Working on a new project and digitising last week's notes which includes, 'Do I need to think about Oswald Spengler again.' I can hear my sigh through the paper.

Practically same as complaints I've read on actual fascist blogs about asylum seekers being driven on "air-conditioned buses" to "pre-booked hotels" (as if you can hire buses without AC and they were going to pop them direct to the nearest Travelodge to see if they had any rooms free)

This is both true and yet my toxic trait is I think I, a sociologist, am built different tho.

York has seen a steep rise in racist assaults -both verbal and physical- in recent weeks. This should not be tolerated. If you are around on Saturday, join.

Screenshot of an e-mail reading: 'Dear Ms Stinton. RE: NOTIFICATION OF AWARD. I am pleased to inform you that you have met the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology.'

Oh yeah, this happened - not with a bang, but a final, perfunctory bit of paperwork. #PhDone

I may need a breather or two before I contemplate rolling up my sleeves and going back to research, but unfortunately 'Race and Gender in the British Far Right' is gonna be an evergreen topic for a bit...

This is fine, but Keir Starmer surrounded by violent, foreign money funded bigots waving flags

Hat tip @clownf1st.bsky.social

British right-wing politicians and their press allies are going to lionise someone most have never heard of & they won’t repeat what he actually said

Sooner or later, everywhere makes it known that they only tolerate trans women's presence, and it's very conditional. The slightest excuse to toss us out is seized upon without hesitation.

Reinstate Jessie Gender.

Anyone got any good sources for discussing the valknut as a far right symbol? It has been permeating my hobby spaces (LARP) and likely is often worn very innocently (and sometimes Definitely Not), and I want to equip game organisers with useful information. Nordic Nazis not my specialty.

Drafting a book chapter on methodology aimed at undergraduate criminology students, so it should probably mention how one could use this method to research serial killer (online fandoms).

May we all find someone who loves us as much as undergrad criminology students love serial killers.

Could the Higher Education sector at least make a compromise that if you're not going to give us any jobs, you could at least pay us for the hours of labour and expertise that go into our publications? Got a Sept deadline that's looking real pointless without a career it can contribute to.

I agree with the sentiment and this specific message but a lot of the other backlash to this is just sexist, with deeply misogynistic language directed at Perry etc. They're tourists, sure. But they're not the first space tourists; let's be mindful of who earns our outrage and how we express it?

Determinations such as these on who is a woman are fundamentally about who is entitled to personhood. And we should all be furious and concerned about that.

Marine Le Pen banned from running for public office after guilty verdict in embezzlement trial – Europe live Exact length of ban not yet known after French far right leader and eight National Rally MEPs found guilty of misappropriating EU funds

Woah, France, did you actually figure out that democracy needs proactively protecting to maintain any shred of integrity? Let's see if enough (or even 'nearly enough' is done...)
www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...

Submitted the thesis today. Now I get to reenter the world, and not have to constantly think about fascism -

Oh. Huh. Oh no.

I remain so glad I've had the supervisors and mentors I've had; it seems so easy for counter-extremism scholarship to wind up propping up government oppression and overreach, made all the more agonising by this being where the jobs are in this wretched industry of academia and adjacent work.

Absolute embarrassment that this has come to court because a pair of queer women, one of them mixed-race, were scared and vulnerable and not being taken seriously by the police. I don't care how stupid and drunk they were. A huge overreaction of state power started by a copper who felt disrespected.

I keep thinking that the future would be a little less bleak with a world leader standing remotely firmly against Trump, and then I look at France and Canada imploding and the idea of Starmer particularly having a spine and...
Well, Plan B?

i sent an email to DOGE and suggested replacing the entire Department of Defense with Warhammer 40,000 miniatures but they actually did the math and it turns out that would be much more expensive

I have spent years looking at things explicit fascists have said or done, often wondering, "Did they actually intend this, did they really mean this, or was this merely strategic?" This has rarely been the best use of my time when analysing these bastards. They did it. People saw.

Not saying Musk's motivations are, in general, irrelevant... but I don't think his intent or sincerity matters anywhere near as much as the adrenaline shot this gives fascists and the normalisation of fascism (on a day of such boosts). Tying ourselves in knots on if he meant it can be distracting.

Drag pedagogy: The playful practice of queer imagination in early childhood In recent years, a programme for young children called Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH) has risen to simultaneous popularity and controversy. This article, written collaboratively by an education schol...

It's this article, by the way
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Tidying referencing today. It always gives me such joy to see the citation 'Keenan & Hot Mess (2020).' Obviously it's fun to see an author going by 'Lil Miss Hot Mess', but I'm delighted by scholarship that actually involves expert practitioners (this time in drag and drag pedagogy)

I'm not even 'No True Scotsman'-ing women's football fans here - the people I see on X talking about WOSO week in, week out, sometimes getting quite aggressive and rude at each other over club rivalries, are all uniting to swear at transphobes.

The gross transphobia being thrown today at Barbra Banda on X and by the Telegraph for winning BBC Women's Footballer of the Year is yet another unnecessary reminder of the link between racism and transphobia.

But it's also been great to see actual women's football fans standing up for her.

“We’ve closed all the arts and humanities departments, but those depts are low cost and actually run operational surplus on tuition fee income alone. We now have to close other more expensive depts. The ones cross-subsidized by the arts, humanities and social science depts we’ve now closed”

I still have an X account to chat women's football, but these days when my team loses I get bantered by shills for crypto and sports gambling, and men who are way too obsessed with the word "dominate" to describe their team's winning streak.
So I'll probably leave that, too.

May have hit peak Brunch Energy by saying, "Nevertheless, she persisted!" to admonish my cat as I describe her sins to her.

It's not even just Brunch, it's passé, unfashionable, seven-year-old Brunch.

From Telegram to the Tate: Patriotic Alternative, Anti-Drag Activism and Offline Mobilisation - GNET

Oh God, I'm on a list now and it's getting me followers, I better have a Take. In the absence of anything new, here's an article I wrote for GNET last year. I'm sure the profitability of anti-trans activism for the far right won't remain relevant or anything.
gnet-research.org/2023/10/13/f...

Be wary, American friends, of hoping the naked greed of corporations (like Big Pharma) will slow the Trump administration's rampant transgressions. I'd held similar hopes about Brexit - surely corporate interests would use their influence to stop something damaging to protect the bottom line? Ha.