Paul Renfro

@renfro.bsky.social

5794 Followers 1701 Following

Historian at Florida State University. Wrote STRANGER DANGER (@oxunipress.bsky.social) and THE LIFE AND DEATH OF RYAN WHITE (@uncpress.bsky.social). Writing a book about the Atlanta child murders for @liveright.bsky.social / @wwnorton.com. He/him. 🏳️‍🌈

Gen L-ers Are Ditching Sex. They Might Be Onto Something. Is celibacy cool now? July 22, 2026 By Nadja Spiegelman, Christine Emba and Carter Sherman
Liquid Death’s Pop-Tarts™️ Carnage iced tea
Jonas Brothers, “Love Me to Heaven,” Greetings from Your Hometown (2025).
HIDDEN GINGERS
“Matlow Embraces NYC Mayor Mamdani,”a headline in Tallahassee Reports.
The box score from the Indiana Hoosiers/Iowa Hawkeyes football game played at Kinnick Stadium on September 27, 2025.
Reebok’s Atlanta ‘96 sneakers
Tallahassee Half Marathon $60 7:30AM EST 1:30PM EST Price increases after September 30, 2026 at 11:59pm EDT Open to ages 16 - 110.
Klansmen march in Washington, DC, on August 8, 1925.
Sufjan Stevens, “Fourth of July,” Carrie & Lowell (2015).
A buncha rocking chairs.
“O.J. Simpson won't be honored among Bills' legends at new stadium Alaina Getzenberg “ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- O.J. Simpson will not be honored among other Buffalo Bills legends at the team's new Highmark Stadium.”
An extreme closeup of a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.
“The answer is deceptively simple. Leo, his papal predecessors and his contemporary brethren are calling for returging to Christian roots, with one simple concept: War is fundamentally antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels lounging in and around a bandaged Paul Renfro on a tropical outdoor patio.
“Mamdani Emerges as Kingmaker, Pushing His Slate to a Primary Sweep “Mayor Zohran Mamdani shook the Democratic establishment by helping drive three progressive House candidates to victory in New York.”
“Many Democrats outside blue America are facing the same challenge; polls consistently show that Mr. Trump's struggles have tarnished the Republican brand without reviving theirs. But some of them are at least trying to woo swing voters by tacking away from their party's base, as Mr. Trump did in 2024 by pledging not to cut Medicare or Social Security, and as forme President Bill Clinton did in 1992 with his attack on the rapper Sister Souljah's anti-white rhetoric. The Senate candidate James Talarico has called out Democratic weakness on border security and hostility to oil and gas in Texas, while Mary Peltola has pushed gun rights in her Alaska Senate race.”
“Bealls Florida “now accepting crypto! “1st National Retailer to accept crypto from any crypto wallet!”
"The Arty Coloring Book," n.d. [Spring 1981], Box 178, Series I, Lee P. Brown Papers, Benjamin N. Woodson Research Center, Walter W. Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston.
A portrait of US Senator Claude Pepper.
“Elites are usually elite for good reason, and tend to have better judgment than the average person. #confessyourunpopularopinion”
Paul M. Renfro offers the first full-length scholarly study of Ryan White, a white Amer- ican middle-school student with hemophilia who contracted aids (acquired immune defi- ciency syndrome) from a blood-clotting treat- ment in the 1980s. White became famous in the controversy over his local school adminis- tration, in Russiaville, Indiana, barring him from attending in 1985. White subsequently died from aids complications in 1990, and Congress named its first major aids relief package—the Ryan White Comprehensive aids Resources Emergency (care) Act—in his honor. Renfro persuasively argues that White’s “whiteness, youth, middle-class sta- tus, and boyish charisma and charm made him relatable”; thus, media reports about White’s life garnered a large and highly sym- pathetic audience and helped educate Ameri- cans about aids, which had previously been considered primarily, albeit erroneously, a “gay” disease (p. 28). At the same time, me- dia accounts touting White’s “innocence” re- inforced the widespread cultural assumption that people who contracted hiv (human im- munodeficiency virus) through sex or intrave- nous drug use were “guilty” and not deserving of sympathy. Thus, coverage of White’s story ultimately reinforced aids stigma and in- equality; for example, the care Act contained amendments barring the use of federal funds for needle-exchange programs and sex educa- tion.
Hemmer, Messengers of the Right Chappell, The War on Welfare Balogh, The Associational State Stewart-Winter, Queer Clout Howard, The Closet and the Cul-de-Sac Stauch, Wildcat of the Streets Batza, Before AIDS Gutterman, Her Neighbor’s Wife Gadsden, Between North and South
A banner promoting UFC Freedom 250, the “Most Historic Sporting Event of All Time.”