terrifying stuff out of the UK

England lost, sure. But they also got so close to victory that they could taste it.

The assumption in all of these manifestos and proclamations is that there is some kind of Final Settlement that can be made on contentious cultural issues that will remove them from the playing field entirely, and I will just say that I think that this is very, very unlikely.

well, i suppose i can now share a spot of good news. i've accepted a permanent position at australian catholic university. i'll be moving to sydney in january. i'm just delighted

Lawyer: “Hello biologists, we need a binary definition of sex so we can police behaviour” Biologist A: “Anisogamy is the only binary aspect of sex but that’s hardly relevant to Parkrun” Biologist B: “Anisogamy is the only binary aspect of sex and the toilet police can quote me on that” Be more A.

It's worth noting that these differences between chromosomal, gametal and phenotypical sex also occur in humans. I'm yet to read a compelling legal definition of "biological sex" that deals with these divergences.

In our Viewpoint (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...) we synthesize the gametic definition (outlined by Janicke et al below) and other definitions of sex (e.g., multivariate definition). We contend that is NO consensus on “biological sex” (maybe a consensus isn’t actually necessary…)

in honor of Norway-England, I will post my favorite opening sentence from a Norwegian novel (in translation)

I'm not a leading academic, but I suspect you can either be the kid of country that leads the renegotiation of UNCLOS (170 other state parties) or the type of country that withdraws from ICJ jurisdiction. I don't think the UK is powerful enough to do both.

For what it's worth, I think this assessment is substantially correct. The UK has now returned, all but in form, to the legal landscape that gave rise to the ECtHR decision in Goodwin, ie in breach of the ECHR. I don't see how it cannot be the case

Our diggers were logging on while the Brits were having tea on the beach at suvla bay.

I'm pleased to share that Lulu Weis and I have been awarded the 2026 Research Excellence Award for an Article or Chapter at the Council of Australian Law Deans Legal Research Awards, for our paper "Does Nature Need Rights?". You can read the article here: academic.oup.com/ojls/article...

Another thing I'd say is that if you are a cash strapped centre left government trying to do something for your dispirited liberal base, you'd do well to think about the sort of liberal social reforms that cost absolutely nothing.

Aside from anything else, I am really not convinced that reversing a trans toilet ban would be "extremely unpopular". I think it would mostly be met with a collective shrug.

Friday afternoon is a tough crowd so I'm boosting now - here's me, toning down the anger somewhat but still getting my point very much across.

Does anyone know what the academic research is that she's referring to?

I have been thinking about this a lot lately, and I think it would be good to find a way to be minimally polite to one another without pretending that we agree on more than we actually do.

I've been going on about BPJ but the 5-4 split on birthright citizenship is terrifying.

I have a paper coming out that argues this at somewhat greater length re: FWS, but it is extremely telling that these courts never define sex. The great `trans rights revolution' cases arose *because* courts realised that they could not coherently define sex in a trans-exclusive way.

"Well, the big news here is Gay Power. It's the most extraordinary thing. It all began two weeks ago on a Friday night. The cops raided the <SW>, that mighty Bastille which you know has remained impregnable for three years, so brazen and so conspicuous... "

I should mention just in regard to this thread that Emi Koyama, who is mentioned as a prominent intersex activist in the sources cited, passed away just a few days ago

I found Juliana Gleeson’s Hermaphrodite Logic: A History of Intersex Liberation provided a lucid account of the history around this: www.versobooks.com/en-gb/produc...

I'm crowdsourcing this. I get "intersex is offensive and you should use DSD" a lot from gender critical people. As far as I can tell it isn't true. Does anyone know where it came from?

It feels like "blue haired" etc increasingly just means "anyone with a tertiary degree under 40".

More great work from Lewis.

The Court of Appeal upholds the UK's ban on Palestine Action. ALAN GREENE, DANIELLA LOCK & COLIN MURRAY argue that the margin of appreciation granted to the Home Secretary leaves judicial oversight with little more than nominal force. verfassungsblog.de/palestine-ac...

Bluey translated into an Indigenous language for the first time

Only because I can see some lawyers getting precious about it in the comments, I want to say that there are perfectly respectable legal arguments in the vicinity of Toby's observations here. He hasn't framed them legally, but that doesn't mean they aren't legally important.

Through the education union I have heard so many stories like this. I think we need to give our PhD students much more support, or we risk losing the conditions that have created so many medical/scientific breakthroughs: www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Just finished this incredible and singular bio of arguably the most important “Invisible Woman” in the arts, Elaine May. @carriecourogen.bsky.social captured an entire human and artistic life. Rough edges, heartbreak, warmth, reality. An orienteering guide for making art and moving through life.

Some good news to share for once. Leah Trueblood has apparently won the Wedderburn Prize for her article 'Public Functions of Political Parties in the United Kingdom' (2025) 88(4) MLR 660. Read it here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

A brief thread about Croft v Royal Mail and gender critical lawyering, since I gather it is the basis of Michael's criticism of me in his book (I am yet to read it and it doesn't sound like he is very nice about me so I might wait a fair while). 🧵

I gather this guy is a respected journalist in the UK. He just posted this on a trans woman's linkedin post. I don't think he knows her personally. What is happening to people?

It's clarifying in the sense that we are well past the point of this being evidence based. This is about hostility to trans people, or at its most charitable, denial of the legitimacy of trans identity.

I get the impression that some people aren't clear what this means. This is the UK state deciding to intervene directly in the healthcare of individual children, depriving them of medicine that their doctors have prescribed for their personal health & wellbeing, in defiance of global best practice.

From current information a blanket medical withdrawal / forced detransition is being applied to all age groups under 18. The 'investigation' and alleged 'potential harms' are an absolute joke. The letters say that medication will not be possible after July.

I think lawyers who want to write about pronouns should pay attention to the linguistic evidence. Kirby Conrod's work is a great place to start: demystifyinglanguage.fordham.edu/wp-content/u...

For those interested, here are a couple of thoughts on academic freedom from a while ago mathieucarpentier.substack.com/p/random-tho...

I increasingly think this is the role that various think tanks are trying to play in public life. They are trying to manufacture a sort of right-wing chattering class, that ignores and exists in parallel to mainstream academic consensus.

"pro vice-chancellor in quality and integrity". It's become an absolute joke how unis are shedding teaching and research staff to instead fill up with this sort of role www.theage.com.au/national/uni...

I think in some senses libraries have not been protected bc it seemed fundamentally insane that they should ever be in danger. The idea of a university without a fully functioning research library is like designing a car without an engine.

A Stephen Kershnar-style article called "For Discrimination Against Conservatives in Academic Hiring" which points out they're likely to later get $200K/year offers from those conservative institutes and then you either (a) lose them or (b) have to pay them way too much to do little work

Because she is too smart to be on here, I'm sharing Rach Cosker-Rowland's "The Injustice of Bathroom Bills". I particularly like her statistical discrimination argument: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

🔥🔥🔥 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

I posted this on LinkedIn, partly because I have students on there that aren't on here and I wanted them to see it. I'm going to try to post less about this and be more useful to the world. I'll stay on here, because I learn so much from you all.

I'll need to think about it, but it's hard to see why similar interpretive considerations re singular /plural wouldn't allow you take to positive action on behalf of men/women and trans people under s158 (trans inclusive men's/women's toilets and swimming pools, say).

MIDDLEMARCH HIVE, RISE UP!

It's worth citing what the ECtHR actually said in Goodwin (not the judgment as some anti-trans lawyers remember it), not only because it still has authority, but because it is still true.

June 2024: The latest general-purpose LLMs could not count the r's in strawberry. July 2025: The latest general-purpose LLMs get gold in the International Math Olympiad. May 2026: The latest general-purpose LLM solve an 80 year old problem, one of the "best-known questions in combinatorial geometry"