Hugh Ryan
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hughryan.bsky.social
Hugh Ryan
@hughryan.bsky.social
Author & queer historian. The Women’s House of Detention (2022) and When Brooklyn Was Queer (2019). I also teach nonfiction in the Bennington MFA program. Support my work: https://www.patreon.com/HughRyan
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
ICE officials, under a judge’s order to clean up overcrowded and squalid conditions inside holding cells at 26 Federal Plaza detained migrants on a separate floor where they decided the the ruling didn't apply. The revelation comes in a hearing today:

www.thecity.nyc/2026/02/09/2...
ICE Moved Detainees to Previously Undisclosed Floor of 26 Federal Plaza
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reduce overcrowding and squalid conditions at a Manhattan holding room. Months later, he finds ICE merely shifted floors.
www.thecity.nyc
February 10, 2026 at 1:25 AM
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
If you have any information about this whatsoever, I’m marisakabas.04 on Signal
The FAA is closing the airspace around El Paso International Airport in Texas for 10 days, grounding all flights to and from the airport, for “special security reasons."

The FAA's notice did not provide additional details.
FAA closes airspace around El Paso, Texas, for 10 days, grounding all flights
The Federal Aviation Administration is closing the airspace around El Paso International Airport in Texas for 10 days, grounding all flights to and from the airport.
bit.ly
February 11, 2026 at 11:25 AM
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
This is what I’m talking about when I talk about technologies of liberation

This required careful measurement and design
“Historians call this passageway a masterwork of deliberate concealment, designed to be absolutely invisible to slave catchers or city marshals during the 19th-century”
Safe house linked to Underground Railroad discovered in Manhattan
The Merchant's House is the first landmarked building in Manhattan.
ny1.com
February 11, 2026 at 4:32 AM
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
I can tell you exactly when the media narrative changed: It was January 29, the day Chuck Schumer told everyone to pipe down because Democrats had agreed on demands they'd hold DHS to in return for funding.
Notice how the popular media narrative has moved on, while people on the ground in Minneapolis are still struggling and crying out that things are as bad as ever. This is how fascist regimes operate — overreach, recalibration, normalization. Get louder, not quieter.
February 11, 2026 at 5:16 AM
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
"Images obtained by CBS News appear to show the zip ties and bruised wrists of Anabel Romero's 14-year-old daughter SueHey, a U.S. citizen who was tending to her 6- and 8-year-old siblings when the agents descended on the crowd in military-style gear and herded them into a confined area."
Feds zip-tied a 14-year-old girl during Idaho raid, sparking fresh questions about ICE tactics
A 14-year-old girl said she was "crying" and "struggling to breathe" when law enforcement officers herded her onto a racetrack with other detainees and zip-tied her hands.
www.cbsnews.com
February 10, 2026 at 9:22 PM
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
NEW: ICE has a plan to lease offices across the US as part of a secret, months-long expansion campaign.

Today, @wired.com is publishing dozens of those locations. Many are near schools, medical offices, and places of worship.

Vital work from @leahfeiger.bsky.social that I'm proud to publish.
ICE Is Expanding Across the US at Breakneck Speed. Here’s Where It’s Going Next
ICE plans to lease offices throughout the US as part of a secret, months-long expansion campaign. WIRED is publishing dozens of these locations.
www.wired.com
February 10, 2026 at 4:13 PM
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
He doesn't know if the Census Bureau is part of the department he runs?! Or he doesn't know the Census Bureau establishes the poverty line?

Either way, that's the kind of staggering admission of utter cluelessness that should get this ass-kissing toady shown the door
KENNEDY: The Census Bureau is under your jurisdiction & responsible for defining what it means to be poor, is that right?

LUTNICK: I don't know

K: Well you need to look, bc it does. What's the % of Americans who live below poverty level?

L: I don't know

K: It's around 11%. It's been constant
February 10, 2026 at 5:38 PM
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
just a fucking weird statement on it's face but also highlights how filthy rich and completely out of touch trump's whole cabinet is. a private boat for a family vacation? stopping by a billionaire's island for lunch? nannies, plural?? the epstein class, indeed.
VAN HOLLEN: Did you in fact make the visit to Epstein's private island?

LUTNICK: I did have lunch w/ him as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation. My wife was with me as were my 4 children and nannies. We had lunch on the island. That's true. For an hour. We left with all of my children
February 10, 2026 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
Amber Glenn won Olympic gold on Sunday. That same day, she left social media because of death threats. Her offense: she'd told reporters the queer community is going through "a hard time." The headline called it "backlash." www.readtpa.com/p/the-thresh...
The Threshold
The right used to attack athletes who protested. Now they attack athletes who express feelings at all.
www.readtpa.com
February 10, 2026 at 7:17 PM
Now that they've gone ahead and removed the Pride flag from Stonewall, it feels like time to reshare this article I wrote for @slate.com last year, when the Trump administration removed the word "transgender" from the Stonewall website. slate.com/news-and-pol...
slate.com
February 10, 2026 at 5:34 PM
Friends, help: which of these photos feels like it would best accompany an essay about drugs & friendship in New Orleans?
February 10, 2026 at 2:36 PM
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
i think this more than anything is what miller wants. vast detention camps with all of the suffering and death that means.
ICE has now spent over half a BILLION dollars just on purchasing warehouses around the country to convert into detention camps.

If these mega-camps are utilized to the full capacity ICE intends, they'll be the largest prisons in the country, with little real oversight. www.ajc.com/politics/202...
ICE to begin detaining immigrants inside Social Circle warehouse in April
Homeland Security plans to build warehouse detention facilities in other cities being met with opposition.
www.ajc.com
February 10, 2026 at 3:56 AM
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
Her community rallied so fast and so diligently. This is a victory to uphold and celebrate. Reminds everyone that it's worth fighting back.
An immigration court dropped its case against Turkish graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk, a little less than a year after federal agents arrested her on a street near Tufts University
Immigration Court Drops Case Against Tufts Student Rumeysa Ozturk
The Turkish national had been arrested by plainclothes federal officers outside her apartment.
on.wsj.com
February 10, 2026 at 1:30 AM
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
Amber Glenn, a queer Texan who started ice skating at the stonebriar mall in frisco at age 5, who plays magic the gathering, is an olympic gold medalist
February 8, 2026 at 10:45 PM
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
Massie on Howard Lutnick: "He should just resign. Three people in Great Britain resigned for less than what we've seen Howard Lutnick lie about. He clearly went to the island, if we believe what's in these files. He was in business with Jeffrey Epstein."
February 8, 2026 at 4:29 PM
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
I've written about the overarching post story, causes, underlying pattern. But the failure of Lewis or Bezos to even show up, literally or figuratively, on a day of devastating cuts epitomizes the profound lack of character and accountability that is so common place today within the American elite.
February 8, 2026 at 6:15 AM
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
Concentration camps:

“For 280 days we haven’t eaten a single piece of fruit, banana, apple, orange, or anything fresh. We are all in one big room with no doors or windows. We can’t see any grass or trees. We are all constantly sick."
Exclusive: Detention Center Captives Are Throwing Lotion Bottles Wrapped With Notes to Organizers Outside Otay Mesa Facility ~ L.A. TACO
“For 280 days we haven’t eaten a single piece of fruit, banana, apple, orange, or anything fresh," an Otay Mesa captive communicated through handwritten note. "We are all in one big room with no doors...
lataco.com
February 8, 2026 at 2:24 AM
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
The whole article is repulsive but this passage is at the core of it. She has no interest in writing books, she wants to win some kind of competition that nobody entered
February 8, 2026 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
crickets from the free speech crowd, of course
FAMU can't use the word Black on anything posted around campus related to Black History Month, to stay in compliance with Florida state laws against DEI. Black students can't use the word Black at their Historically Black College during Black History Month.
February 8, 2026 at 3:35 PM
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
I am so panicked that people are going to stop buying books right now. And I don’t just say this because I have a book coming out in April. I am saying this also because indie bookstores are doing a lot of protest support work and need the business. And my friends have books coming out too.
Please buy books that are coming out this year.

Doesn’t have to be mine. But there is a stellar release calendar this year especially of Black writers and it would be a shame if one of the fascist victories was people not buying those books (from the indies that are in the fight with us). #BookSky
February 5, 2026 at 12:48 PM
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
Michael Knowles and the other Daily Wire chuds play act at being celebrities because it’s the thing they actually crave
“You can sense, particularly from characters like Knowles, a cloying desperation to be seen as important, shiny media figures in their own right. They want the glow of stardom, and they hate the people who have it.” www.liberalcurrents.com/none-more-wo...
None More Wonderful Than Man: Art, Artists, and MAGA’s Hollow View of Humanity
MAGA sees art as nothing more than a tool of self-aggrandizement, and artists as less than human.
www.liberalcurrents.com
February 6, 2026 at 6:11 PM
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
It just guts me that the Washington Post lost a *quarter of a million* subscribers because of Bezos's sucking up to Trump, and his reaction is, "Obviously the Post should stop covering books and international affairs."
www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/...
After non-endorsement, 250,000 subscribers cancel The Washington Post
Post staffers press for answers on loss of readers and trust after owner Jeff Bezos explained why the paper would no longer endorse presidential candidates.
www.washingtonpost.com
February 8, 2026 at 12:34 AM
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
When Republicans do it / When Democrats do it
February 7, 2026 at 11:41 PM
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
"The new law forbids counties and local law enforcement from contracting with ICE. It mandates that public bodies terminate any existing immigration detention agreements and prohibits the use of public property for federal civil immigration detention..."

kfoxtv.com/news/local/n...
New Mexico governor signs Immigrant Safety Act among other bills into law
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has signed four bipartisan bills into law, focusing on improving health care access, investing in statewide infrastructur
kfoxtv.com
February 7, 2026 at 9:05 PM
Reposted by Hugh Ryan
Having successfully completed his mission of turning the Washington Post into a conservative opinion-first megaphone for Jeff Bezos, Will Lewis is moving on.
Breaking — Will Lewis out at the Washington Post. He just sent this email to staff (shared with me by staffer):
February 7, 2026 at 11:15 PM