Matilda Fitzmaurice

Lisa at the postbox in Woody & Blue dippy cloche, Masato Jones sweatshirt and Roosevelt coat

I've voted. Have you? Vote in the UCU national elections for @markpendleton.bsky.social + @suzitoole.bsky.social plus all the awesome candidates on our slate ucucommons.org/election26/

Photo of UCU ballot envelope

My ballot papers just arrived for the @ucu.org.uk NEC and VP elections. I’ll be voting for @markpendleton.bsky.social and @suzitoole.bsky.social for the Vice Presidential posts, as well as the candidates on this slate: campaignforucudemocracy.com/2025/11/26/2...

It's pretty clear to us that implementation of the Sullivan 'review' breaches UK GDPR obligations. EU GDPR, identical to ours, says you can't process data about the sex assigned at birth of trans people unless there is a very good reason for doing so. And we are active in this space.

Jay Todd @jaytoddgla.bsky.social and I have published today in @tibg.bsky.social a critical response to the UK Government-commissioned "Sullivan Review" of sex and gender in data and research collection

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

A good response. We have to stand with our trans siblings. I'm white, cis gendered, female presenting, middle class, educated and awash with privilege. Pin your flags to the mast here. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

I have this on my desk ready to read!

It's going to take a lot of willpower to do the reviewing I should actually be doing instead.

Please read this excellent &timely critique of the Sullivan Review out today: it cogently argues that the SR's recommendation of a single binary sex-at-birth model for data collection undermines trans&gender diverse people's (& I'd say, by extension, all participants') self-determination in research

A must-read paper for UK and international social scientists: the Sullivan Review "(re)installs.. a hygienically patrolled division between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’, where a certain model of sex is ‘reality’, and ‘gender identity’ is cast merely as an individual's (psychological) ‘self-understanding.'"

"We argue that the Sullivan Review contributes to UK ‘anti-trans discourse’ (UN 2024, 6) and ‘eliminationist attacks’ that attempt to ‘criminalise trans existence, remove trans and gender diverse people from public life, and refuse even the reality of trans life’ (Todd 2025, n.p.)."

This is a hugely important critical response to the 'Sullivan Review'. Essential reading.

Screen grab of front page for article: A Critical Response to the UK's ‘Sullivan Review’ Into Sex and Gender in Research and Data

📢 New peer-reviewed academic response to the Sullivan Review into sex and gender in research and data.

@jaytoddgla.bsky.social and @felicitycallard.bsky.social have published a critical response to the Sullivan Review.

doi.org/10.1111/tran...

#UCU friends: would you be up for helping us get the vote out in this crucial UCU VP and NEC election?

The best thing to do is to email your friends, colleagues and other contacts and encourage them to vote.

So if you'd like to help, DM me and I can send you a template email you can use.

Mandelson leaked sensitive UK government tax plans to Epstein Former ambassador forwarded memo from special adviser to Gordon Brown to late sex offender in 2009

BREAKING on ft website:

Lord Peter Mandelson leaked a sensitive UK government document to Jeffrey Epstein while he was business secretary that proposed £20bn of asset sales and revealed Labour’s tax policy plans

www.ft.com/content/fdf7...

February is LGBTQ+ history month 🌈 It's is a time to reflect on how far we have come and how much there is still to do.
I am honoured to have been endorsed by all five UCU equality committees and I’m committed to continuing the work of UCU to champion the voices and needs of marginalised members.

To: jeevacation©gmaitcomheevacation@gmail.comj; /Bjorn Lombo Cc: Jeffrey Epstein[jeevac ; John Brockman( Horvath, (PA for Bjorn Lomborg) I From: Sent: Tue 9/25/2012 1:21:59 AM Subject Re: Jeffrey Epstein Perfect. Thanks, Sent from my iPhonc On Sep 24, 2012, at 9:08 PM, Bjorn Lomborg a wrote: Dear Good to meet. Thanks, John! I'm on the phone now or let's do this tomorrow morning. My PA is in Budapest, Zsuzsa, and she'll call you tomorrow morning and set this up. Looking forward to meeting Jeffrey! all the best bjom Bjom Lomborg, Ph.D. and Adjunct Professor Copenhagen Consensus Center 1875 I Street, NW, Suite 500 Washington, DC 20006 www.lomborg.com Twitter: ©bjornlomborg Facebook: www.facebook.com/biornlomborq

It's hard to keep up, but did we already know Bjorn Lomborg was hanging out with Epstein?

As someone who regularly works with older people, grandparents can be the STAUNCHEST defenders of lgbtq+ rights. Sometimes moreso than parents. Older people are not the enemy

Okay my heart stopped for a minute here because I thought it was Bjorn Ulvaeus. But no! It's THAT Bjorn

The British Museum posted Al slop and quietly deleted it. Here's what it was and why it matters.

#archaeology🏺#musuem #culture #heritage #history

Speaking personally, I'm so proud that UCU is so unflinching in our support for trans rights, dignity and flourishing. We also have a pioneering, dedicated equality strand for migrant members, which @markpendleton.bsky.social was heavily involved in setting up.

Very proud and happy to sign onto this as Chair of the LGBTQ+ committee. UCU has an equality record we can be genuinely proud of, and there is so much more we can achieve. Mark and Suzi are the people to lead this charge. #ucu

Seriously

Really important endorsement for Mark and @suzitoole.bsky.social from all five Equality standing committee chairs! #UCU

Text reads: “Tomorrow is the start of LGBT+ History Month, a time when we acknowledge, remember and celebrate our queer pasts. Our union has a strong history of advancing LGBTQ+ equality in our workplaces, in the trade union movement and beyond.”

Text reads: “At a time when the rights of marginalised people are under attack, we need people across our institutions to stand up for all of us - that classic trade union line of ‘an injury to one is an injury to all’ has never been more important.”

Text reads: “That’s why we’re proud today to be endorsed by the chairs of all five of UCU’s equality committees - Black members, disabled members, LGBTQ+ members, migrant members and women members.”

A photograph of Suzi Toole and Mark Pendleton wearing UCU beanies, accompanied by this text: “Our commitment to advancing the union’s equality agenda is unwavering and will be a cornerstone of our work as hopefully your next UCU vice-presidents. Suzi Toole & Mark Pendleton”

Today’s start of LGBT+ history month is a great time to focus on and recommit to the important work UCU does to advance LGBTQ+ and wider equality.

My contributions to that have led to endorsement from the chairs of all five of UCU’s equality committees. Thank you.

ucucommons.org/endorsements/

This is an absolute must-read. Rita Voltmer deserves a medal.

Okay I've now read it. Absolute mic drop

Screenshot of a wiki page that has the following sections: 1. Early Life 2. Career 3. Association with Jeffrey Epstein 4. Quotes 5. Bibliography

When you look at the Wikipedia of an old white guy whose books you read in college there is an unfortunately high probability it will look like this

It's literally 6pm on a Saturday evening and I am sitting down to read this RIGHT NOW

I can already hear the employers rubbing their hands with glee at how irrelevant we are.

In the 1970s, an invention of tradition connected the fight for women’s liberation with the figure of the witch. However, this narrative grounded in male fantasies of the 19th century (Bachofen, Grimm, Michelet, and many others). The German “völkisch” feminism followed this pattern, as did Second Wave feminism after the Second World War, especially in its esoteric, spiritual, and ecological branch. The narrative gained ground in the European, the transatlantic and the postcolonial Women’s Movements. Modern witchcraft research has unmasked the “witchcraft narrative” as a mere invention of tradition. However, the “witch narrative” remains alive in the work of the Autonomist Marxist feminist Silvia Federici. The spirit of Grimm and Michelet, which had been conveyed via Gage, Murray and her epigones of spiritual feminism and eco-feminism, still breathes in Federici's books. This article deconstructs Federici’s witches. They are not the granddaughters of the witches who had not been burned, but simply the epigones of the witches invented by males during the 19th century.

SO SO GLAD to see a PROPER rebuttal against Silvia Federici's very wrong scholarship in the latest Magic, Ritual and Witchcraft! Thank you, Rita Voltmer!

muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/artic...

UCU elections 2026 Elections to the following roles will take place between 30th January and 2nd March 2026: * Vice president from the further education sector,  becoming President 2028-29 * By-election Vice Presiden...

So please, VOTE for candidates who actually take this seriously. ucucommons.org/election26/