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John Berkeley Grout 🏳️‍🌈🔶

@jrberkeley.bsky.social
1.4K followers 682 following 1.2K posts

John (he/him) aka. John Berkeley; Leovinas. UK-based writer of SFF, player of RPGs, Classics/archaeology/ancient history PhD, process/telecoms specialist. The sort of gay lefty Liberal your mother warned you about. Views my own, etc. (no TERFs or AI, ta)

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Reposted by John Berkeley Grout 🏳️‍🌈🔶
John Berkeley Grout 🏳️‍🌈🔶 @jrberkeley.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Due to their use of a slightly silly font, I just went past a 'Hyrox Training Club' and read it as a 'Hyrax Training Club'. Needless to say, upon closer inspection, I was greatly disappointed.
static.klipy.com
You'Re Going The Wrong Way!
Alt: A GIF of a dark-dun-coloured hyrax sitting backwards on the shell of a very determined sand-coloured tortoise as it walks along in front of a rock face. (A hyrax is a small mammal which is effectively a highly-opinionated furry potato)
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Ryan Packer @typewriteralley.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
George Saunders on using AI: "Writing is the most precious way one person can communicate their essence to another person. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to get better at making myself present in my writing. Why would I want to sacrifice even one iota of that?"
Have you spent time trying to write or revise with AI? Is there an experiment that would be interesting enough to try?

I have not. Not for a second. To me, this whole idea of using AI to write is . . . anathema. A thing to be most radically avoided.

Writing is the most precious way one person can communicate their essence to another person. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to get better at making myself present in my writing. Why would I want to sacrifice even one iota of that? Not even in an email and certainly not in a short story or novel.Who are we ceding our authority to, exactly, when we let AI write for us? And why? Why surrender our agency (that amazing ability we have to reach across time and space, with our strange, idiosyncratic phenomenon, and land within the sensibility of another human being) to something that, by its very design, pushes the individual sensibility aside? And in the name of . . . what, exactly? Ease, I guess? Efficiency? The person who chooses to write with AI has also sacrificed, from the start, the opportunity of experiencing difficulty, of struggling to say what he wants to say, of making himself evident in his prose, of trying to find out what he believes. By this, he sacrifices a chance to know himself and his mind better. To me, that’s a shame. And it’s dangerous, because, as we are now finding out, it affects the brain and lessens our capabilities. Thanks, but no thanks, get thee behind me, etc.
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John Berkeley Grout 🏳️‍🌈🔶 @jrberkeley.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Due to their use of a slightly silly font, I just went past a 'Hyrox Training Club' and read it as a 'Hyrax Training Club'. Needless to say, upon closer inspection, I was greatly disappointed.
static.klipy.com
You'Re Going The Wrong Way!
Alt: A GIF of a dark-dun-coloured hyrax sitting backwards on the shell of a very determined sand-coloured tortoise as it walks along in front of a rock face. (A hyrax is a small mammal which is effectively a highly-opinionated furry potato)
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John Berkeley Grout 🏳️‍🌈🔶 @jrberkeley.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Jupiter says Trans Rights 🩵🩷🤍
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Dan Sohege @danielsohege.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Labour aren't winning over Reform voters by pushing for anti-immigration, anti-asylum, anti-trans, anti-disabled voters. They are reinforcing Reform's, Restore et al's arguments that marginalised groups are an "issue" and to be blamed for all the ills of the world though. That's not helping anyone.
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LGBT+ Liberal Democrats 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @pluslibdems.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Lib Dem conference motion Restoring Trans Rights debate about to begin. Starting a live thread to cover what happens. #ldconf
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John Berkeley Grout 🏳️‍🌈🔶 @jrberkeley.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Just some perfectly normal English place names. Why are you looking at me like that?
A screengrab of Google Maps showing the villages of Wanborough, Wyke, Normandy, and Christmas Pie.  There is also a Kyiv Honey Co. and Puttenham Golf Club shown.  Google Maps claims the locale to be Normandy.
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LGBT+ Liberal Democrats 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @pluslibdems.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
If you're heading to Brighton this weekend for the @libdems.org.uk Conference, please vote for our Emergency Motion in the ballot. We must stop the attack on trans lives. 🏳️‍⚧️🧡 #LDConf
EMERGENCY MOTION ANNOUNCEMENT
AUTUMN CONFERENCE, BRIGHTON 2026

Stop the attack on trans lives

🏳️‍⚧️ The EHRC's Code of Practice is making hell for trans and gender non-conforming people

🏳️‍⚧️ Equalities law needs to change to restore trans rights

🏳️‍⚧️ We're calling for a cross-party process to fix the law, an inclusive Code of Practice, and more scrutiny of the EHRC

SUPPORT OUR EMERGENCY MOTION ON THE BALLOT
VOTE [1] RESTORING TRANS RIGHTS

LGBT+ Liberal Democrats

Published and promoted by Lucas North on behalf of LGBT+ Liberal Democrats, 66 Buckingham Gate, London, SW1E 6AU
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Charlie Stross @cstross.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
As a footnote, if a mechanism exists to deprive ANY group of civil rights—no matter how reviled they are, and by however many—then that mechanism WILL eventually be weaponized against YOU. You do not have to be trans or pro-trans to be against deprivation of anyone's rights. (PS: I am pro-trans.)
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Robin Moira White @robinmoirawhite.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Curiously unreported by mainstream media. Carried by a show of hands with no opposition. labourlist.org/2026/09/tuc-...
labourlist.org
TUC Congress backs motion opposing EHRC guidance and calls for gender self-ID - LabourList
Unions have backed calls to campaign for gender ‘self ID’ and for a change in “discriminatory and unworkable” guidance around transgender rights.
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Tristan Grayford @tristangrayford.scot · 15/09/2026
The TUC, congress of all the UK's trade unions, have voted to condemn the EHRC guidance and backed self-ID. Good luck finding reporting on it, you'll struggle to find it, even as the papers report on plenty of other things the TUC has voted on, and speeches. leftfootforward.org/2026/09/tuc-...
leftfootforward.org
TUC votes to condemn EHRC code of practice and back self-ID for trans people
Delegates backed a motion branding the EHRC guidance 'discriminatory and unworkable'
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John Berkeley Grout 🏳️‍🌈🔶 @jrberkeley.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Oh, good.
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Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 14/09/2026
And, as I said at the start, none of this addresses the very real harms that LLMs have already wrought, and will continue to do so. We cannot let vague concerns about AI safety escape from what this industry has done and will continue to do. www.wheresyoured.at/ai-is-alread...
There are, however, things we can do, per former FTC Chair Lina Khan, if we actually had any interest in doing so:

There is an extensive set of laws that govern dangerous and defective products. For example, releasing unvetted AI models or agents can violate consumer protection laws. Shipping flawed AI tools without implementing adequate measures to detect and stop rogue or defective AI agents can be an “unfair or deceptive” act or practice under the FTC Act (and analogous state laws). And some state AGs are already exploring holding AI firms and their CEOs criminally liable when their models participate in criminal activity.
If LLMs were a toy, they’d be taken off the shelves. If LLMs were a drug, they would be banned. 

I agree that we need to take “AI safely” seriously, but that starts with treating LLMs as normal software run in a reckless and dangerous manner by malevolent entities with little regard for society.
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Nethar6 @herrnethar6.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Fascist legal philosophers figured out in the 1920s that the way to bring down a Liberal Democracy is to get them to exclude some people from who gets to be considered "people" and turn on each other. A century later, we should figure out that: unless all of us are free, none of us are free
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Hassinator @hassinator.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
a great letter in the times today. perhaps worth sharing in these troubled times. #RNLI #heroes
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Alisdair Calder McGregor @acmcgregor.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
OK so he's sacked, but has he been charged with misconduct in a public office yet?
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Standplaats Kraków could really use some cash! @standplaatskrk.pl · 27/01/2025
Sean Gallagher (@WhatAboutClass) on twitter: 

"hard for me to see gender as biological if it requires a police state to enforce it"
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Imani Gandy @angryblacklady.blacksky.app · 10/09/2026
It's always a good time to share this.
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⚡⚡MAD DOCTOR IMPOSSIBLE⚡⚡ @impossiblephd.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
*leans forward, taps microphone* Peoples' preference for minimalist design is a white supremacy thing. When Black folks started to move into design spaces meaningfully in the 60's and 70's, they embraced maximalist design, and white folks ran like hell. Read about it. papress.com/products/ext...
papress.com
Extra Bold
Extra Bold is the inclusive, practical, and informative (design) career guide for everyone!Part textbook and part comic book, zine, manifesto, survival guide, and self-help manual, Extra Bold is fille
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John Berkeley Grout 🏳️‍🌈🔶 @jrberkeley.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Happy Star Trek day to all those who celebrate. ❤️🖖 I most certainly am. And my favourite Trek series, hands down, is DS9. If you've never watched it, you're in for a treat (with a few shonky early episodes while it found its feet, like TNG and Voyager too).
static.klipy.com
Star Trek Deep Space Nine Title Sequence Intro Uss Defiant Sisko Theme Commander Benjamin Sisko
Alt: A GIF of a highly sped-up mid-series intro sequence from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, cutting most of the middle part and fading straight to the departure of the USS Defiant to the Bajoran Wormhole. (The sheer loneliness of the early seasons' intro sequence was top notch, however)
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Alex Will Resurrect That Werewolf Pic 🔸🏳️‍🌈 @alexwilcock.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Such a low bar. Such a low bar. Such a low bar. But it looks like a Moon shot from where we are.
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Phil McDuff @mcduff.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Wrong. Incorrect. A self serving story told by the guilty to exonerate themselves from their complicity. They never used the term "legitimate concerns" about people worried about climate change or homelessness. It was specifically used to legitimise concerns which are prima facie illegitimate.
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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
A suggested statement for Andy Burnham.
‘The British public decided in the 1930s that they would not tolerate black-shirted militias marching through their streets. They would cherish robust political argument; they would not accept thuggery and intimidation. When Oswald Mosley led his Blackshirts to Cable Street, local people turned them back. A new law – introduced by a Liberal, backed by Labour and carried by a Conservative majority – banned private militias, political uniforms and ‘the use or display of physical force in promoting any political object’. The British people are as determined today as in the 1930s that they will not accept the methods of Mussolini and the Munich Beer Hall. This government will uphold the law and defend the traditions of British democracy’.
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Rick @flipchartrick.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
The 90th anniversary of Cable Street is on 4 October.
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Natacha @natacha.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
“It is very appalling and sometimes quite frightening to see how trans-exclusionary feminists have allied with rightwing attacks on gender” Today is exactly 5 years since @theguardian.com censored the words of non-binary academic, Judith Butler. These are the censored words. Still valid now.
It is very appalling and sometimes quite frightening to see how trans-exclusionary feminists have allied with rightwing attacks on gender. The anti-gender ideology movement is not opposing a specific account of gender, but seeking to eradicate "gender" as a concept or discourse, a field of study, an approach to social power. Sometimes they claim that "sex" alone has scientific standing, but other times they appeal to divine mandates for masculine domination and difference. They don't seem to mind contradicting themselves.
The Terfs (trans exclusionary radical feminists) and the so-called gender critical writers have also rejected the important work in feminist philosophy of science showing how culture and nature interact (such as Karen Barad, Donna Haraway, EM Hammonds or Anne Fausto-Sterling) in favor of a regressive and spurious form of biological essentialism. So they will not be part of the coalition that seeks to fight the anti-gender movement. The anti-gender ideology is one of the dominant strains of fascism in our times. So the Terfs will not be part of the contemporary struggle against fascism, one that requires a coalition guided by struggles against racism, nationalism, xenophobia and carceral violence, one that is mindful of the high rates of femicide throughout the world, which include high rates of attacks on trans and genderqueer people.
The anti-gender movement circulates a spectre of "gender" as a force of destruction, but they never actually read any works in gender studies. Quick and fearful conclusions take the place of considered judgments. Yes, some work on gender is difficult and not everyone can read it, so we have to do better in reaching a broader public. As important as it is, however, to make complex concepts available to a popular audience, it is equally important to encourage intellectual inquiry as part of public life. Unfortunately, we are living in anti-intellectual times, and neo-fascism is becoming more normalized.
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Alisdair Calder McGregor @acmcgregor.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Whenever I see a political or media figure talking about "legitimate concerns", I am immediately certain that said concerns are a crock of shit. This is true of anti-immigration, anti-trans, anti-queer and anti owt else. If they have to tell you it's "legitimate", then ipso facto it is not.
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Pieter De Boiserie @pdeboiserie.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Reform to Labour. Bloody hell a reverse Anderson as we should call it.
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ToonHive @toonhive.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
‘COYOTE VS. ACME’ has now officially surpassed the $30M amount Warner Bros. originally planned to write the film off for. The film is now projected to earn over $60M domestically.
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
2) and 3) are intimately linked, in that the BBC (the organisation that really matters in the modern environment) treats 'claims by rival parties' as the operating frame for how it covers everything. The failure from Labour and the Conservatives to say 'this stuff is bad' is really, really bad.
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John C @badsocialism.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
One of the things about someone in 1965 saying that in 30 years there'd be mars colonies is that 30 years before that you could barely cross the Atlantic in one hop and the Jet engine hadn't been invented, and 30 years before that the longest flights were measured in yards
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Ann Leckie @annleckie.com · 04/09/2026
Or really, anybody. The number of times I've had someone say a sentence like "Her eyes were green" is passive voice because they only know that "is/was/were" is symptomatic....argh. Also sentences that obscure responsibility are not automatically in passive voice. Thank you for listening.
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Alisdair Calder McGregor @acmcgregor.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
I see Reform have escalated from "Dead Cat Strategy" to "Dead Emperor Strategy".
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Gwrach Gymraeg @cherylmorgan.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
3500 signatures already. Good going, people. petitions.senedd.wales/petitions/24...
petitions.senedd.wales
Petition: Immediately unfreeze gender-affirming surgeries and protect NHS Welsh Gender Service patients.
We call on the Senedd and Welsh Government to direct the NHS Wales Joint Commissioning Committee (NWJCC) to: Immediately unfreeze scheduled and approved gender-affirming surgeries for patients who ha...
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John Berkeley Grout 🏳️‍🌈🔶 @jrberkeley.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
What GIF comes up when you type your name? Some AI slop and John Travolta.
static.klipy.com
John Travolta Waiting and Looking Around
Alt: John Travolta waiting and looking around in the film Pulp Fiction
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SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Nice to have a citation for the stuff we all sort of assume to be true but question if it's just our own biases making it look that way
Screenshot from the article in the quoted post, saying "Piff and his colleagues found that upper-class drivers were more likely to cut other cars off at junctions and ignore pedestrians at crossings. Wealthier people also appeared more willing to lie at work. In one experiment, volunteers were left alone with a jar of sweets ostensibly meant for children. When the researchers returned, upper-class people had snaffled nearly twice as many candies as lower-class people.

“The general pattern seems to be that with wealth and rising power, you become less engaged with the needs of others and less burdened by the needs of social relationships,” Piff said. “Taking candy from children might be the least of our worries but it’s emblematic of the tendency to prioritise one’s own needs over those of others.”
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Keri @keriqbaum.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
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Anandamide @anandamide.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
🪿 which beliefs motherfucker 🪿
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grant @grantpardee.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
"Tiny Tim, who DESERVED to die,"
Gonzo in Muppet Christmas Carol delivering the line "And Tiny Tim, who did NOT die"
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The Partial Historians 🏺 @partialhistorians.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Enjoy this extremely fine parrot who looks like they might just know a secret or two. This mosaic is from Pergamon and dates to the mid-C2nd BCE. The parrot is known variously as the Alexandrine Parakeet or the Alexander Parrot in honour of Alexander the Great. #MosaicMonday #AncientBluesky🏺
This is a panel from a larger mosaic floor and depicts a parrot standing on a white block against a dark background.
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Liam Proven @lproven.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
How LLMs Actually Work www.0xkato.xyz/how-llms-act... <- long, v complicated, & I've not finished it yet. Worth reading if you care why "generative AI" isn't artificial & isn't intelligence.
0xkato.xyz
How LLMs Actually Work
A from-the-ground-up walkthrough of how modern LLMs work, from tokens to transformer blocks to the next-token loop
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John Berkeley Grout 🏳️‍🌈🔶 @jrberkeley.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
If you havent gone to see Coyote vs. Acme yet, do go. It's a real treat of a film. ❤️
static.klipy.com
Acme Vs Coyote Acme Sucks
Alt: A gif from the Coyote vs. Acme film. Sitting in a courtroom, Wile. E. Coyote holds up a sign reading 'ACME SUCKS', which his lawyer (Kevin Avery, played by Will Forte) immediately bats out of his hand.
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🦇💀 Rigg-or Mortis 💀🦇 @rigg.lgbt · 30/08/2026
Not once is the thought of giving us what would improve OUR lives even considered. It's all about making us more acceptable to normies. And until endemic medical ableism and transphobia are dealt with, rather than celebrated as if they're some twisted objectivity, that's never going to change.
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🦇💀 Rigg-or Mortis 💀🦇 @rigg.lgbt · 30/08/2026
The goal of healthcare in treating AuDHD people (and trans people) is to gatekeep as long as humanly possible, because you don't want to admit that a person has The Horrible Thing, and then if they persist long enough, to reluctantly provide ONLY the things that might stop the person being annoying
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🦇💀 Rigg-or Mortis 💀🦇 @rigg.lgbt · 30/08/2026
... them with the completely safe, helpful, and non-experimental treatments that are proven to make their lives better. Fergus might find it depressing; I find it infuriating.
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🦇💀 Rigg-or Mortis 💀🦇 @rigg.lgbt · 30/08/2026
It's one reason why I (AuDHD) am so passionate about trans rights because I see trans folk being treated the same way by ""normal"" people: the starting point is always how it must be really awful to be like that, so we have to deny people are like that for a long as possible instead of treating...
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🦇💀 Rigg-or Mortis 💀🦇 @rigg.lgbt · 30/08/2026
Autism and ADHD have many things in common, among them is this: Both are defined not by how people who have them experience them, but by the features of them that annoy neurotypicals. So of course research is focused on eradication, because who wouldn't want to be rid of annoyingness?
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John Berkeley Grout 🏳️‍🌈🔶 @jrberkeley.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Crow on the 15:18 to Barnstaple
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Susanah Grace @susanahgrace.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Stop fucking using genAI. Not even for a joke, not even for that oh so cutting political satire. Every time you use it, you are actively taking food out of our mouths. You are using the weapon of the enemy. We do not need it.
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Rae Radford @raeradford.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Yep, leave me behind….. #BookSky
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Natacha @natacha.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
I keep having to say this, and take no pleasure whatsoever in doing so, but trans people like myself have been saying this kind of prejudice-creep from the wedge of “Gender-critical beliefs” for literally decades and no one listened; leopards wouldn’t eat THEIR faces.
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