Interesting Links for 22-01-2026

[andrewducker]

1. Changing gender in the UK involves a legal declaration that you will live as the gender you are changing to. With legal consequences if you don't.

(tags:law UK gender transgender LGBT )

2. Prolonged air pollution linked to increase of incurable muscle-wasting diseases

(tags:pollution disease )

3. Six key takeaways from the Scottish Hospitals Inquiry (cover-ups leading to patient deaths)

(tags:scotland hospital OhForFucksSake death )

4. MAGA's 'Manifest Destiny' Coalition Has Arrived - "It's up to us to keep pushing for the orderly governance of the world via American imperialism"

(tags:usa politics OhForFucksSake )

5. Comic-Con Bans AI Art After Artist Pushback

(tags:ai art comics )

6. Anti-trans 'data vandalism' damages scientific research, study finds

(tags:LGBT research bigotry transgender gender )

7. When the United Kingdom annexed a north Atlantic island (and what they might do with it)

(tags:scotland uk politics history funny )

Comments

[mountainkiss]

Hah! I thought it would be Rockall.

[cmcmck]

1. It does indeed and I'm amazed people weren't aware of the fact.

And for most of us it couldn't be a bigger none issue if it tried! How the hell else would I want to live after fifty odd years?

[dewline]

2. Not surprising. So of course, Fossil Fuel Money will dig in deeper in reply to this.

5. Good.

6. Vandalism...a good word for this.

[bens_dad]

1. It took a surprising amount of effort to read any suggesting that the state isn't living up to its side of the formal contract into the article.

---

A GRC is issued under the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and “facilitates” a change of legal sex to male or female for most purposes of UK law.​

For most purposes. Is that in the 2004 Act or a reflection of the supreme court decision last year ?

[andrewducker]

No idea, I'm afraid!

[cmcmck]

It always was 'for most purposes' What people don't seem to be able to haul on board is that it always WAS possible to make exceptions.

[bens_dad]

I get that there have to be exceptions (hidden in some forgotten corner) but I struggle with the idea. If exceptions exist it feels that it isn't a real acceptance but that we are just pretending to believe you are women.

The sex discrimination laws still allowing seperate spaces confuses me in the same way.
There I think my real problem is distinguishing between "equal" and "same".
I'll have to ponder on what it means if trans-women can be equal to women without being the same ?

[cmcmck]

Fwiw, I don't think any exceptions have ever been made even though they are theoretically possible.

There are certainly many who pretend, but all this nonsense isn't bothering me all that much as the number of times I've been challenged as to who I am and where I belong in fifty odd years is precisely zero.

The GRA (I hold a GRC) means that I WAS the same until this crazy supreme court ruling amd I won't stop being the same after it.

[symbioid]

IF you are a lady you must have a pink house and pink cars and pink everything and if you are a boy you must drive a big manly pickup truck.

*sigh* It's bad enough in the US I feel so bad for Trans people in the UK. The UK felt like the whole origin of so much of the accepting culture (punk, post-punk/goth, etc...) that to see it all just be destroyed by TERFs and an obnoxious and at one point somewhat funny cynical TV writer.

I'm not convinced that JK Rowling isn't actually Linehan aren't the same person just. you know. genderswapped. Has anyone seen them in the same room at the same time?

I've heard people speculate JK is a self-hating trans man, but that feels a little too tidy to people's internal narratives, and irrelevant to the larger issues.