. When I’m ten or so, my brother appears shirtless at the dinner table. Ever the eager disciple, I follow his example without a second thought. It is a sweltering January day, and our bodies are salt-crusted from the beach. Clothing seems cruel in these conditions. As my brother tucks into his schnitzel, tanned chest gleaming, I grow conscious that the mood has become strained. Across the table, my parents exchange glances.
Friday essay: the Melbourne bookshop that ignited Australian modernism
Fri May 22 Written by Yves Rees, Lecturer in History, La Trobe University The origin story of Australian modernism often centres around Heide – the Melbourne artistic community where, from 1934, bohemian art patrons John and Sunday Reed nurtured talents such as Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker, Joy Hester and John Perceval. But nestled in the heart of Melbourne’s city laneways was another birthplace of Australian modernism.
Friday essay: the Melbourne bookshop that ignited Australian modernism
The origin story of Australian modernism often centres around Heide – the Melbourne artistic community where, from 1934, bohemian art patrons John and Sunday Reed nurtured talents such as Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker, Joy Hester and John Perceval. But nestled in the heart of Melbourne’s city laneways was another birthplace of Australian modernism.
Trans America: A counter-history
Gender Studies Trans America: A counter-history by Barry Reay Polity, $115.95 hb, 256 pp Gender Studies Today’s transgender community is woefully ignorant of its past, beholden to ‘historical amnesia’ and the ‘erasure of much trans history’ – or so Barry Reay would have us believe.
'It never fails to sting when I get called she, or even he, instead of they'
As a trans person who uses they/them pronouns, I get misgendered every day. Most people struggle with gender-neutral pronouns, and it can make everyday interactions difficult to navigate. It never fails to sting when I get called she or even he instead of they. But the flipside of pronoun pain is the exquisite pleasure when someone gets it right. Whenever they is used with ease, I receive a verbal hug. It's the linguistic equivalent of being told, "I see you.
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