New post: LABOUR'S SECTION 28 IS HERE - ACT NOW.
I explain how the Labour government's proposed revisions to the guidance on "keeping children in education" are designed to erase trans children in England. But it's not a done deal - there is plenty we can do to oppose this.
Posts by Robin Skyer
Huge thanks to @thecanaryuk.bsky.social for covering our call to allies to complete the Government's 'earned settlement' consultation.
Find out more and how you can challenge these cruel new proposals:
www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/...
In light of the Levy Review potentially giving transphobes oversight of medical research on trans healthcare, Trans Safety Network recommend English trans people OPT OUT of their healthcare data being used in research.
Information on how to do this can be found in the quoted post and thread.
What forms of inclusion and exclusion does neurodiversity perform as a concept, field, and movement? How may lines of queer, trans, crip, decolonial, posthumanist, or Mad thinking shake up and overspill the conventional boundaries of neurodiversity?
Please join us for this important discussion! 🔥
Cover of Latin American Plays in Translation, blue background with a fist in red against a field of flowers.
Table of Contents of Latin American Plays in Translation.
Latin American Plays in Translation is out in the world today! This anthology, which I edited, contains six incredible plays translated into English, alongside an introduction by original event curator Malú Ansaldo and stunning cover art by Soma Difusa
Yellow background with black text "This is Alice's friend Sandy Ho, posting. Per Alice's wishes, this message is being shared at the time of her passing. Hi everyone, it looks like I ran out of time. I have so many dreams that I wanted to fulfill and plans to create new stories for you. There are a few in progress that might come to fruition in a few years if things work out. I did not ever imagine I would live to this age and end up a writer, editor, activist, and more. As a kid riddled with insecurity and internalized ableism, I could not see a path forward. It was thanks to friendships and some great teachers who believed in me that I was able to fight my way out of miserable situations into a place where I finally felt comfortable in my skin. We need more stories about us and our culture. You all, we all, deserve the everything and more in such a hostile, ableist environment. Our wisdom is incisive and unflinching. I'm honored to be your ancestor and believe disabled oracles like us will light the way to the future. Don't let the bastards grind you down. I love you all."
The message on IG from Alice (posted by her friend Sandy Ho). As always, Alice blazes a path for the rest of us, fearlessly & with humor: "I'm honored to be your ancestor & believe disabled oracles like us will light the way to the future. Don't let the bastards grind you down. I love you all."
I have been waiting for Lizzie to post this so I can tell them publicly how proud I am of them (and Robin) for this article.
It's a landmark contribution to Mad and crip studies, disability and time studies, and UKHE analysis. More than that, it's a very personal exploration of failure and feeling.
Published yesterday with The Sociological Review: 'Research failure, crip temporalities and bipolar time in UK higher education'
I'm honoured to be co-author of this article with wonderful first author @lizziereed.bsky.social ☺️
Available to read here, open access: doi.org/10.1177/0038...
Interception of the #GlobalSumudFlotilla is likely tonight.
📍 Join us TOMORROW at Parliament Square
⏰ 5:30pm mobilising | 6pm speakers
We demand:
- End the siege on Gaza
- Release flotilla hostages
- End arms sales to Israel
- Decolonise Palestine
#FreePalestine
Global Sumud Flotilla is live as Israel threatens to stop them from breaking the starvation siege of Gaza.
A reminder that they are not entering Israeli waters, but Palestinian waters.
Israel intends to violate international law once again.
www.youtube.com/live/uEN2bWF...
Apropos of nothing, here's a free pdf copy of my book Out of the Shadows, Into the Streets! Transmedia Organizing and the Immigrant Rights Movement. It focuses on #LosAngeles direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...
I made a new zine! It's full of advice on how allies can work alongside trans people to take action in the current moment, lovingly cut-and-pasted over the words of my enemies. Plus lots of nice pictures and memes.
Available as a free PDF! Read online or print your own copy! Share with everyone!
We can finally announce our full schedule for Intersections of Sociology with Crip Theory and Critical Disability Studies and Mad Studies Symposium!
11th June, Hybrid, Free. #MadCrip2025
We are hosting a free one-day event for PGR researchers interested in Sociology, Crip Theory, Critical Disability Studies and Mad Studies.
Join us online or in person at the University of Southampton on 11th June.
Ticket link here:
www.britsoc.co.uk/events/key-b...
“Palestine: A Sociological Issue is a way to reflect on the role of sociology in times of genocidal violence & settler colonialism" @kirsteen-paton.bsky.social
All the articles in the special section are free to access here
journals.sagepub.com/toc/SOR/73/2/
Person holding a blahaj under a bunch of flowers whilst holding a sign with a background of the trans flag and in front it says "trans bites now"
Compilation of Protests Against the Supreme Court
whatthetrans.com/compilation-...
Okay. Not-a-lawyer-butt.
This to me is the tell. Women's oppression defined explicitly as a "shared disadvantage" resulting from "shared biology".
These are steps to formalize womanhood as a reproductive role, synonymizing it with certain features of anatomy that are "naturally" disadvantaged.
It is now even more important to foster #MutualAid in our communities. The lovely people at Shareable have put together this excellent series of 4 online learning sessions, primarily for those starting out on this journey.
See also their other wonderful resources.
www.shareable.net/mutual-aid-1...
🧵 While Gaza is being destroyed, Israel’s parliament is quietly advancing apartheid laws against Palestinians — both inside Israel and across occupied Palestine. Here’s what they just did:
And in the evening: an electrifying performance from multi-faceted artist Wet Mess, whose work sometimes feels like a visceral explication of my own thesis. 😅
Their show TESTO is at Battersea Arts Centre until 22nd Feb.
A tabletop covered in a selection of mini-zines and materials used to make them such as pens, scissors, felt, ribbons, paper, and a deck of tarot cards entitled Big Gay Tarot Deck. One of the mini-zines has the outline of a head and where a face would be, there is text that says Your Face Here. Another mini-zine uses a keffiyeh pattern as its background and has text that reads: what to do if you want to help Palestine but don't know where to start. There is also a mini-zine about radical queer demo chants.
A section of the gallery with fluffy white carpet and pillows. There is a projection on the back wall showing a microscopic image of a cell. Below the projected image, on the floor, is an object that looks like a huge syringe made of soft textiles. The word trigger is embroidered onto the side of the object. There is a long pink piece of material that protrudes from the end like a tongue.
A wall of the gallery painted to look like a fridge door. Magnets with a different words on them have been assembled to make sentences. Me heal body. Kindle your mad soil. Let him amuse our complex life. Communicate joke until delicate copy kinship.
Yesterday was wonderful: the UoS PGR LGBTQIA+ network spent a morning making mini-zines with @megenjm.bsky.social, amidst Queering Connections: Glitchy Kinship at the Winchester Gallery (created and curated by the excellent @lizziereed.bsky.social and @miloustella.bsky.social).
Very well done to first author @robinskyer.bsky.social on publication of this article.
With @silkeroth.bsky.social, we argue that mutual aid can be prefigurative beyond anarchist thought and praxis.
Read it open access here: compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
#Sociology #AcademicSky
A light brown coffee table, my bright red diary sits next to a delightful chocolate topped cronut. my diary has three stickers, Autistic and Living the Dream logo, Trans Aware Cancer Care logo and a sticker by Artie which reads "Disabled is not a dirty word".
Planning our Mad / Crip / Critical disability conference for April.
Exciting stuff 💪
#AutRes #Mad #Crip
With an excellent contribution by @obscureottomanist.bsky.social 💜
Join us at the Winchester Gallery from 5pm on Thursday 30th January for the opening of Queering Connections: Glitchy Kinship. We've also got an 'In Conversation' with me (curator) and Milou (artist) on Thurs 6th Feb at 5pm. @unisouthampton.bsky.social @sspcatsoton.bsky.social
Image of google search for harry benjamine syndrome. Some of the AI overview is visible, and reads as follows. Harry Benjamin Syndrome (HBS) is a rare congenital condition that affects how the brain differentiates male and female gender identities. It's also known as a Disorder of Sex Development. Symptoms. People with HBS have a neurological gender identity that differs from their physical sex. For example, a girl with HBS may have a female gender identity but male genitalia. The condition occurs during prenatal development.
I know everyone is already very bored of examples of google AI lying and making stuff up
but I just made the mistake of doing a work-related google of "Harry Benjamin Syndrome" (a non-diagnosis made up by transitioned women opposed to trans language in the early 2000s)
and HO BOY
#BIPOC voices are often missing from autistic spaces, so here is a BIPOC starter pack! 😊
go.bsky.app/TtXfpAt
#racialequality #antiracism
The image of autism as “only white boys” leads to underdiagnosis, discrimination & isolation for many
Our autistic community is much more diverse than that! ❤️
A photo of groundcherries (Alkekengi) in a garden in winter. The round, orange, cherry tomato-like fruits are suspended in the center of pendulous, vaguely heart-shaped husks made of networks of dried beige veins. The husks have a delicate, skeletal, lattice-like structure, reminiscent of laser-cut papercraft.
In winter through early spring, you can sometimes find unspoiled, still-bright groundcherries sitting in the latticed remnants of their husks, like hearts suspended in paper ribcages
Think I may have reached maximum blushing level. Thank you both for your encouragement ❤️