Olympic sex testing was born in fascism. Has anything changed? For queer historian and writer Michael Waters, the IOC’s announcement, requiring genetic eligibility testing for women's sports, elicited a feeling of déjà vu. Check out our Q&A with Winters: https://bit.ly/4c5j1v4

Streeting has something about “dignity & respect” re trans kids (in PN so not linked) FYI “dignity & respect” is the trans equivalent of “I’m not racist but…” In this context… DIGNITY = end blocker & hormone ban. RESPECT = listen to trans kids when they say “end blocker & hormone ban.” 1/14

Just for the record, had we - the editorial team who were made redundant - still been working, there is no way a piece of PR lip service like this would be published with such an astonishing lack of critical context. Its abhorent, but not surprising, given the 'reporter-free' newsroom model.

The time has come for us, as an organisation, to boycott @pinknews.bsky.social. Despite reservations about the company, we have sometimes worked with queer and trans reporters there to tell stories we thought were important for our community - the same as other outlets. That ends today. Why?

Hear, hear! @pinknews.bsky.social is worthless to the LGBTQ+ community and deserves neither clicks nor credibility.

1. Throughout history, leaders have committed acts of civil disobedience to challenge unjust laws. Add Samantha Boucher to that list. Boucher walked into the Kansas Statehouse bathroom in front of police, deliberately violating one of the most extreme anti-trans law in the country.

The GCs who are, by their own lights, "not transphobic" are triggered every time a trans person is appointed to any kind of public role (or, for that matter appears as a contestant on a quiz programme). That's even more the case when it is a trans person who has had the temerity to stand up to them.

Just embarrassing for this country that no one put 'lactose intolerant'

Trans Day of Act Now to Stop Labour's Section 28! Tell all your cis friends and colleagues. They have until 20 April.

Come do a course on trans theology at the @londonjesuit.bsky.social! You genuinely won't get the opportunity anywhere else!* 5 weeks, Monday evenings, starting 8th June *to the best of my knowledge londonjesuitcentre.churchsuite.com/events/4kgas...

This probably isn't going to change people's minds, but sometimes it is easier to evoke sympathy for dogs than it is to evoke sympathy for trans folks. Giving money to J.K.Rowling is the same as giving money to eradicate transgender people.

Signed. And proud of the fact that this party took less than 6 hours to write and table a motion to defend LGBT people. The Greens actually show up for LGBT rights!

Anti-trans obsession isn't complicated, guys. They think trans people are icky and "unnatural". Everything else is a post facto justification adapted to provide the desired conclusion, to convince themselves as much as anyone else that it's not just the base revulsion they subconsciously know it is.

Signed!

It's small and grim comfort, but with the way the US is making a xenophobic nightmare out of the World Cup, there's a non-zero chance the 2028 Olympics might be boycotted.

The Greens have responded. Exclusion is THEIR CHOICE, not a legal requirement.

if you want to know the history of this kind of policy, I made a podcast two years ago that explained why these tests make no sense, how they were already used and eventually abandoned by the IOC in the 80's and 90's, and the devastating impacts they have on real athletes: www.tested-podcast.com

A statement on the IOC's decision to reintroduce mandatory sex testing for women. Please share widely. Alt text follows in the following posts.

Your vote really does matter. Local elections are taking place in some parts of England on 7 May. Register before the deadline on 20 April: www.gov.uk/register-to-vote Make sure you've got an approved form of voter ID or register for a postal or proxy vote. www.transactual.org.uk/vote

Some YA fantasy authors who to my knowledge have never funded an attempted trans genocide: Terry Pratchett Diana Wynne-Jones Garth Nix Suzanne Collins Susan Cooper Phillip Pullman Rick Riordan Pierce Brown Sheri S. Tepper V. E. Schwab Rachel Hartman Alex Pheby Alan Garner Ursula Le Guin And more!

Polanski's riposte did more for trans rights than all the sincere, heartfelt, agonizingly impotent speeches of Labour allies put together.

"... efforts to narrow the definition of womanhood to police people's gender express, to tie women to their biology are a patriarchal and homophobic wet dream." Strong words from a stalwart ally (I notice @kateosbornemp.bsky.social sat nearby, too) that the rest of her party would do well to heed.

Urgent journo request: for @goodlawproject.org I'm looking to speak to friends of #trans ppl in the UK who have died whose #gender was not accurately recorded on their death certificate. I’m particularly interested in cases from the last year. I promise to handle your story with care 🖤

This is superb. Denyer addresses almost every conspiratorial canard used by transphobes to scaremonger and dispatches them with aplomb. Any genuine LGBT+ mp or ally would do well to take their cue from this speech. Anything less is a failure, ethically and politically.

A chilling glimpse into the future for UK Labour

United Nations blocks US attempt to erase trans people.

Lola occupies a similar place as Rocky Horror Picture Show: deeply problematic text whose faults are largely overshadowed by the fact that they were a touchstone for a generation of trans people who had nothing else to work with. I love both of them ♥️

We’ve told all the casting agents that the Weird Al biopic sequel is currently on hold, but they just keep sending in headshots.

Over the last decade, Helen Lewis has written 40+ versions of the same anti-trans article. 2015: 1 2016: 3 2017: 1 2018: 4 2019: 2 2020: 4 2021: 4 2022: 4 2023: 6 2024: 7 2025: 7 It's quite remarkable to see them as a list, so I compiled one here: www.transgendermap.com/issues/topic...

So, historian here looking for more freelance work over the next few months. I’m a very experienced RA and have done lots of things, including numerous oral history interviews, editing, co-authoring a book, public history journalism, archive work…

I comissioned a peak inside the routines of prison life for LGBTQ inmates because it's something I've always been curious about. What are the quiet moments, the daily routines. Do LGBTQ people find and comfort one another in extremity? As always, B Speaks hit it out of the park. I hope you'll read.

What are some great examples of creative approaches to history writing? Not necessarily historical fiction!

A lot of the people arguing free speech for Rushdie were just Islamophobic cranks using a Motte and Bailey strategy to push Islamophobia. Same thing happened with trans people. It wasn't about free speech.

Disappointed that 'Towny McTownFace' didn't make the running.

Never could have guessed the pseudoscience journalist writing for the NYPost had a history of writing sensational and misleading slop. Never ever could have guessed Benjamin Ryan had this history.

Extraordinary research. Historians past and future owe you a debt of gratitude. Tangentially, this pattern reminds me most of the anti-vice laws of the 1900s-1910s in the US. See: Keire's 'For Business and Pleasure '

I note the new DG of the BBC, Matt Brittin, posted this to his Linkedin just two years ago. One wonders if this might signal a departure from the unparalleled transphobic bias and outright bigotry of the BBC's coverage of trans people and our (loss of) rights. I'm not hopeful, but I do wonder.

Guardian reporting on Leo Varadkar's article on attacks on LGBTQ+ rights. Varadkar mentions trans rights 5 times, but Guardian 0 times. Leo points to the toxicity of US and UK debate, but Gaurdian ignores. Their silence is GC* Ideologically driven journalism. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

I have a joke about an indie band but you probably haven't heard of it.

Puberty isn’t this thing that happens to us, we make puberty happen as much as it happens to us. Puberty is really different for everyone and that we should try to make a world where going through it is as easy and joyful as possible. #RSE #SexEd #CSE www.bishuk.com/bodies/puber...

Whatever you do, do not take part in this study and do not allow any trans kids to take part.

@carladenyer.bsky.social

The Cass Review is being used to restrict trans healthcare worldwide. But look closely and you'll find it's not evidence-based medicine — it's motivated reasoning in a lab coat. Here are the 11 most damning problems. 🧵

So, this is fascinating. There's a complicated historiography about the (ir)religious influences on eugenics. Was it Protestant (Calvinist) penitance cranked up to 11? Was it Catholic patriarchial authoritarianism reheated? Was it anti-religious rationalism off the rails? Genuinely rich debate.

They’re saying I make a very good footstool, maybe the best ever, more and more people are saying it. And they’ve promised me a nice cup of shiny gold

More than anything, this echoes the rhetoric of eugenics from the late 19th and early 20th c. Beneath it is a paradoxical mix of fatalism (you're consigned to your lot by 'nature') and utopianism (an ideal life is achieved by aligning with 'nature'). Very little room for human agency or liberty.

Why, after years of scrutiny, isn’t there any evidence that large numbers of children were given irreversible treatments without assessment? “The journals are corrupt! And the doctors are corrupt! And the debate was suppressed! And the data is coming out any time now!” Like listen to yourselves

I don’t choose that word lightly. The idea that an entire field of medicine, as well as numerous academic journals, systematically suppressed evidence that gender-affirming care doesn’t work is a conspiracy theory. Meanwhile, none of these people can provide a shred of evidence for their core claim