Also, any follows and signups to @dbspringboard.bsky.social would be much appreciated. It’s been a good month, but I’d like to hit 50 followers there and more new subs by May. It’s still free, and takes seconds to become a member. Interviews, reviews, and book stuff are all being drafted up.

Imane Khalif is a cis woman. So *perhaps* our metric for what constitutes fairness in sport categorisation shouldn’t actually be gender? Or should only female athletes under 5 ft 7/120lbs who look like a Disney princess, give birth frequently and smell like a freshly mown daisy be able to compete?

Transphobia cooks your brain. You spend years screaming "everyone fits neatly into two sexes!" and then reality hands you Khelif or Caster Semenya and you can't adjust. You can't say "this is more complicated than I thought." You just call her a man, because the framework demands it. Fundamentalism.

Who counts. Who gets to call herself a woman. If a DNA test says something they don't like, you're out. Born female, raised female, lived your whole life as a woman. Doesn't matter. You're out.

But now it's crept into "any woman who fails a DNA test is actually a man." They're not protecting women's sports. They're policing womanhood itself.

NEW: An AI-generated LEGO movie out of Iran depicting Trump as a war hungry pedophile has gone viral online and in the US. It's one of many. Meanwhile, Trump's AI slop isn't resonating with anyone but his own base. And yes, to be clear, this just speaks to how bad things are.

Nothing but love for the trans people in my family, in my life, and out there in the world. The future will look back on this era in horror, but unfortunately we don’t live in the future. I encourage every cis person I know to speak up, say “not in my name”, to fight for the lives of our loved ones

Not going to post the whole thing because, again, its war propaganda, but I'm dying at the detail on Trump's rotting hand in the latest Iranian slopaganda video

Banned from socialisation, banned from sports, even banned from the privacy of toilets and changing rooms. Where else do we go? What else do we do? What do we have other than our rage? When is "enough" enough? No more taking it on the chin Do something. Take action. Join us. linktr.ee/BASH.BACK

You have to be fucking deranged to believe that the configuration of basically *anyone else’s* genitals are any of your fucking business, but particularly those of a total stranger. These people are just perverts, right?

JK Rowling is calling women athletes men even after they pass genetic testing. People in her replies are talking about these women having “ambiguous” genitalia. We are in an extremely frightening moment for ALL women thanks to transphobia.

Gang, it's NEW ALBUM FRIDAY! I've remastered Beyond The Dread Plains, an instrumental ambient album with a smidge of post rock and a hint of industrial. Would really love for you to listen and share if you would be so kind. Bandcamp link here, streaming links below!

A new bill to tax the rich's wealth isn't that interesting. Here's what's interesting: the same bill was introduced 5 years ago, & since then the revenue estimate has *doubled*. Yes, billionaires have twice as much money as they did at the beginning of the 2020s. prospect.org/2026/03/27/b...

Taxing the richest means more than just extreme high incomes and hoarded wealth. It means the behaviour of those who consume the most and pollute the most.

I’m absolutely fascinated by the Iranian AI comedy propaganda slop, not least because so much of the US govt comms is by trolling. The Iranian stuff’s in a whole different league, absolutely ripping the piss out of trump and netanyahu again and again and again.

How many people are now dead who might be alive, if Britain had not been led by a crooked imbecile who was instead fighting to protect the property portfolios of his newspaper-owning sponsors? I have no idea, but I’m sure it’s quite a lot of dead people.

This. Biological sex does not exist, it’s made up legal fiction. Creationism should have no place in international sports.

See how you feel about Reform? That's how trans people feel about Labour *right now*. You don't realise because it's not your genitals in the blender, but you don't like the idea of Reform popping them in, do you?

Spotted this post about the blocklist and just wanted to clarify. The blocklist was set up under that name because at the time a bunch of horrible "polite" British transphobes were trying to worm their way in, so it was a means to stop that in its tracks. Since then we cover any and all transphobes

The Guardian (Australia) notes today that the new IOC rules fly in the face both of international law, including international human rights law, and the scientific evidence on sexed bodies.

Presumably because pricks like you kept harassing them into it, Sean. It's amusing the piece the headline's from bangs on about unfair advantages. As that's presumably what Sean's wife Kate got when cheating the London Marathon, cutting the route and posting someone else's Strava as her own...

the “trans women in sports” issue is not about sports, women, or vague concepts of fairness. it’s only about picking the issue that the avg cis person is most easily duped by and getting them on the side of reactionaries and against trans women. only reactionaries and trans women seem to get this.

Literally no one says *anything*. It’s really hard to take, like we are being shredded piece by piece and nobody cares.

Hard to read about this shameful episode and not wonder if driving a trans woman to suicide served as a kind of initiation ritual for the British elite press.

Oh did you want 3300 words from me on today's IOC sex testing rules? An essay on the nature of evidence and why we can't seem to stop getting stuck in the same traps around sex and gender in sports? Wow lucky you!! www.coyotemedia.org/the-olympics...

This is the government’s latest anti-extremism adviser. Do you notice how his definition of “extremism” does not include fascists but it does absolutely include feminists, transgender people and Scottish nationalists? Does that seem normal and reasonable, to you.

The AP's story on the IOC's new policy mentions that it "also restricts" athletes like two-time Olympic gold medalist Caster Semenya. That word "also" is doing a lot of work. New piece on who this policy is actually about: www.readtpa.com/p/the-iocs-n...

I love the tv show Shrinking, but it always makes me so sad. Which is probably why I love it so much.

Seeing "trans kids given deadline to segregate themselves" and "trans women banned from yet another part of society" headlines *every single day* while everyone you know and every organization stays breathtakingly silent takes such a damn toll on your heart.

Good thread

Kind of interesting that this piece published at The Guardian acknowledges that these changes are at least partly a response to the freak out during the 2024 Olympics about Imane Khelif, when the guy writing the piece played a role in fanning those 2024 flames. www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/m...

Thanks to a flurry of backers (including two biggies, though all are loved equally) since this afternoon’s post, we’re about £20 away from finished. Would a Bluesky Beauty like to tip this thing over? www.kickstarter.com/projects/new...

it's wild how much unscientific terms have permeated our media and politics. there's no such thing as 'cross-sex hormones'. there's no such thing as 'gender ideology'. there's no such thing as 'sex-based rights'. yet we hear them multiple times daily from the press and politicians.

"Sex based rights charity Sex Matters." "Sex based rights." That's direct unquoted use of anti trans sloganeering by a BBC reporter. #bbcpm

I’m so sick thinking about how Trump, Elon Musk, and especially JK Rowling’s vile harassment campaign of lies and slander against Imane Khelif resulted in even more restrictions on women athletes. Meanwhile, Khelif is an actual inspiration to women and girls wanting to pursue boxing!

Reminder that you are being lied to about trans people and our healthcare on an unfathomable scale

“Deception as to sex” has the same impact as a Trans+ Panic clause – and has embedded transphobia into the law In the next edition of Milestones, @sasha98.bsky.social traces the history behind it and why it matters today  Get it here 👉 https://www.wearequeeraf.com/milestones/

Help shape future transition-related healthcare research! @lancasteruni.bsky.social (funded by @genderedintelligence.co.uk), are running an online survey until 10 May 2026, as part of their Priority Setting Partnership research. Answer the survey here: forms.cloud.microsoft/e/KEBcynHLrW

Want to make your voice heard? We’re hosting an LGBTQIA+ Hustings Event at the Social Hub Glasgow on 9th April at 7pm. Hear from candidates, submit questions & ask about how their parties will improve the lives of LGBTQIA+ people across Scotland. Register here: www.outsavvy.com/event/34229/...

Sporting bodies like the IOC and World Athletics are reacting to public pressure from a small but very vocal group of people who demand the world be simpler than it actually is. It takes time and resources away from real problems in sports, and it harms women more than it helps them.

Meanwhile, doping in sport is at unprecedented levels. Athletes all over the world (in particular women) are being abused and taken advantage of by coaches, agents and trainers. Access to facilities, food, and equipment is still deeply inequitable.

Rowling was racist in multiple ways in the text of Potter. She was racist against Caster Semenya. She was antisemitic in the movies and the books. Lets not pretend she only gets a pass on transphobia; she gets a pass on all her bigotry because she is a rich white woman.

The last woman to be excluded for her chromosomes lost her scholarship, her fiance, and her athletics career. But she kept fighting, alongside scientists, until she'd overturned the cruel system. Anyway now it's back, and with no discussion of what went wrong last time.

The first woman excluded by chromosome testing later turned out to have mosaicism (1/2 of cells had XY 1/2 XX) and had to be apologised to decades on. The last had androgen insensitivity and couldn't develop male sex characteristics even if you injected her with enough T to kill an elephant.

reactivating to share this. trans voices are barely heard even while we're busy being kicked around for political clout by abject weirdos and/or fascists. so shares are appreciated 🙏

You need to remember the damage of bans like this isn't just the overt bigotry of the act itself, but a sustained effort to create a tapestry of lies/laws/myths all working together to paint the image that a trans person excelling or even just existing healthily in society is somehow unnatural.

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

The even more mindboggling thing is that most sports were doing pretty well at having rules that balanced inclusion and fairness until a small group of transphobes decided, without evidence, that the Y chromosome conferred some sort of innate and immutable advantage.

Aside from trans athletes not being a threat to fairness in sports, the whole argument is the wrong way round: sports should not be the fixed point around which human rights are expected to move.

Apple must be getting slammed right now with the age verification thing, this is what a customer support person said to Matt 👇