Every summer I repost this article on how to spot drowning. Please read it and pass on. In the last few years I’ve had SIX messages from people who saved a kid’s life after clicking on the link from my feed. slate.com/technology/2...

Spot on. If what's legally considered your sex/gender can be changed like this, so can race, so can disability, so can sexual orientation. They're all to some degree legally based on self identification or report.

The creation of a legal fiction. This oppresses my Anti-Gender-Critical beliefs which are clear that ALL "gender-critical' transphobes are transphobes and fascists and not worthy of respect in a democratic society. For the law to suppress my legitimately-held beliefs is unacceptable

"First past the post brings stability" "Coalitions bring chaos" Tell that to the 6 Prime Ministers we have had in 10 years Meanwhile the last government that lasted 5 years without changing leader was a coalition The arguments against proportional systems do not stack up

Is this person not embarrassed that her entire worldview can be irreversibly swayed by the type of sentence a teenager says while stoned?

We have ended up in a situation where highly skilled NHS doctors are telling the Guardian that they feel compelled to flee the country. How does this protect anybody? The government could fix this tomorrow. But, bafflingly, it refuses.

Possibly marginally increases the chances of Greens taking it, by extension

Aside from anything else, did the EHRC tell the Information Commissioner that they've decided Sex is now Special Category Data? If this Code does get adopted, a whole lot of ICO official advice needs updating

The Supreme Court judgement was nonsense; the EHRC guidance based on it is thus, unavoidably, gibberish They're both born of the desperate need to pretend that the law says the opposite of what it actually says Any politician that doesn't disavow it is making a rod for their own back

It's just obvious that there is no good reason, at all, for the government to legislate what toilets you can go into. This is a thing that civil society was quite capable of working out. We're here because the GCs found civil society didn't share their rabid obsessive hatred so they played the refs.

Perhaps Labour MPs should consider the huge erosion of women's rights that's happening under the watch of their govt with the EHRC draft guidance

Has there been any response to the published EHRC from the Scottish government / the SNP???

I went to the gym today and used the mens changing rooms. And tomorrow I'm gonna go to the gym and use the men's changing rooms. And the next day... well, I'm not gonna go to the gym because it's good to have rest days... But the day after THAT...

Look, I get trans folks' anger at Labour, but I'm going to modestly stand up for Nadia here because I like her and this is a good statement. I don't think this is performative, I think she genuinely does care about queer folks, and sincerely doesn't know what the best course of action is.

Two days ago this government was celebrating it will be the next host for the European International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia forum.

"Equality does not create second class citizens or seek to erase people from public life."

I don’t think anything sums up how ridiculous the new EHRC guidance is than the fact it describes those protected by the characteristic of gender reassignment to be those undergoing a process to “reassign their sex”, a thing the exact same part of the document says isn’t legally possible. Nonsense.

Pleased to see the Lib Dems equalities spokesperson sharing her serious concerns with the draft EHRC guidance.

I am very concerned that not only does this guidance not appear to do this, but that it actively creates a situation where anyone could be challenged about accessing facilities based simply on how well someone else believes they visually conform to gender stereotypes.

We did it, lads. We banned trans people from toilets. Now to sit back and watch house prices come down and vegetables stop rotting on supermarket shelves and we'll all come together and feast on Cadbury's Creme Eggs as big as your head, m'boy, And we'll watch Morecambe and Wise, who did NOT die

What sex ARE you? How do you know? According to the Supreme Court / this EHRC Guidance, the only correct answer is the sex that was originally placed on your birth certificate. But how do you know what that was? I have my birth certificate, but birth certificates can be changed. Errors can be made

Has the CommonsVotes app stopped working for anyone else? It doesn't even seem to show up in the android playstore for me

Fascinating headline and article here, as NOWHERE in the article does anyone know the record relate this decision to the election of two trans MSPs.

New EHRC guidance is due today. Remember: ➡️ Early reports based on unattributed briefings are spin, not facts. ➡️ This is civil law around who can and cannot bring discrimination claims - not criminal law. ➡️ Whatever it says, it is a choice by this government. They can fix it. ➡️ We will keep going.

John Swinney (SNP) has just been confirmed as Parliament's nominee for First Minister, with 56 votes (someone flubbed it!) vs 17 apiece for Malcolm Offord (RUK) and Anas Sarwar (LAB), and 15 for Gillian Mackay (GRN), CON and LD MSPs abstained.

My god could Swinney look any more GLUM about being re-elected as FM

"Theresa May supporting self ID" is also important to remember when people do the whole "well I regret how horrible things feel now but you do have to accept the radical trans activists went too far with the nonsense of self ID" thing - no, it had cross-party and general public acceptance!

So far everyone doing as expected. Will be interesting to see if any votes shift. Love a good exhaustive ballot. Will Tory MSPs vote for the Reform candidate (Offord) for FM to put him ahead of Labour

MSPs will be voting on First Minister shortly. First time since 2003 (when every group, plus Margo MacDonald and Denis Canavan, put a nominee forward) that anyone outside the historic Westminster parties have put up nominees. All six parties have nominated their leader - or a Co-Leader, for Greens

the 'a wizard did it' theory of transphobia. courts are subordinate to the government. the supreme court massively changed interpretation of the law which has materially made trans people's lives in the UK much worse. the government have allowed this to happen, but pretend it isn't their fault.

➡️ The Minister for Women and Equalities has again said she plans to lay new EHRC guidance this week, in a media appearance. A reminder of how organisations like us, @transactualuk.bsky.social and @scottishtrans.bsky.social will be judging any new Code of Practice:

The local democracy reporter project is failing. It's incredibly hard to make a case that this is good for local media or local democracy (and it's by far from the worst abuses media groups have got up to with using this staff funded by this scheme to replace their own paid team).

Musk v Altman JUDGE: The jury has sent a question and the answer is no, the death penalty is not "available for both sides" please return to the jury room and limit your consideration to civil damages.

The Lib Dems have had incredible seats growth under Davey, and some vote share recovery. That's a great achievement. And yet the party *feels* little more relevant than when it had a dozen seats. Lots of reasons for this, some of which Davey is responsible for. Some are longstanding party issues

I think the Liberal Democrats could be using Parliament better and Ed has, after being a bulwark against the silliness that has tended to grip the party, started to succumb to it himself a bit, and has not yet really got to grips with 'managing a parliamentary party of 72'.

Fun quiz, unsurprising result lol

So like, other than the total failure to understand the work itself, what I find especially funny here is that if he were alive today then I suspect there are very few people on Earth that Tolkien would despise as much as Elon Musk specifically.

We do always note it, but it really is fascinating to look back on the anti-gay marriage arguments and how strikingly similar they are to transphobic ones, and how many people have wilfully tried to memory hole that.

Madam I guarantee you will be within 20ft of a nonce throughout the entire march

If this isn't "designed to stir up hatred" against Jews, what is? Why are the Met not arresting them?

Face it, you've run out of things to say about the Labour leadership So here's my latest substack on the govt's plans to end the SEND crisis - and what it means to take parents' legal rights away Oh, and how it ties into the Labour leadership battle chamindajayanetti.substack.com/p/send-refor...

Case in point. One of my neighbours asked me if Keir Starmer was going to go. I said, yeah, it was just a matter of time. They replied that it would be a shame not to have the prime minister as our MP anymore and then called Starmer the C-word. People contain multitudes.

I can’t believe I’m about to defend Andy Burnham here, but the text of the story doesn’t stand up the headline at all. The source quotes just say he’s not going to emphasise Rejoin in the by-election, which, duh, it’s a heavily Brexit-voting seat?

This is how you get the top psephology gigs.

I don't understand how the Lord of the Rings doesn't end up on this list except by snobbishness

Another one

Counter argument: do they? Reform are massively negatively polarising ofc but Farage etc all have been doing this since day 1 of UKIP. Actually blatant, reflexive lying (idk if that's going on in this case or not) gets you more coverage than being honest and transparent.

It'd be very funny if, after all this Burnham stuff, Starmer just quit now and used his remaining power to make the leadership election happen speedily.

So why aren’t you then?

Labour, be like “Next time, the leader has to be a woman…” “Next time, the leader has to be a woman…” “Next time, the leader has to be a woman…” “Actually, you know that man who lost two leadership elections and isn’t yet eligible to run…”