Yves Rees

Dr Yves Rees is a Lecturer in History at La Trobe University and author of All About Yves: Notes from a transition (Allen & Unwin 2021). Yves has published widely across Australian gender, transnational and economic history, and also writes on transgender identity and politics. A co-host of the history podcast Archive Fever, Yves is a regular contributor to ABC radio and The Conversation, and their work has appeared in Overland, Guardian Australia, Inside Story and Archer.

Yves Rees reviews 'The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes' by Zoë Playdon

December 2021, no. 438 • 23 November 2021

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. This requirement caused significant problems for the many trans people who don’t want or canno ... (read more)

Yves Rees reviews 'Sound Citizens: Australian women broadcasters claim their voice, 1923-1956' by Catherine Fisher

September 2021, no. 435 • 19 August 2021

Listen to this review as read by the author. In the era of perpetual Covid lockdowns, many of us can relate to the isolation of the mid-twentieth-century housewife. Like her, we’re stuck at home, orbiting our kitchens, watching the light move across the floorboards. Each day mirrors the last, a quiet existence spent mostly in the company of the immediate household. Yet whereas we can ... (read more)

2020 Calibre Essay Prize (Winner): 'Reading the Mess Backwards' by Yves Rees

June–July 2020, no. 422 • 26 May 2020

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 ... (read more)

Yves Rees reviews 'Trans America: A counter-history' by Barry Reay

May 2020, no. 421 • 28 April 2020

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. Reay, a prolific historian of sexuality at the University of Auckland, begins his new history, Trans America, by decrying the supposed trans failure to look to the past, before setting about the task of correc ... (read more)

Yves Rees reviews 'Over the Top: A raw journey to self-love' by Jonathan Van Ness, 'About a Girl: A mother’s powerful story of raising her transgender child' by Rebekah Robertson, and 'Not Just a Tomboy: A trans masculine memoir' by Caspar J. Baldwin

March 2020, no. 419 • 24 February 2020

Six years after the ‘transgender tipping point’ proclaimed by Time magazine in 2014, the trans and gender-diverse (TGD) community continues to surge into the spotlight. From Netflix and Neighbours to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary (which named ‘they’ its 2019 word of the year), transgender experience is enjoying well-deserved recognition and representation. Visibility, however, is not with ... (read more)