Never thought I'd see the day when Labour came third in Manchester. A big challenge for us @mcrlibdems.uk elsewhere in the city now to make sure we work as hard as we can to keep Reform out whilst Labour collapse. Join us mcrlibdems.uk/join

I see people are upset that I won an award for women because I'm the wrong type of woman. I was moved and honoured to have been awarded this by the party's women's group, and that the Lib Dems at all levels have my back and I will continue to fight for liberalism and my community.

We, the Liberal Democrats only official women's group, wholeheartedly stand by the amazing Woman that Cllr Chris Northwood is. She is an inspiration to many within the party with her dedication to the party and her constituents. She is a very deserving winner.

Very proud to have been awarded the Patsy Calton Award at today's #LDConf. Very moved by those who nominated me and that I've inspired others. I've just tried to do the best job I can.

Doing a look inspired by @tothatzoey.net for #LDConf

Shon Faye has captured it all so well. It just feels impossible now. shonfaye.substack.com/p/well-its-o...

A huge well done to Rebecca for her work on this, and thank you for JPAC to listening to her concerns. While the NHS is complaining of blood donation shortages, it should not be inventing barriers for LGBT+ folks who are willing to donate.

I've written to my MP, Lucy Powell, to ask her to stand up for Manchester Central's trans community and ensure Parliamentary scrutiny of the new EHRC code of practice.

We're now at the point where BBC News openly repeats slurs for trans women without quotation marks and without challenge. I've made yet another complaint to the BBC, but given how that usually goes...

Palestine Action gets classified as a terrorist organisation by Labour, but working for an organisation which is actually terrorising trans people in the UK gets you a job in Number 10.

Do please read this thread by my lovely friend Sarah if you want to know why I keep banging on about trans rights

Everything in this letter is rooted in common sense and clear morals. I'd hope this should be the bar for every organisation to meet, but I'm constantly disappointed.

Tom Clancy's Enemies of Dorley Hall

Attention UK Based people, I need YOU to help me challenge NHS Blood & Transplants policies towards Trans & Non-Binary people. docs.google.com/document/d/1... 1/7

Every single mainstream media outlet LIED and LIED and LIED about almost every aspect of the Marks & Spencer non-story. Organised transphobia is basically a lie machine, it cannot engage in its campaign against trans people’s lives without systematic dishonesty.

Update: M&S are cool and GCs and the Sun are filthy liars

www.reddit.com/r/transgende... Guess what? The story about the trans M&S employee and the bra fitting is a pack of lies and distortions. Want to know what really happened and how colleagues stood up for her? Read her own account here.

And again we see the goal of UK transphobia pushed by these so-called "gender critical" hate groups. Legal bullying and distorting the law to make it impossible for trans people (and particularly women) to be treated as equals and just participate in normal societal things like buying clothes.

Following a conversation on Mathstodon, I built a tool that applies error-diffusion dithering around the fixed points of a QR code, and the result is an image that my phone simultaneously auto-focuses as a human face and scans as a QR code mathstodon.xyz/@andrewt/115... codeberg.org/andrew-t/dit...

This came up in my memories today, 10 years since I first saw @soozuk.bsky.social at the Fringe, and have been back almost every year since! We were there again at the weekend, and worth seeing the latest show yourself if you're up!

What is transmisogyny? 🧵 In a society with strict ideas about gender roles, the perception of trans women is shaped by patriarchal ideas about femininity. (P.S. See the fantastic work from our friends @pluslibdems.bsky.social)

UK organisations with trans members/service users: this is the time to:- a) refuse to comply with transphobia b) make it clear to your trans members/service users that you are going to refuse, so they know they are safe. Don't be intimidated into appeasing fascists, please.

Even if the EHRC says its not made decisions yet, I'm still concerned by their commitment to a tight turnaround. And I worry that the nature of the Supreme Court ruling will inevitably result in exclusionary guidance. Tho I'm trying not to overthink before I'm able to actually read the dang thing

Talia is 100% right and this is exactly the point of trans activism. Being trans shouldn't be political, and so we protest its politicisation.

That near-50/50 split before 10 years old followed by a PLUNGE in the transfem rate taking it down to just 30% of referrals at 10-19 is... a lot of transfem suffering condensed into one graph, that's for sure

This is a really great read and pleased some of my insights ended up in it, and there's a lot of insight here.

One of the most disheartening things about trans advocacy is how little the people who claim to be on our side actually listen to us. "trans-identifying", "biological sex", and a variety of other GC dogwhistles have become common parlance because people listen to our enemies, but not us.

SORRY

Saturday 2 August is Trans Pride Manchester. Protest march starts at 12pm. Arrive at The Proud Place Sidney Street M1 7HB from 11am. I will be there with friends and on skates with Rainy City & Arcadia roller derby teams. Skates are optional but be there! 🙂 www.transpridemcr.org/transpride2025

The egg prime directive was never supposed to stop people prompting others to explore their gender, it was just to stop people making defining their own gender someone else's responsibility.

I bought a label printer

OMG this is unreal. (It’s real). Labour: the SC ruling about trans people is settled, there’s nothing we can do about it, we’ll do whatever the EHRC says. Also Labour: the SC ruling about fining wealthy finance companies is not settled, we’ll do everything we can to intervene to protect the rich.

Germany gave people €1,200/month no strings attached. They kept working, slept better, switched to better jobs, and even gave more to others. Turns out, when people aren’t drowning, they swim further. #UBI doesn’t kill ambition, it frees it.

This is a really important read for all ALDC members

This is very funny, so let me highlight how I understand the subtext: We don’t win with arguments. We win with power.

okay this is annoyingly very disruptive (for my home server project), and apparently Broadcom own Bitnami so I shouldn't be surprised but I didn't know this. need to figure out how to migrate my Postgres databases....

The Ashton Canal Bridge is finally open! But I've been asking the question of why there's this random bit of fencing at the end - apparently this is a temporary measure until the Chips cladding work is complete (and scaffolding removed) then the ramp will be able to be smoothed out into a nicer hump

You *can* change your sex. That is the entire reason that transition care is being demonised, vilified, erased, and outlawed. Because this fact makes cis people uncomfortable. Deal with your own discomfort without denying biological reality.

“I spent years believing that I’d never be able to transition because there appeared to be an immense chasm separating male from female that seemed nearly impossible to transverse. But it turned out that chasm was entirely in my mind.”

I somehow missed Fictionmania but was very familiar with the tropes when we watched Sam (2015) last night.

This is deeply concerning, especially given the issue of transphobic attacks in parks was raised at full council. GMP need to act without prejudice on all potential hate crimes. I'll be raising this within the council.

Well that explains why the report I made to GMP about direct incitement to violence towards trans women was quietly filed away and no further action taken then...

I will be very happily taking advantage of this right that the Lib Dems secured next year

Why is everything just so fucking shit and why does the idea of anything maybe getting better seem so alien. Stealing joy when I can feels very much like the "this is fine" meme.

Today is the 10th anniversary of Ireland's gender recognition act. Ireland's gender recognition is through self-declaration without the need for permission from a doctor, panel or judge etc. In the past decade nothing bad happened. youtu.be/1f8OxezAqTk?...

So I decided to do some digging on this and actually contact NHS Blood and Transplant about this. The results? Unsurprisingly appalling. 🧵

it's good to see movement away from FPTP but SV is still pretty crap - if we're reforming it, why not bring in full ranked voting?

Okay, team, I'm going to need everyone to stop relying on random newspaper reporting or the GC applicant's own victory lap commentary for a solid interpretation of UK anti discrimination law and how it works re gender crit beliefs here. 1/

Labour MP: "Having a gender drop down on the sign up form for the weekly fun run in my local park is totally unfair" when in reality the Parkrun community and organisers just want people to enjoy a nice run. I'll be Parkrunning again this weekend as I regularly do...