This Wednesday 24th evening I'll be joining Welldoing to share some research and thinking and perhaps a creative writing exercise or two on finding the value and possibility in #postmenopause (that's right, #menopause is definitely NOT the end!) www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/what-stell...

What we are witnessing is an outright abuse of power. This administration is attacking critics and using fear as a weapon to silence anyone who would speak out. Media corporations — from television networks to newspapers — are capitulating to these threats.

I love London so much. So much. Did you know that London has the lowest level of ethnic violence of any city of comparable size in the world? Multiculturalism has in fact worked here. They just don’t want it to be true because we happen to have a Muslim mayor.

The media making out like the Robinson Rally was huge. 150,000 is tiny! Compare it to the 'Free Palestine' march (up to 800,000), the anti-Brexit march (650,000) or the Iraq war demo (1.5 Million) Disproportionate attention given to the gammon, as always.

A working class hero is something to be. But NOT if you’re a working class woman. Yes the whole Rayner thing is messy and yes Starmer’s tenure so far has been very disappointing but ffs, after the absolute SHITSHOW of Tory lies and cronyism for years sure, the working class woman has to go. Aaargh.

trump can issue as many executive orders as he wants, perhaps coverage should reflect the fact that a lot of these have the legal force of a child's wishlist for santa

So I imagine that folks who insisted it wasn’t ethnic cleansing, land theft, forced removal are lined up to apologize for insisting that this was just about defeating Hamas fighters and the return of the hostages.

For anyone who loves reading, loves books, loves INDEPENDENT bookshops (whether you're in south London or not), if you have a book you plan to buy this weekend - you might want to buy it via @booksellercrow.bsky.social - see this thread and support an indy that needs your love and custom just now. x

Deeply concerned that changes to trans rights could be approved without MPs or the public seeing details. This risks undermining accountability on issues affecting lives and freedoms. Proposals must face scrutiny before approval. Everyone deserves to know what’s being decided in their name.

Quick question - Trixie or Nancy?

Take a moment to appreciate Harry Truman‘s negotiating skills. He got Hitler to surrender everything, agree to Germany’s occupation and then shoot himself in the head.

This was a great listen, especially re problems with the relentlessly negative #menopause narrative contributing to #genderedageism in the workplace. Also v helpful thinking on ACE & socioeconomic factors contribution to difficulties in the menopause transition. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/m...

#RWC2025 loving the #England team 🌹 🌹 beautiful passing, great tries. Obviously I’ll be shouting for #BlackFerns on Sunday. It’s only right.

this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like

Listening to a (v good) BBC Woman's Hour on Women's Rugby World Cup & realising I'm going to have to spend the next month shouting at radio & TV "hah-ka not hacker!!" (haka) "Sah-more (ish!) not S-mower" (Samoa). Sigh.

I’m sure Elodie Harper’s book about Boudicca’s daughter is great, but I was stunned to hear a long discussion about it on BBC Front Row and NO mention of Manda Scott’s enormously successful Boudicca books.

President Macron, "President Trump was the first to propose a ceasefire in February, in March President Zelenskyy accepted the ceasefire. The one who always refuses a ceasefire is President Putin" "If you make a peace deal without a security guarantee, Russia will not comply with any peace deal"

In the past fortnight, while recovering from my 2nd hip replacement, two organisations with which my work means I engage - BACP and the Polari Prize - have been involved in issues that are painfully messy and upsetting for all concerned. 1/3

Years ago I was office dogsbody @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social so low in pecking order that I was reception only at lunchtime, the rest in the basement. One day I saw this beauty standing before me, he said, ‘Hello, I’m Terence Stamp, please tell Liz I’m here’. I knew who he was. RIP lovely man.

Not a doubt in my mind.

This is a thoughtful thread on the Polari Prize. It’s unfortunate that articles covering it have not also bothered with nuance or reported the difficulty for ALL involved. Anyone who thinks withdrawing wld be easy for these authors has no idea how difficult publishing is. 🙏🏿 @sachacoward.bsky.social

I’m finding all of this ‘gay marriage’ thing really frustrating. Yes I appreciate it’s being stirred up in the USA by some homophobe, but my wife & I don’t have a ‘gay marriage’ any more than my parents had a ‘straight marriage’. We are married. It’s legal, it’s real. One word, one term, one love.

Yay for this side of surgery. Recovery-pain way better than pain-pain. 🙏🏿 brilliant staff & whoever invented titanium (2 hips now & ruptured brain aneurysm), 🙏🏿 painkillers!, grateful for prehab & new exercises just started. My 8th big surgery, I know a dip is likely, enjoying the up while it lasts!

When I was a kid, I spent hours lying on my back looking at the sky feeling the earth beneath me. Doing that now. Still got it.

Today’s #poem was not written on the bus because I walked @lothianbuses.bsky.social @kitdewaal.com @garwboy.bsky.social @stellduffy.bsky.social @georgetakei.bsky.social

“The ‘grown women’ of Ireland remember very well what erasure and control and lack of bodily autonomy feel like and it’s for this very reason that we stand so passionately with the trans community today” #TransRightsAreHumanRights @independent.ie

Took old hip for last sea swim, thanked it for all the running, jumping, dancing, jetés, pliés, cartwheels, walkovers, splits, swims, handstands, headstands, asanas, biking & walks.This time next week, 🤞, I’ll be made of even more titanium (other hip & knee & brain already metalled) and healing. 🙏🏿✨

On long-term relationships, relationship therapy, making it work, finding laughs in the crap stuff - and swimming, obv. stelladuffy.blog/2025/08/01/o...

Aaaaargh!!

Football ready in our house @shelleysilas.bsky.social #lionesses

#transpride ready #LwiththeT then, now, always.

Yes, it's a long way off (October) but summer will definitely turn to autumn, and so I'm excited to share this workshop for the Soc of Psychotherapy with Online Events - #postmenopause as creative possibility, not the dead end all too many would have us believe! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/how-to-ref...

Ukraine takes first small step towards same-sex partnership recognition. Russia goes backward, criminalising all public expressions of LGBT+ identity. Another reason Ukraine must win & Russia must be defeated. FOLLOW @ukrainesol.bsky.social @ukrainesolidarity.bsky.social @ukrainesolidus.bsky.social

Holy shit, just saw Alan Cumming’s monologue standing in for Jim’ll Kimmel “why on earth would a rapist go to the bother of pretending to be trans in a country that actually treats rapists better than trans people?” It’s a point we’ve made a lot but to put that out on network TV is a new level.

The government has just introduced a new Section 28 that will harm a generation of gender-nonconforming kids. New column by me (below). I grew up under Section 28. I know the damage it caused. This will be a new darkness, with more silence and fear. Another blackout. inews.co.uk/opinion/new-...

Go Agyemang!! (Also, fuck off, stupid racists!) #lionesses

@vinaypatel.bsky.social @stellduffy.bsky.social @danrebellato.bsky.social Pls could you give this a share? Thank you!

It’s been a busy few weeks with a busy few to come but today I have a morning off and am in bed with a pot of tea & @nataliehaynes.bsky.social is teaching me stuff on the radio. Winning.

The absolute joy of swimming in the rain, silent beach, no noise but the sound of tiny droplets falling on the larger body of water. Glorious.

Whoah! #lionesses!!!! (Also though, that’s so hard on Sweden).

Fucking bollocking fucking penalties. Aaargh. #thefootball #lionesses

Said in other countries, this would be labelled as religious fanaticism.

Mmm. Morning swims, before the fairweather hoardes arrive at Brockwell Lido, before work, before the rain, before next hip replacement … all the pleasure.

Utterly glorious afternoon watching premiere of 3000 Lesbians Go To York - documentary about years of #YLAF, York Lesbian Arts Festival. So impt to see both archive footage of this vital piece of queer & lesbian herstory, not least because we were then AND STILL ARE #LwiththeT. Proudly, gratefully.

Like every other writer, I have an opinion on The Salt Path story, my quibbles were about the writing & the false ending, but from a psychotherapeutic PoV I note that everyone believes the veracity of their own story/memory & the personal is a very particular perspective, not necessarily 'truth'.

Teaching all day today so not marching (also would be limping not marching anyway!) but seeing families heading to family #pride & enjoying the pleasure they’re getting from my T-shirt. Thanks again @profjosharp.bsky.social

Swam a mile before breakfast this morning. Felt a) brilliant & b) brilliant.

If millennia of patriarchal insistence that women are special & different (only ever applied to imagined innocent, fragile, posh White women) actually protected women, then we wouldn't have the endemic rates of sexualised male violence against women & children that we do.

Men are not superhuman or indestructible; in fact, men are killed, injured & assaulted by men every day. Men are victims of male violence at higher rates than women (apart from sexual violence & domestic abuse). The patriarchal myth of masculine invulnerability is dangerous.

Andrea Dworkin pointed out the irony of being told men are women's natural protectors, when they are the biggest danger. Whether women are put on a pedestal or a pyre, it's the same old patriarchy. Men & women are not different species, men are not naturally superior to women.