Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 1hPhilosophy Gourmet has an AI replacement, and it's horrible. 110
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 2hI think established academics should also do this, just for fun. 130
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 06/10/2026I try to avoid posting about this because my expertise is extremely limited and to be honest I don't know where I stand on some of the issues, but one thing I am confident about is that it is not appropriate to spend so much time debating what the morally sensitive way to criticise this is. 081
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 05/10/2026I've tried to puzzle through it and the best I can do is to develop an 'epistemic guise' theory of sexual identity. It's ok for a 'biological man' to be admitted but only if she's admitted under the guise of being a 'biological female'. (Apologies for the language but I'm trying to understand them.) 2120
Reposted by Rob MullinsAstrid @astridsramblings.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Personally I think it’s always a sign of really good public policy when your defence of it relies on ‘and of course it won’t be enforced, because that would be awful’ 1141
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 05/10/2026My view is that (1) has to be correct, but that means that (2) cannot be and the EHRC interpretation of the law should sink with it. 2241
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 05/10/2026I haven't seen anyone comment on the legal incoherence so I will. You can either have (1) 'services that knowingly omit to prevent trans people from using them in their acquired sex are lawful' or (2) 'services must be run on the basis of birth sex to be lawful'. You can't have both. 43910
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 05/10/2026The way I think about it is that the Greens don't need 15-20% to do real damage to Labour. A hardened 10% rump will do just fine (not sure if that's what Stephen is saying but...) 010
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 03/10/2026I'd this the same guy that follows @stephenkb.bsky.social around or do you each have your own? 120
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 03/10/2026I am now personally aware of four trans people (three of them academics) who have moved or will move from the UK to Australia. I'm not well connected and I have no close trans friends. I suspect there are many more. 170
Reposted by Rob MullinsHourly Garth Marenghi's Darkplace @hourlydarkplace.bagpuss.org · 01/10/2026 216453
Reposted by Rob MullinsJess O'Thomson @jessothomson.co.uk · 01/10/2026If anyone is in touch with any of the local trans inclusive safe spaces orgs around the country can you reach out to them and ask if they would be willing to speak to me over the next day or so please. I have opened my DMs. 612884
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026All the best to you. I think/hope this is largely a matter of generational replacement. 040
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026(And to be clear that is also how I feel about my own involvement in all of this.) 050
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026My synthesis: it's good that there's a 'fightback ' inside the Labour party, but if you're in the party you should also expect trans people to be pretty mad at you and not expect credit for doing what is actually just minimally sufficient. 2300
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Unironically: they have extremely firm gender identities 110
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Yes. If you think 'sex matters' then I'm sorry but you aren't 'gender critical' 140
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026As I understand it, gender is just the set of norms that have arisen around sex. So legal sex is anywhere and always just gender. 160
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Oh I agree completely. I just think they're saying the quiet part loud here. 150
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Yes. The Supreme Court didn't do a great job thinking about this either. 150
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026I'm begging people to just think about what they're saying for a minute. Quite obviously these people don't think that being trans makes any sense, and they are too hateful to spend any time trying to understand it. 3210
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026I posted angry about this this morning and deleted it. But I'm still angry so reposting. 1200
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026'Gender isn't real' and 'trans people don't change their sex'. OK so what do they change? Because they change something. Some absolutely braindead bigotry going around.. 3391
Reposted by Rob MullinsHourly Garth Marenghi's Darkplace @hourlydarkplace.bagpuss.org · 29/09/2026 1488
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 29/09/2026"Pregnancy discrimination is sex discrimination even though comparator analysis says it isn't". Huh. You don't say. 150
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 29/09/2026One of the ironies of pregnancy and maternity rights being used as a cudgel against trans people is that there too the courts had to be dragged kicking and screaming to acknowledge the problem. 290
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 28/09/2026The Lesbian bar story vindicates Jonathan Richman on two fronts. First: other bars are just alright, but lesbian bars are *Friday night*. But second, and more importantly: we need more parties (especially but not only in the USA). 141
Reposted by Rob MullinsRob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 27/09/2026A lovely tribute to the late Alexander Greenberg from Leah Trueblood: leahtrueblood.substack.com/p/the-greenb...leahtrueblood.substack.comThe Greenberg Principles of PhilosophyOn the loss of my friend Alexander the Great 034
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Ah yeah that's what I thought you were talking about. It was scandalous. 000
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Or did he express reservations about this specific award? 200
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Yeah that was really concerning. And a lot of 'rationalist' types were totally silent. 100
Reposted by Rob MullinsErin @fujoshi.bsky.social · 27/09/2026It was pretty embarrassing to me seeing how they rounded on Gordon Guyatt when he expressed reservations on this 131
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 27/09/2026There has been a noticeable acceleration in right-wing efforts to co-opt academic institutions to try to build an alternative 'academic consensus'. I've been dismayed at how willingly universities have played along. 1133
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 27/09/2026A lovely tribute to the late Alexander Greenberg from Leah Trueblood: leahtrueblood.substack.com/p/the-greenb...leahtrueblood.substack.comThe Greenberg Principles of PhilosophyOn the loss of my friend Alexander the Great 034
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 26/09/2026I think it makes for one of the first UK cases containing judicial recognition of the concept of gender identity. I'm not sure what that means but it's not what they wanted I don't think. 130
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Oh personally I think it's important to move away from a binary model of legal identity, but that wasn't part of my argument in the thread. 000
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Every non-anonymous intersex person I have every interacted with has used the term 'intersex'. The phrase 'DSD' originated with 'Disorder' and was then sanitised later. But I can see why you might want a more neutral phrase, and VSC does the job pretty well. 120
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 25/09/2026The VSC report, which the government inexplicably sat on for years, is pretty good on terminology: www.gov.uk/government/c...gov.ukVariations in sex characteristics (VSC): experiences of life in the UK for people with VSC and those who care for them 100
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Bring a hard-boiled egg, then crack that bad boy open during the interview. 210
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Are you talking about this study? journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10..... The proportions of cis lesbians who are open to dating only trans women (9%), only trans men (10.8%), or both (9%) were roughly equal. But 2/3 lesbians open to dating trans people were open to dating trans women. 011
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 24/09/2026It has that same way of emulating understanding, and it's quite often accurate, but it doesn't feel quite right. It sometimes uses synonyms where a lawyer would use a precise legal term, for instance. 020
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Has anyone written anything about the tendency of AI legal writing to read like it was written by a self-represented litigant? 350
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 24/09/2026If you live in Qld/NSW this is your equivalent of Crossfire with William Buckley Jr 041
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 24/09/2026I'm not sure if it's still going but there was a huge trend of evangelical churches eating into more 'traditional' protestant denominations in the 90s that was definitely an influence. 010
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 24/09/2026We had a 'Museum of Creation' in a rural area north of Brisbane and they showed us a video by the creator. To be honest, this was in our religion class. They let the science teachers teach evolution 110
Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 24/09/2026When I was in high school at a relatively prestigious private school here in Queensland we were taught that the ark was real and that it had dinosaurs on it. 210
