Michael Waters
@michaelwwaters
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historian // copywriter by day // author of THE OTHER OLYMPIANS (out now from @fsgbooks !)
Brooklyn
Joined August 2011
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I love these 1936 newsreel clips of Zdeněk Koubek, a Czech track star who publicly transitioned gender
after his transition, he came to New York to perform on Broadway. this seems to be the only surviving video
Koubek is the center of my book, THE OTHER OLYMPIANS — out June 4!
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when my friends write whole novels in a month and meanwhile I can't finish a sentence without checking Twitter four times
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Hello Twitter! I got very tired of people dismissing asexuality as an "internet orientation," so for
@Slate
I combed through historical archives to show that asexuality has been discussed as part of the queer community since as far back as 1907:
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can’t believe I'm saying this, but I have a feature story on
@NewYorker
today!!!
It's about a group of social workers who, in the early '70s, quietly licensed queer people as foster parents — creating some of the earliest state-recognized queer families:
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wow, okay, so after years of watching people do this, I really cannot believe that I get to post one of these screenshots
but I am writing a book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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ok I swear I will be quiet now but this story started as my senior history thesis, then became a cold pitch that I was almost too embarrassed to send, and now it’s on the homepage
today is very lucky and surreal!!!
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left: closeted baby queer reads SIMON VS by
@beckyalbertalli
for the first time, April 2015
right: college queer with a pride flag in his room finishes wiping away the tears after seeing LOVE, SIMON, March 2018
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going to make "I'm a hothouse flower, a delicate person and a massive introvert" my response to all future criticism, thank you Lorde
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v excited that I got to write about the long history of gender-neutral pronouns — plus a 1916 journal that devoted itself to critiquing the gender binary — for
@TheAtlantic
today:
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we will never again have a court case with as great a name as High Tech Gays v. DISCO
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I'm on
@NewYorker
today writing about a forgotten 1950s newsletter dedicated to gay literature. It built up a mailing list of thousands of people despite threats from the FBI.
I’ve been obsessed with this for a year, and I’m thrilled to finally share it:
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really blown away by this paper that excavates trans-feminine life in New Spain from 1604-1821
especially because it captures the existence of underground trans communities from as far back as the 17th century
(by Jamey Jesperson)
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Early queer publications constantly reference asexuality. In 1965, a trans magazine wrote about a spectrum of attraction it called the “A-sexual Range”—a prototype for the modern ace spectrum.
1965!
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writers everywhere logging into Twitter four and a half seconds after they "start writing"
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one surprising fact of history is that several Olympic sports—like figure skating and shooting—were originally conceived of as mixed gender
the binary categories were only created *after* women won those competitions
great overview from
@thefrankiedlc
:
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so surreal to say, but: my book has a cover!!!
pictured: Zdeněk Koubek, a Czech athlete who transitioned gender in December 1935—and whose public embrace led a reactionary IOC to implement the gender surveillance system we have today
pre-order it now:
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This is my new excuse for all of my twitter hiatuses
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@gabydvj
even after reading the explanation in the replies... it makes sense but I can't get over how depressing this whole ecosystem is that record media consumption means nothing
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just found out my friend has been sending life updates to Nicki Minaj for months now
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we know surprisingly little about the athletes who have been pushed out of sports because of restrictive gender policies
for every high-profile story of an athlete told she can't play, there have been more who quietly disappeared
my piece for
@Slate
:
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Last spring, I started researching Barbara Ann Richards, a trans woman who—in 1941—petitioned a court to change her ID documents.
It was decades before most people had any concept of trans identity—but despite the odds, Richards won.
I wrote about how:
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love the unwavering support of my friends on story publication days
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I got to write for
@TheAtlantic
about one of my long-running obsessions — why wealthier neighborhoods have so many uncovered windows, even at night
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Hello, I’ve spent a few weeks reporting out my first real ~scoop~
It’s about Walmart’s plan to turn many of its 1.5 million workers into public-facing employee influencers — and how that might reshape both corporate PR and retail work as we know it:
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I think more people should know about Jan Gay, a lesbian sex researcher in the 1930s who also wrote children's books, helped launch the nudism movement, and was roommates with a young Andy Warhol
so I'm grateful that
@surlybassey
let me write about her:
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WHEN YOU FINISH THE DRAFT OF THE BOOK YOU'VE BEEN WORKING ON ALL YEAR (feat. the glare through my window)
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In celebration of the release of Love, Simon, I had a really candid conversation with
@beckyalbertalli
about what it's like to have your book adapted into a movie:
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Or in 1978, the need for asexual activism seemed so apparent that one gay magazine quipped, “These days, there’s a strong case to be made for Asexual Liberation.”
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When I joined twitter I was 13, queer and closeted, and I gravitated to the handful of authors who were writing about people like me. They made me feel so safe. They knew this thing about me no one else did.
7 years later, I've heard some of those same people named as harassers.
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here is my official submission for the best-named local newspaper in U.S. history
god bless the people of Volcano, West Virginia
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I've seen so many news stories about ghost towns going up for sale, and I've always wondered who was buying all of them.
So for
@outline
, I called a bunch of ghost town owners to find out:
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me three years ago: no really guys, I'm straight!
me now:
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hi friends, you likely haven't heard of Zdeněk Koubek—but in December 1935, he became the first high-profile athlete to publicly transition gender
he's the center of my book THE OTHER OLYMPIANS, which is out June 4, 2024
and now you can pre-order it!!!
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Koubek had already set a world record in the women’s 800-meter dash
But after transitioning, he became a celebrity. He wrote essays about his life. He was in talks with Hollywood producers. He went on a brief world tour.
Here he is in Paris, dancing with Josephine Baker:
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the excerpt of THE OTHER OLYMPIANS is up!!!
In 1935, the track star Zdeněk Koubek announced that he was transitioning gender.
The public embraced him—until a group of sports officials, including a prominent Nazi, crafted the first sex testing policy:
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unsure if this is relevant to anyone, but I compiled a few of the key documents from my research on queer foster families in the 1970s
Included are policy statements, speeches, and newspaper ads outlining how social workers registered queer parents:
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@EliErlick
omg this is so cool!! he is actually a major part of a nonfiction book I'm writing but I've never seen a full-color photo of him!
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possibly the greatest mail day in history!!!!!!!!!!
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my granddad died last night. I'm okay, but it's hard to know that my mom only got to say goodbye for a few seconds over FaceTime. He was religious, and the chaplain had to sing to him from outside of his window.
here is us a long time ago ❤️
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I don't know that I quite have it in me to celebrate anything right now, but I woke up this morning to see my name in print for the first time & I'm just going to try to hold tight to that joy
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a few months ago, I got obsessed with the topic of prenups
turns out, prenups are on the rise across the U.S. — and increasingly, couples are signing them to protect against medical debts, student loans, and more
I wrote about what's going on:
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me one week ago: I don't even care about the Winter Olym—
me now: I HAVE TWO TRUE LOVES IN THIS WORLD AND THEY ARE ADAM RIPPON AND NATHAN CHEN
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Recently, I became obsessed with Scotia, California—a former logging town that, in a strange twist of fate, was taken over by a hedge fund 15 years ago.
I visited Scotia last year, and I got to write for
@NewYorker
about the town's unique state of limbo:
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I wrote a big piece for
@OneZero
that I'm v proud of
It’s the story of how AIDS activists in the 1980s used an internet precursor — called bulletin boards — to spread public health info.
In doing so, they shaped the online ecosystem we live on today:
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You can trace modern anti-trans policies in sports back to 1936, when a pair of high-profile athletes transitioned gender and a Nazi sports doctor tried to foment a panic
read about it in this excerpt of THE OTHER OLYMPIANS (book out tomorrow!!)
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you can trace the current crop of anti-trans and anti-intersex policies at the Olympics back to 1936, the year this was filmed
there's such a telling contrast between how the public received Koubek (with empathy and curiosity) vs. how sports officials did
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The Olympics start tomorrow, and on my mind is the fact that many women (esp trans and intersex women) are all but banned from numerous competitions
these policies date back to 1936—and, I found, you can trace them back to a Nazi sports doctor:
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with the demolition of the hospital at Riis Beach starting soon, I've been researching the history of Riis as a queer & trans space
I wanted to share this reflection from the writer Joan Nestle about her experience of visiting Riis in the 1950s
(written in 1983)
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A handful of scholars, plus talented journalists like
@jmkliegman
, have begun unearthing this history. But it has a ways to go before it trickles out into the mainstream.
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love to start a story with "my friend was telling me about this" and then realize hours later that the "friend" was a podcast host I’ve never met
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just noticed it's on The New Yorker's "the best books we read this week" list!!! 🫡
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I wrote a weird little piece for
@Slate
about the incredible gossip on 20th-century steamships
you used to get full lists (including annotations) of the names of your fellow passengers — an experiment in transparency that’s pretty much unimaginable today
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I wrote for
@TheAtlantic
about how our end-of-life laws continue to define "family" using a dated, 1950s framework.
When someone dies without a will, it's unmarried partners, non-adopted children, and other nontraditional families that are left behind:
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hope white queer ppl remember tomorrow:
1) Pride Month would not exist without Black queer people like Marsha P. Johnson & Stormé DeLarverie
2) the first Pride marchers in 1970 passed a prison that was incarcerating Black Panthers & shouted, “Free our sisters! Free ourselves!”
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My first ever piece for the New York Times (!) is about how this moment is changing our relationship to funerals—and how large numbers of people are beginning to view live streaming as a valuable way to say goodbye to their loved ones:
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today's the day! my first book, THE OTHER OLYMPIANS, is out in the world!!!!!!
it's about gender, queerness, and the Olympics — and a Czech athlete named Zdeněk Koubek who transitioned in 1935
buy it now from your local bookstore to get a taste 👅👅👅
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So excited to share that I wrote for
@them
about queerness, Instagram makeup artists, and how we perceive masculinity:
(Cc
@FlawlessKevin
@gabrielzamora
@MannyMua733
)
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So I am at the Love, Simon LA premiere right now 😳😳😳
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The Miseducation of Cameron Post movie was so raw and beautiful, and it meant so much to see, on screen, queer people making light of darkness and forming communities and families among themselves. That's how I've always experienced queerness.
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hello! journalists leaving their newsroom jobs to launch newsletters feels like a very modern phenomenon, but I wrote for
@WIRED
about how the same thing happened in the 1940s
back then, some print newsletters racked up 100k+ subscribers:
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word on the street (aka in
@NYMag
) is that THE OTHER OLYMPIANS is "highbrow brilliant"!!!!!!!
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me, age 10: *laughs at the "gay apparel" line from "Deck the Halls"*
me, age 15: ugh people who laugh at that are so immature
me, age 20, very gay: *laughs at the "gay apparel" line from "Deck the Halls"*
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At the time, queer couples couldn’t adopt openly.
But foster care was overwhelmed with queer kids, who were both a disproportionate share of the system and hard to place.
So in order to manage the numbers, social workers decided: why not reach out to the queer community?
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I love this movie and hope everyone sees it, and I also hope we all show up for films like The Miseducation of Cameron Post, which has already won the top honor at Sundance but doesn't have a distribution deal yet.
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bought a lavender mask to match my nails and tote bag. 2020 wasn’t ready
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The end result was ads like this: government agencies, as far back as 1972, writing in to gay newspapers and asking readers to volunteer as parents.
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in honor of Valentine's Day, I finally get to share my obsession from the past month
let me introduce you to the forgotten world of video dating, where people showed up in offices and chose potential matches by watching VCR tapes of each other:
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The Olympics are here, and if you want to understand how this wonky event came to be part of the monoculture, I wrote a book for you!
from athletes drinking brandy before competition, to the forgotten Women’s World Games, to the anti-queer panic of the 1930s—it’s a wild history
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I don't talk a lot about mental health on here, but after over 2+ years of trying to convince myself I'm okay, I think I've finally decided to try regular therapy.
anyway, mostly just posting this for public accountability so I don't talk myself out of it (again) tomorrow.
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there is an author with my exact name signing at the LA Times Festival of Books in April, and I am very tempted to go up to him, hand over a book, and say, "Make it out to Michael Waters" just so I can finally embody this meme
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My favorite detail: the foster care system wasn’t actually equipped to handle these couples.
When two women I spoke to received their paperwork to sign up as parents, it got the genders wrong, so they crossed it all out and wrote “lovers.”
(They were approved anyway.)
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Think it’s a good time to share this: I’m so excited to say I’ll be working as an editorial intern at
@THR
this school semester! ☺️🤗🎊
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I am really grateful to have interviewed
@tomi_adeyemi
, who has so many brilliant thoughts on Black Panther, Game of Thrones, and how her book is being covered:
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against all logic I’ve been writing things and querying agents since 2011, and I’m very glad right now that the first book to be real is *this* and not the terrible murder mystery novel I wrote in 8th grade
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I went to
@Longreads
to find a subway read and I immediately screeched because my story is one of their recommended articles!!!!!!
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all of this fear-mongering around women athletes and their bodies has real trickle-down impacts
I wrote last month about how plenty of women athletes have decided to quit—or were told to quit—before they could even potentially get to the Olympics
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I wrote today about how TikTokers have created mini-empires out of Amazon affiliate links
and to benefit, some companies are (stealthily) turning their employees into product-recommendation influencers, too:
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made my TV debut this week on
@AmanpourCoPBS
!!! unfortunately looking like a total nerd but we take what we can get!
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Julia is one of the most talented writers I know—they consistently come up with the most original and clever stories around. commission them, hire them!
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nothing more demoralizing than reading through a writer's archives and realizing that in 1930 they were paid the same amount for a magazine article as I'm usually paid in 2022 🥴
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THE OTHER OLYMPIANS is out in just two weeks.... so it’s time for a queer history fancam
I asked,
@sohinidesai
delivered
Zdeněk Koubek was a track star who, in 1935, announced he was going to live openly as a man and play in men's sports
he was also great on camera:
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truly surreal to read such a thoughtful and generous review of THE OTHER OLYMPIANS — in one of our finest magazines,
@thenation
, no less!!!
“The Other Olympians is a stirring excavation of important, forgotten trans history”
thank you
@benkesslen
🥹
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Survived my first therapy appointment 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻 Thanks to everyone whose openness and bravery helped me get here.
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am whiskey drunk alone in my apt because
@dancingofpens
abandoned me so this is what I'm doing with my NYE
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celebrating my bday today in the most stressful way imaginable: by rereading my book for the last time before it's printed 🤒
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hello hello, I'm excited to share this piece I've been researching for
@thebafflermag
it's about the meaning of queer beaches—as sites of liberation, of organizing, and of backlash & oppression
most of all, it's about how fragile these spaces can be:
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when you're anxious and you start combing through all your thoughts to figure out why
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I've always been obsessed with middle names — how we choose them, and why they can feel like such an intimate way of knowing a friend or a loved one
For
@TheAtlantic
, I wrote about why we attach significance to middle names:
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I wrote for
@TheAtlantic
about the upstart newsletter, published out of a SF apartment, that became an essential news sources on AIDS treatments in a moment when mainstream coverage was rare
Now its author is writing about COVID-19 drug trials:
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hopefully the feeling of seeing the book in the wild will never get old
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it was also wild to research someone for years before finally getting to hear them… and then realize that they are, like, so suave on camera
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