Sophie Lewis

@reproutopia.bsky.social

12363 Followers 1162 Following

Philadelphia feminist writer • ENEMY FEMINISMS: TERFS, POLICEWOMEN & GIRLBOSSES AGAINST LIBERATION • patreon.com/reproutopia • Full Surrogacy Now • Abolish the Family • essays @ LRB, Harper's, The Drift, Lux • octopus essay n+1 mag • "recovering academic"

Femmephilia Love letters to trans mermaids, queer mothers, and Marilyn Monroe Sophie Lewis Followed by a conversation with S. Lamble The I.C.A. LONDON June 23, 645pm
The cover of NIGHT NIGHT FAWN by Jordy Rosenberg which has a black background and three tone warm lettering incorporating a silhouette of a bird
An automatically generated Patreon post card, with an image still from "Wuthering Heights" (2026) depicting Cathy and Edgar living the high life, and the title of the Patreon post; a non carceral solution to Emerald Fennell
Front cover of Social Research quarterly issue 92(4), winter 2025 - the title in capital letters is ABOLITION THEN AND NOW (in sprayed red, on stone textured gray)
a plate of sugar cookies, one octopus shaped, one camel, one mushroom, and one crocodile
Table of Contents that features the chapter names: Against Nature She Gave Herself Freely The Limits of the Bitch Can the Sireniform Speak? Exit From Beauty The Queen of Sparta's Vagina Femmes Across the Acheron Feminist Misogyny Battlefield Ecstasy That Will Not Be A Problem On Maintenance and Momfluence Hetero-Optimism, Where Are You? Reading Cats for Marx My Octopus Girlfriend Mothercorn, or Kitchen Acids Vampire Mothering Consider the Lobster
The Patreon post cover image of Sophie Lewis (ReproUtopia)'s cover reveal Patreon post, showing the cover design by Vivian Rowe for Sophie's forthcoming FEMMEPHILIA: LOVE LETTERS TO TRANS MERMAIDS, QUEER MOTHERS, AND MARILYN MONROE (Haymarket 16 June 2026). It is iridescent pink-green-blue and features an early nineteenth century naturalist illustration of an octopus
Screen shot of today's Nyt opinion section with all the different headlines
Sophie smiling, outside an empty CVS minute clinic, pointing to the bandaid on their arm from the Covid vaccine they just got
from page 74 of FULL SURROGACY NOW (2019) by Sophie Lewis: In her study of surrogacy in the United States, Labor of Love, Heather Jacobson affirms: “As a group, surrogates are skilled at pregnancy and birth—and they speak about pregnancy and birth as skills … a skill set that could be honed and practiced.” The sociological information contained in Labor of Love is valuable, both differing from and paralleling findings from cheaper parts of the market such as Russia, Central America, and the Indian subcontinent, where workers also hone their “craft” of pregnancy. But Jacobson insists on pregnancy and birth being work for a particular and (to my mind) noncongenial reason: she thinks work is an inherently good thing. This is a moral perspective widely echoed in popular condemnations of celebrity consumers of surrogacy. It inflects the common reproach levelled against so-called “vanity surrogacies,” where there is no underlying fertility impediment motivating a female-bodied commissioning parent (who can therefore be deemed lazy). And this is particularly clear wherever the client is not dissimulating her glee and relief that she is not herself gestating, such as the case of Alex Kuczynski, the 2008 client of a commercial surrogate Cathy Hilling, who memorably described herself as an “Easy-Bake Oven.” (The New York Times’s readership “loathed” Kucyznski for “skiing and white-water rafting in the ninth month of Hilling’s pregnancy.”)69 Even Dr. Patel, despite the profits she might conceivably make if the culture of duty that still surrounds bourgeois women and childbirth were to shift, refuses to defend the right not to do gestational work and proclaims that she only serves deserving couples who would gestate their own baby if they could.
A New York Times push notification "Reporting in Gaza Palestinian journalist have often been the world's witnesses to Israel's offensive. Deadly risks could stifle information."
A gray and yellow bird in a tree
A picture of a conference podium with a table and a lectern with four K95-masked people at it (only three are visible)
Bravo bravo L.A. The only truly foolproof antidepressant substance: the spread of antifascist uprising, seeded by Angelenos in their thousands using barricades, courage, homemade missiles, fists, fires, solidarity and ingenuity against the Gestapo/ICE and demonstrating with words, already emergent strategies, and (for example) keffiyehs, that the fight aims at more than one government and sees the whole genocide-mongering apparatus for what it is. What beauty. P.S. AS EVER, I recommend practicing zero tolerance for the wretched nonviolence discourse. Simply point to the resources required to cut through this false consciousness (Vicky's book "In Defense of Looting" is great, as one example) and keep it moving. Come on. People have eyes. The anti violent violence of those throwing their bodies at the genocidaires, healthcare executives, pigs, and border goons is unmistakably the righteous course of action, a concrete expression of loyalty to mankind. It is scarcely comprehensible, at any time, but perhaps especially a mere five years after the uprising for George Floyd, that there are still self-described leftists denouncing the rioters as "violent," complaining that the people in the streets are somehow doing antifascism wrong, or even entertaining the absurd logic whereby fighting back is somehow "what Trump wants" and "providing them with the pretext they need for martial law" or whatever. Total solidarity with the protestors, period.
A close-up of a red-winged blackbird (very little red on the wing is visible), in profile, against a blurred green background
An instagram post from the Ad'iyah Collective and the Transfuturist Collective [https://www.instagram.com/adiyahcollective/] which reads: "WOMANHOOD IS NOT ASSIGNED. IT IS LIVED, SACRED, AND SOVEREIGN. A joint statement by the Transfuturist Collective and the Ad'iyah Collective." Plus the logos of the two collectives, and some graphic design
ENEMY FEMINISMS SOPHIE LEWIS & EMAN ABDELHADI TUESDAY MARCH 25 | 7pm PILSEN COMMUNITY BOOKS
A table at Housman's Bookshop in London, UK, covered in (on the left) two big stacks of ENEMY FEMINISMS, and a variety of other books on display including Abolish Rent by Tracy Rosenthal and Why Should Feminists Trust the Police? by Leah Cowan, entre autres.
A tweet from Nancy Mace showing herself in front of a bathroom door with a seemingly "Female" symbol outside of it, smiling, with the tweet itself reading: "Real women have their own bathroom in Israel! [🇮🇱]"
SL: We refuse the story of feminist “waves” as a kind of enemy historiography. The “waves” narrative formally invisibilises the feminist comrades to whom you and I feel the most deeply connected. EH: Yes, and also we feel and suspect that we don't even know the most miniscule crumb of it; of the full breadth of political activity that we want to know, that we want.
The point that women’s autonomy is important to feminism only works when it is clear a) that this is not the only form of autonomy that is important to feminism and that b) the category of women, like any other historically contingent political identity, is riven by internal antagonisms of, most significantly, race, class, and cisness. It’s not about everybody being the same, as liberal iterations of the politics have suggested. Autonomy is, in fact, primarily valuable insofar as political action is a place where antagonisms emerge directly, because people are not needing to tamp them down in order to defend themselves against larger violences, and ideally, can be dealt with. What do you think?
European starlings clustered together on the twigs at the top of a tree
An Eastern bluebird perches on a branch
A still of Carla Antonelli's speech with the subtitle: "la cara de vergüenza"
one nowhere would see me for the skooch I'd named myself -- which was my main aim from the outset. Only a few days as a skooch and already I began to see why so many of the fairer sex harbor such exasperation with their menfolk. The only medicine menfolk respect is a good clopping, yet the same menfolk insist that it is a certain reticence to hand out cloppings that makes the fairer sex fairer.
It is only through a refusal to dance in the neoliberal frames of fear, unsafety and scarcity, that instead a prioritisation of collective care, and a dedication to pleasure and joy can be placed firmly within our feminist purview. In Enemy Feminisms, as in Lewis’s earlier Full Surrogacy Now and Abolish the Family, the author confronts the boundaries that threaten to cage feminists past and present – including borders, the nuclear family, prisons, profit margins and the gender binary – while at the same time sailing us towards the urgent ‘feminisms against cisness and against whiteness’ that can and must be our guiding star.
TERF ISLAND COMES TOAMERICA 5:15 PM GILMAN 208 Wednesday, February 26th Buried Histories of the Feminism of Cisness with Sophie Lewis author of Full Surrogacy Now, Abolish the Family, and Enemy Feminisms: TERFS, Policewomen & Girlbosses Against Liberation A book talk on Enemy Feminisms, in conversation with Jules Gill-Peterson, will follow on February 27th at Red Emma’s, 7PM
Enemy Feminisms Dr Sophie Lewis Fri. 7 March 2025, 6.30pm Sarah Parker Remond Centre Annual Lecture Archaeology, Lecture Theatre G6 31-34 Gordon Square London WC1H 0PY
Enemy Feminisms book talk Sophie Lewis with Lola Olufemi. 7pm. Thursday 6 March 2025 London Review Bookshop. 14-16 Bury Place London WC1A 2JL Reserve a seat at londonreviewbookshop.co.uk
Enemy Feminisms book talk Sophie Lewis with Erin Maglaque Wed 5 Mar 2025, 6.30pm @ The Victoria 1 Rowland Street Sheffield, S3 8DE Tix @ Outsavvy. Organised by Juno Books.
Enemy Feminisms book talk Sophie Lewis with Nat Raha Tuesday 4 March 2025 @ Lighthouse. 7pm. 43 West Nicolson Street, Edinburgh EH8 9DB Reserve a seat at lighthousebookshop.com
Enemy Feminisms book talk Sophie Lewis with Jules Gill-Peterson Thursday 27 Feb. 2025 @ Red Emma’s. 7pm. 3128 Greenmount Ave Baltimore, MD 21218 RSVP at withfriends.co
Enemy Feminisms book talk Sophie Lewis with Grace Byron Tuesday 25 Feb. 2025 @ Books Are Magic. 7pm. 122 Montague Street Brooklyn, NY 11201 RSVP at Eventbrite
Enemy Feminisms book talk Sophie Lewis with Greta LaFleur Saturday 22 Feb. 2025 @ Possible Futures. 7pm. 318 Edgewood Ave, New Haven, CT 06511
Enemy Feminisms book talk Sophie Lewis with Kolya Shields Thursday 20 Feb. 2025 RiffRaff Bookstore Providence, RI (60 Valley St.) 7pm. https://riffraffevents.eventcalendarapp.com/u/39909/357417
Enemy Feminisms book talk Sophie Lewis with Natasha Lennard Wednesday 19 Feb. 2025 Wolff Conference Room (11th floor, room 1103) 6 E. 16th St., NYC. The New School. 6 pm. Sponsored by the Department for Media and Culture
Enemy Feminisms book talk Sophie Lewis with Kristen Martin Tuesday 18 February 2025 @ Giovanni’s Room [345 S. 12th St, Philly] 6 pm refreshments provided
Tuesday, February 18, 2025 - 3:00pm to 4:00pm with Sarah Banet-Weiser. Penn Bookstore. 3601 Walnut Street, Philadelphia. https://gsws.sas.upenn.edu/events/2025/02/18/enemy-feminisms-book-talk-dr-sophie-lewis Registration her: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sophie-lewis-discusses-enemy-feminisms-tickets-1221476361679
ENEMY FEMINISMS • BOOK TOUR • (Pt.1) Feb-Apr ‘25 [image of the cover of the book: Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation] 2.18 Philly, Penn Bookstore 2.18 Philly, Giovanni’s Room 2.19 NYC, The New School 2.20 Providence, RiffRaff 2.21 Boston, Brookline Booksmith 2.22 New Haven, Possible Futures 2.25 Brooklyn, Books Are Magic 2.26 Johns Hopkins University 2.27 Baltimore, Red Emma’s 2.28 Washington, DC, Solid State 3.4 Edinburgh, UK, Lighthouse 3.5 Sheffield, UK, Juno Books 3.6 London Review Bookshop 3.7 U.C.L. (London) 3.20 Chapel Hill, FlyLeaf 3.21 Durham, Duke University 3.23 Asheville, Firestorm Books 3.25 Chicago, Pilsen Books 3.27 Unversity of Pennsylvania 4.1 Columbus, Prologue Books 4.2 Granville, Denison University 4.8 N.J., Rowan University
The tail of a blue whale emerging above the waves of the ocean's surface.
A red-tailed hawk / red-tail buzzard flaps its wings on a very large tree-branch
The distracted boyfriend meme, as well as the Rider Waite ace of cups card, are laid out in a square graphic, with the meme inside a tarot card format. The caption reads as follows: Hey it’s like we always say: one woman’s Distracted Boyfriend is another woman’s street harasser. Counterintuitively, perhaps, this meme is my Ace of Cups, folks. After all, when the Little Red Tarot notes, of this card, “this is a new chapter in your emotional life,” there’s more than one way to interpret the information. Why have we titled the meme after the middle figure? Perhaps the emotional birth in this scene has nothing to do with him? (According to the meticulous research on the tumblr “Meme Documentation,” this meme was first posted - with annotations about Phil Collins’s turn from prog to pop - on a Turkish fb group in January 2017.) #tarotofmemes #memetarot #distractedboyfriend #aceofcups #tarot #sophielewis #memes #emotionalbeginning
The Mean Girls "Stop Trying to Make 'fetch' happen" meme format, but with the words "Stop trying to make 'enifemonenon' happen"
A female painted bunting sits on a branch. It is a very beautiful shade of green
Four American robins stand on the sludge of the beach at Bartram's Garden in Philadelphia, and look towards the river at dusk.
Sophie Lewis in convention with Sarah Leonard - Dec 12 - 6.30pm - Wooden Shoe Books
Thursday, Dec 12 6:30pm – 8:00pm Enemy Feminisms. Sophie Lewis in conversation with Sarah Leonard at Wooden Shoe. Join Lux in Philadelphia! Sophie Lewis has written about how, in moments of political defeat, feminists can seek safety in gender essentialism: women are good, men are bad, and there’s nothing in between. After the election, calls came to abandon men altogether – to consider them lost to right-wing politics – and embrace a separatism inspired by South Korea’s 4B movement. In conversation with Lux editor-in-chief Sarah Leonard, Sophie will discuss themes explored in her forthcoming book, Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation, including the recent shifts toward gender separatism, and what sorts of gender utopias might better fulfill the feminist dream. This conversation is hosted by our friends at Wooden Shoe (704 South Street). This event is free and open to the public.
Overhead shot of a table with a printed sign on it that says "JAMCEMBER Annunciation of Barnacle Prudence" next to some hands spreading jam from a tiny pot into some toast
Ingrid/my mother/Mumputz died five years ago that. Her life taught me about the imperative of care communization (family abolition). It's been hard to know how to "inherit" from her, as she was basically not, I feel, interested in reproducing herself. But over time I have come to appreciate and receive several gifts from her, including her zero-fucks aspects, her wit and humor, her horniness, her style.
The back cover of ENEMY FEMINISMS by Sophie Lewis, from Haymarket, which has blurbs printed on it from Judith Butler, Torrey Peters, Lola Olufemi, Andrea Long Chu, Amia Srinivasan, and Jordy Rosenberg.
Little collage of 3 pieces that criticize the kind of "marriage fundamentalism" espoused by conservatives and liberals alike