John Bate

It goes like this, The fourth, the fifth, The minor fall, the major lift

If you know young people applying for uni, perhaps share this list with them

Sex Matters says gender-critical voices are being silenced. Yet when Amnesty International UK published research critical of them, they didn't publish a rebuttal; they threatened legal action. Freedom of expression isn't a one-way street. We have responded to Sex Matters' email:

One thing we mean when we talk about "stronger social norms" is racist chants, slurs not seen as normal by most normal people. Football did more than anything else to put the idea of "zero tolerance" into practice. Elon Musk's X is doing more/trying harder than anyone else to renormalise racism

It's Trans Day of Visibility today. If you're trans and are raising money for something (I don't care what it is), reply to this thread and I will boost you. If you are a cis person, take a look and find someone to support if you can. Everyone give this a share after.

J.K. Rowling is using her wealth attained from the "Harry Potter" series to create an organization dedicated to removing transgender people's rights "in the workplace, in public life, and in protected female spaces.” 🔗: bit.ly/3ZBRxYk

It doesn't get reiterated enough that "human on a bicycle" is not only the most efficient way that a person can move, it's the most efficient form of motion ***ever observed in land animals***.

Found a baby songbird? Here's a newly updated chart!

In short, Starmer has taken a massive hit among Labour voters, for no gain elsewhere, while boosting Farage's popularity, including doubling his ceiling among Labour voters. I.e., the political scientists were right, Morgan McSweeney was horrendously wrong.

3 months ago, I wrote this about centrist parties aping the far right, and how it's not just immoral, but suicidal. This is not secret knowledge. It's the most reliable effect in world politics. It's watching 40 guys getting killed by the same gorilla, one by one, and stepping up to take your turn.

just a really long sustained and, as it goes on, increasingly obviously sarcastic round of applause to every Democratic op who is still pushing the utterly failed "culture war stuff is just a distraction" narrative and using "woke" as a pejorative. Republicans are gross weirdos just keep saying it.

🧵 The recent miscarriage of justice in the UK Supreme Court, where it created a class of people with fewer human rights than others, has led to two key developments. It has created an intersectional backlash against systemic transphobia in the political class, as well as embolden transphobes. [1]

🔴 Remember the £330million contract given to Trump donor Peter Thiel's firm Palantir to build an NHS data platform? Well we've found out that most English hospitals aren't using it - because it's not very good Scoop on Democracy for Sale democracyforsale.substack.com/p/palantirs-...

put this on your page to let people know your account is NOT a safe space for Lib Dems

The latest version of "What's wrong with the Cass Review" now includes the peer-reviewed version of the Noone et al. article on critically appraising the Cass Review. I have also made some minor edits to the introduction, e.g. adding the fact that the Cass Review cost £3 million to undertake.

It's never a bad time to remind everyone:

I am speechless... >> First fault movement ever filmed. M7.9 surface rupture filmed near Thazi, Myanmar m.youtube.com/watch?v=77ub...

Just out! Our peer-reviewed critique of the Cass Review has been published by BMC Medical Research Methodology. Please read and share. We show that the Cass Review is fatally flawed and should not be the basis for policy or practice in transgender healthcare. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

1/🧵 Many new archive finds. The UK considered in 2002 to use a remedial order under the Human Rights Act to bring the law into compliance with Goodwin & “I”. The government opted for primary legislation because of the “complex knock-on effect”.

not everything is about money and you can’t target both reform and green voters simultaneously. greens won’t vote for labour’s bigoted policies and your bigoted policies will never be disgusting enough for reform voters.

Don't take it from me. Take it from the government's own assessment: Everything Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have said about nature protection blocking house building is big fat shining lie. A lie now being locked into legislation before Parliament. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

DOGE is just more austerity…and who benefits from austerity? Billionaires do. Reform would destroy our public services with their Trump style chaos. Labour laid the groundwork. Greens are the alternative to Farage and Starmer. No more austerity. No more cuts.

Okay friends. Today I am writing a thread that I have been thinking about for a long, long, long time. It's really, really important. It is also very heavy. Cis people, read this. Look with your eyes open at it. Sit with it. Feel it. Absorb it. Trans people, take care. This is about history. 🧵

Our statement on the decision by the Scottish Government to drop the bill to ban conversion practices in this parliament.

Labour losing Runcorn was avoidable and as much a result of our party’s failures as Reform’s rise. Now, we need to learn the right lessons, not double down on the same mistakes. Cutting disability benefits and scrapping the Winter Fuel Allowance made voters abandon us. [1/3]

If we lose it just means we arent right wing enough and if we win it means people like us going more rightwing so my advice is go more rightwing now give me a million pounds

You’re telling me that right wing voters that Labour was trying to appeal to voted for a right wing party anyway and left wing voters decided not to vote for Labour because they’re too right wing now? Who could have possibly predicted this.

🧵 Labour UK has set about persecuting & now effectively criminalising trans & non-binary people. Suddenly they are sending gaslighting mails like this. There is no difference for Queer ppl between Labour, Reform or the Torys. Vote Green, LD or Monster Raving to tell them to stop. [1]

Nish Kumar nailing the stupidity of bathroom bills back in 2019

The BBC keep doing this. This isn't true. This is straightforwardly wrong in law. The ruling *only* applied to the Equality Act 2010. Trans women are still legally women for the vast majority of purposes! That's the whole point of the Gender Recognition Act. I've put in a complaint. So can you.

1. Because this issue is critical, but has received remarkably little coverage, here's a thread pulling out the key themes from my article yesterday, on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which puts decades of environmental protections to the torch. 🧵 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I've been so busy with other stuff I haven't posted about Lesbian Visibility Week yet, so just to say: I think trans lesbians are some of the coolest people alive. I am in constant awe. You rock.

As Keir Starmer does a “trans women are men” media tour today, I hope people think about that time he invoked the memory of Brianna Ghey in Parliament as part of a gotcha for Rishi Sunak. Abusing her memory for PR whilst plotting to remove the rights she would’ve had to live as herself. He’s sick.

A generation of infants are being born HIV+ today who should have been born HIV-free because one of the principal propagandists of AI bullshit in the world dismantled PEPFAR and USAID.

Bridget Phillipson’s statement is shockingly bad. - “Move Forward” has never been more loaded. - There has not been a single real reassurance for trans people. - A load of bullshit about mixed sex wards which has nothing to do with trans people or this judgement. Plus a load of culture war.

Reminder Starmer used the murder of Brianna Ghey to attack Sunak. He was quite happy to acknowledge trans people when he needed a disposable attack line, the spineless coward.

they’re calling it my most vindicated take of all time