Gina Gwenffrewi

Totally agree. The 'gender critical' movement also refer to themselves as being part of a 'sex caste', which isn't true and also problematic. There's definitely a segregationist and eradicationist agenda against trans people, but 'caste' is very specific and not reflective of our oppression.

This is a really important analysis, the same thing has been happening in the UK. Advocacy groups like Stonewall and Mermaids have been marginalized and replaced by right-wing think tanks like Policy Exchange and astroturf groups like LGB Alliance. Total domination of the public sphere by the rich.

I can download the story through my university's Nexis Advance UK search engine. I'll email the downloaded story to you.

It is a very good article, but it's also published by a newspaper that has been on a crusade of disinformation against trans people for several years - I recommend Riki Wilchins' 'Bad Ink: how the NY Times sold out transgender teens' to anyone wanting to learn more. The NYT has a lot to answer for.

Agree. This entire Labour Gov has undermined UK democracy: cynical careerists who will sell out the disempowered and hope we're stupid enough to make do with handwringing. Also special mention to the Guardian's journos who paved the way for this kind of politics and seem surprised it's going badly.

Future Issues | Politics and Governance Politics and Governance is an innovative new offering to the world of online peer-reviewed open access publishing in the Political Sciences.

Are you doing research on anti-trans politics? Consider submitting to the special issue of @cogitatiopag.bsky.social 'Global Politics and Anti-Trans Moral Panics: Transfeminist Perspectives', co-edited by me, @ashstokoe.bsky.social and @ginagwenffrewi.bsky.social to be published in 2027 (1/2)

Your article here, 'Really existing liberalism, the bulwark fantasy, and the enabling of reactionary, far right politics,' is timely, I think trans people are all struggling with how liberal democracy has failed us, but our solutions still seem to be tied to it. Yours is an important contribution.

Revelation (Mother Earth) is one of Ozzy's forgotten jewels, a beautiful, anti-violence eco-song:

I had a vision, l saw the world burn
And the seas had turned red ...
Mother, please show the children
Before it's too late
To fight each other, there's no one winning
We must fight all the hate

Some thoughts:

1) This Labour Gov is a disaster. It might even help Rayner's career to be on the backbenches for now.

2) Rayner has done nothing as trans people are stripped of their rights. Like David Lammy, she's a careerist who'll do whatever Morgan McSweeney tells her. Forget about her.

The Holyrood mag isn't to be taken seriously. Its journo for this article, Mandy Rhoads, is GC, her position on trans people can be summed up by the fact that she was appointed by Badenoch to the EHRC in 2023 along with Akua Reindorf.

Jake E Lee claims Ozzy ripped him off Guitarist says Osbourne took all the songwriting credit on Bark At The Moon despite his input

Ozzy's skeleton in the closet isn't transness but that he and Sharon Osbourne exploited talented musicians like Jake E Lee, letting them write the songs then claiming Ozzy wrote them, forcing the musicians to sign over rights, leaving the musicians with nothing:
www.loudersound.com/news/jake-e-...

4/ ... To conclude, Stonewall aren't visibly pro-trans like they were under Hunt and Kelley but I don't think they're a 'disgrace.' The low key language is sometimes insipid and disappointing, but if they continue working behind the scenes for trans people, then that's got to be a good thing.

Responding to EHRC’s consultation: A hierarchy of rights The UK Supreme Court judgment on 16 April 2025 ruled the legal definition of a ‘woman’ for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 is based on biological…

3/ ... and I hope their lobbying for a conversion therapy ban is effective; their critique of the EHRC interpretation of the SC ruling is pretty damning (see link); and overall, I believe they'll continue to advocate for trans rights, but less via social media... www.stonewall.org.uk/news/respond...

2/ and has led to serious scaling down of their operation. My impression is that they're focusing now on lobbying for LGBTQI+ rights in the corridors of power, as well as promoting best practice in work place initiatives (e.g. Workplace Equality Index), while avoiding the limelight ...

No, Stonewall is not a disgrace. They are an org that advocates for LGBTQI+ people during a time when the media are vilifying and crusading against any one that supports LGBTQI+ people. The recent media campaigns (circa 2020-2023) against Stonewall - to my understanding - seriously damaged them ...

"UK universities have failed to protect gender-critical academics, says report by gender-critical academic."

The pub I was in yesterday had no gender-neutral toilets. It highlights the impracticality of what's being demanded of us.

But that's the lesser issue.

Asking trans people to stop using the single-sex toilets that match their gender is asking them to participate in their own detransition.

Apologies for not making myself clear, I meant Steph Richards / Robin M. White / Stephen Whittle appear to be 'moderate' in a trans rights sense, not in a broader political sense.

I think it's unlikely that Wes Streeting will change his mind whoever he talks to, I think there's a 1% chance of being able to persuade him of anything pro-trans, Streeting talked to trans youth, listened to them, and then completely ignored them.

YouTube video by Novara Media How Trans Rights Became A Victim of The Culture War

This is Steph Richards being interviewed by Novara Media after the Supreme Court ruling. She comes across as moderate (pro-GRA, EA), probably similar to her colleagues at Translucent, Robin Moira White and Stephen Whittle, but nothing more?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktqn...

Thank you for this, Megan. I admit it doesn't look good although I wonder if he was referring more to the 'No debate' Stonewall was (wrongly) framed as having and which Fry is passionate about (he doesn't specify what is nonsensical). But anyway, I'm glad he's more transparently supportive now.

Was Stephen Fry ever anti-trans? On the right-wing, anti-trans Triggonometry, he could have thrown trans people under the bus but defended trans kids with eloquence. I've never heard him attack trans identity, though he did use to defend JK Rowling, which isn't quite the same thing. Am I wrong?

... the construction and dissemination of knowledge that is clearly grounded in academic scholarship” (2018: 232).

The new regulatory guidance undermines the standards we should expect with academic freedom, seemingly to cater for and accommodate the basest or ill-informed ideas. Really depressing.

I also think their definition of Academic Freedom is shockingly obtuse:

"b. to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions"

Compare this to Farhana Sultan's much more convincing:

“Academic freedom is not about spreading random ideas or opinions but about the pursuit of truth...

Also, I haven't read all of McBride's interview - it's huge, I thought I had a gist of it, but having scanned the length of it, she might be saying all kinds of problematic things that I hadn't taken in. My main concern is that we challenge each others' ideas, the personal condemnations sadden me.

5/ I see the general response is condemn Sarah McBride as a traitor, so maybe I'm wrong on this. But I think, given the fear and anger in the trans community right now, we engage with each other and what we're saying with a degree of good faith and patience, if possible.

4/ Maybe I've been watching Novara Media for too long, thinking of Ash Sarkar's dictum, 'Learn how to count,' it's what's so distressing now, the way the public mood has shifted; while we re-formulate what to do, I can empathise with those desperate for anything, even if it's the wrong solution.

3/ I think we can challenge the ideas without condemning the trans person who expresses such a position as a coward; I think these conversations are important to have now, Sarah represents one such position (I see it in Robin M White's argument) and we should challenge the idea, not the person?

2/ I don't think Sarah McBride is a coward, the way she's stood up for trans rights in the past, despite the hate campaigns (the K.Y.S. texts aimed at her, 24/7), maybe she's a reflection of a sense that so much has changed, the numbers are against us, I don't agree with it, but understand it? ...

Chris, I wonder if Sarah McBride's situation is more complex than this. Back in 2016 she played a major role in defeating the bathroom ban in North Carolina, and she would surely do so here in the UK. Back then, the Right overreached what they could get away with; in 2025, there's been a shift...1/.