Purity spirals just leave the whole world off-balance & nauseous. I used to encourage them, to my shame. Worked in/with higher ed a lot longer than I intended.
Joined August 2012
- Tweets 2,604
- Following 451
- Followers 8,440
- Likes 16,208
263 Photos and videos
Pinned Tweet
29 Jan 2023
This is a book I shared with my parents when I came out to them at the age of 17.
We’re constantly told being trans today is like being gay in the 80s/90s.
I’d like to share some advice from the book.
How similar is this is to what the LGBTQ sector says to today’s teens? …🧵
74
431
1,531
205,543
Levi Pay retweeted
My daughter made this with her tablet 9 years ago (when she was 9) after seeing a David Hockney exhibition.
It made a huge impression on her!
3
27
1,262
12,591
Watching people who have led higher education institutions and national sector bodies that have persistently ignored the law on sex-based rights year after year getting gongs in the honours list is really quite galling.
The honours system is ridiculous. It’s primarily a way for the mainstream to prop itself up - or sometimes to reward bravery so long after it was demonstrated that it reads more like an confession or an apology for late recognition.
1
2
41
1,237
(In that latter scenario, of course, it is still about the mainstream propping itself up - by papering over the cracks of the past and pretending there’s nothing to see there.)
1
1
332
When I worked at the Scottish Parliament, there were some MSPs who were shocked to find out that the workplace smoking ban meant that the smoking room in the Parliament building had to close. They couldn’t believe the law applied to them. They huffed and puffed about it, complaining to the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body - trying to argue that they were exempt from having to comply with the law.
Same energy.
Jun 11
'When it comes to the idea of trans women using women's bathrooms, absolutely they should'
Scottish Greens MSP Q Manivannanan has urged the Scottish Parliament to lift its ban on trans people using toilets in their lived gender in the building 👇
34
338
2,128
142,307
I also just remembered that my colleague at the time said the main argument of these MSPs was “This is not a workplace; it is a Parliament”.
Counterarguments of “However you see this place, surely it is a workplace for Parliament staff and for your own employees” didn’t change their mind. To them, it was a “Parliament”, and it therefore ceased to be a workplace.
A precursor for today’s “TWAW” wordplay perhaps.
1
5
114
7,970
Jun 12
If I were @Keir_Starmer, I’d stand up in Parliament and say to the 130 or so MPs who signed this motion, “I understand you have an issue with around three or four pages of this 342-page Code of Practice. Fine. You have a week from today to give me your idea of a better version of those pages. Clearly, it needs to comply with the Equality Act and with all relevant case law. Get me a version before midday on 22nd June which has potential, and you’ll get your parliamentary debate. Give me nothing, or something that clearly doesn’t work legally, and there will be no debate. It’s in your hands now.”
Jun 12
The sections of the Code of Practice that focus on the law on the separate sex/single-sex exceptions are not that long. Write your own amended version of those sections, Nadia.
At least one of you 131 MPs who signed this motion should tell us what you want the Code to say in those sections and explain how it fits with the law and with case law. Because, so far, all I’ve heard from you is posturing.
You believe you can do a better job at writing this Code than the public body that was set up to do that job? Great! Prove it.
Posturing alone doesn’t prove that.
17
85
429
21,087
Jun 12
I just read Stonewall's tribute to David Hockney - a tribute that was reshared, and commented on, by Stonewall's CEO on LinkedIn.
And, my god, its instrumentality left me both cold and angry at the same time.
Hockney was more than a pair of shoulders for "social justice" activists to stand on.
There was more to him and his work than the price tag of an undescribed painting that he once donated to Stonewall.
Someone, please...tell me there was more to Hockney than this.
Maybe I will come to regret my response on LinkedIn, posted in anger. Maybe someone will share with me the "social justice" quotes and the trans rights quotes from Hockney that I missed over the years. But argh.
33
47
364
24,673
Jun 12
The sections of the Code of Practice that focus on the law on the separate sex/single-sex exceptions are not that long. Write your own amended version of those sections, Nadia.
At least one of you 131 MPs who signed this motion should tell us what you want the Code to say in those sections and explain how it fits with the law and with case law. Because, so far, all I’ve heard from you is posturing.
You believe you can do a better job at writing this Code than the public body that was set up to do that job? Great! Prove it.
Posturing alone doesn’t prove that.
131 MPs have now signed my motion to stand up for trans people and stop the EHRC's Draft Code of Practice coming into force.
For it to succeed, the motion needs to be debated and voted on, so I asked the government if it will allocate time. Unfortunately the Leader of the House did not make that commitment.
We will continue to press for a debate and a vote. Please encourage your MP to sign EDM 240.
18
78
321
19,733
Jun 10
Reading the comments on LinkedIn of straight so-called “allies” fawning over the @HelloFresh Insta post (the last comment I read actually called the Hello Fresh post “brave and brilliant”) really shows how allyship is only capable of seeing and amplifying one type of gayness.
Allyship is reductionist and patronising. It always has been.
I’m with @eliotranch on what this story tells us, more widely.
Jun 8
The Hello Fresh ad is an example of the difference between progressive and permissive - and it's one of the major ways in which the left has landed us in what I'm pretty sure cultural archaeologists will call The Cretinous Era.
Progressive = equal rights & treatment for all.
Permissive = allowing groups to carve out exceptions to the universalism that is a core tenet of a free and fair society.
Permissiveness is sought by the worst people on the planet. And it's allowed by 'progressives' who are so deeply insecure that they will just roll over and become a doormat rather than put up a single boundary.
Examples:
Progressive: equal rights for gay people
Permissive: "Oh, you just noshed each other off on the street at Pride? No, that's like totally cool man. Who am I to judge?"
Progressive: freedom of religion for all
Permissive: you can make death threats based on your religious beliefs and we'll 'respect' your culture
Progressive: let's not judge people who have gender dysophoria, a vanishingly rare mental illness
Permissive: any man can use women's spaces as long as he utters the magic words "I am trans"
Permissiveness is dangerous in and of itself. But also because it generates such (righteous) anger that it rolls back the gains progressiveness created. The baby starts getting thrown out with the rancid, tainted bathwater.
The biggest 'enemy' of progressivism has never been the people who oppose progress.
It's been the people who are so tragically obsessed with being seen as 'cool' or 'down with the kids' that they will tolerate even the most stupid of ideas, coming from the most deviant, obnoxious or dangerous people on the planet.
Tag 'Hello Fresh'. You're it.
2
2
30
1,514
Jun 10
For all kinds of reasons, delivering training on safeguarding - as I’ll be doing for the next couple of days - is quite a frustrating endeavour. Legally and practically, it’s an area that is surprisingly tricky to make accessible and memorable, as all good training should be.
But my favourite part of the course, by far, is when we discuss the key role that preventative measures including single-sex spaces play in safeguarding.
You see some faces in the room lighting up because of the straightforwardness of the message.
You see other faces with furrowed brows that silently communicate, “Gender, surely, Levi! Surely!”
So tired of safeguarding training that was perpetually afraid of even using the word ‘sex’, when our colleague who used to deliver our safeguarding courses decided to move on to pastures new, I decided that, by completely overhauling our training materials and delivering this training myself, aligning it closely with the legal framework, I could give the higher education sector the training it needs and deserves.
And I am enjoying the delivery more and more, with each passing session.
2
9
75
2,127
Jun 9
Is this an edited version? Can I see the whole video? Because surely...surely...there is a section somewhere that talks specifically about the disciplinary consequences of students not respecting the boundaries of civil protest.
That is the statement that needs to be made here.
Almost everyone agrees the events should go ahead. That bit is easy to say.
Jun 9
The rest of @michaelpforan's talks should go ahead.
Freedom of speech is a fundamental academic freedom and it must be upheld. Equally, legitimate and lawful protest has an important place in university life. The task is to maintain both.
Especially at events open to the public like this, it is an important Oxford tradition that any disagreement is expressed in a civil and respectful way.
7
15
84
2,294
Jun 8
This is spot on.
And anyone who thinks that permissiveness started in the gay community with the addition of the TQ is talking nonsense.
This has been a tension in gay politics and in the gay world as far back as I can remember.
Jun 8
The Hello Fresh ad is an example of the difference between progressive and permissive - and it's one of the major ways in which the left has landed us in what I'm pretty sure cultural archaeologists will call The Cretinous Era.
Progressive = equal rights & treatment for all.
Permissive = allowing groups to carve out exceptions to the universalism that is a core tenet of a free and fair society.
Permissiveness is sought by the worst people on the planet. And it's allowed by 'progressives' who are so deeply insecure that they will just roll over and become a doormat rather than put up a single boundary.
Examples:
Progressive: equal rights for gay people
Permissive: "Oh, you just noshed each other off on the street at Pride? No, that's like totally cool man. Who am I to judge?"
Progressive: freedom of religion for all
Permissive: you can make death threats based on your religious beliefs and we'll 'respect' your culture
Progressive: let's not judge people who have gender dysophoria, a vanishingly rare mental illness
Permissive: any man can use women's spaces as long as he utters the magic words "I am trans"
Permissiveness is dangerous in and of itself. But also because it generates such (righteous) anger that it rolls back the gains progressiveness created. The baby starts getting thrown out with the rancid, tainted bathwater.
The biggest 'enemy' of progressivism has never been the people who oppose progress.
It's been the people who are so tragically obsessed with being seen as 'cool' or 'down with the kids' that they will tolerate even the most stupid of ideas, coming from the most deviant, obnoxious or dangerous people on the planet.
Tag 'Hello Fresh'. You're it.
3
3
23
1,365
Jun 8
This will always be one of my favourite personal moments of the sex and gender years - watching the security team at The University of Edinburgh put a barrier (it was a branded barrier, naturally) around a small group of three or four ‘heckler’s veto’ protesters - thereby protecting the blooming protesters for as long as they wanted to block the entrance to the venue!!
I kid you not.
It still makes me laugh out loud every time I remember it and every time I look at the photo I took that day.
📸
5
15
104
4,031
Jun 8
How dare a law lecturer give students accurate lectures on what the law says?! How dare they.
Lectures promoting gender critical views are simply not acceptable and the students have spoken with their feet. Now the University leadership should review the position of this associate professor to see if his lectures fit the syllabus.
2
6
74
1,114
Jun 8
That’s our @HelloFreshUK subscription cancelled.
This is outrageous behaviour from a company that should be focused on food. The original post was bad enough, but these snide replies from Hello Fresh are really nasty.
Let’s hope @goustocooking, who we’re moving to, will just keep out of the divisive Pride politics altogether.
27
82
930
33,479
Jun 8
Instant suspension is what’s required for these students, pending an investigation.
In fact, there should have been an immediate escalation to the local police force during the protest.
The sector I work for needs to stop regurgitating warm words about “free speech” and “diversity of thought” and start acting.
Jun 7
Due to escalating disruptive protests, I have decided to cancel the remainder of these lectures. This is deeply lamentable, but the disruption has undermined the academic nature of this series. Students shouldn't face bullying or harassment when attending academic events.
15
16
154
3,453
Jun 6
They muddy the water, to make it seem deep.
Ok so lesbians are apparently so fragile that their ability to “associate” depends on guaranteed exclusion of anyone someone has labelled a “heterosexual man,” & somehow the Equality Act was drafted specifically to interrupt lesbian coffee mornings rather than
2
5
457
Jun 6
I love it when people make things like this, without, I assume, being asked or paid to do so. The passion for getting things rights shines through every page of this proposal.
My favourite detail is the ‘tick and notch’ detailing on the wayfinding signage.
The sector I work with - higher education - could learn so much about branding and about wayfinding campus signage from reading this one PDF visual identity proposal document.
It has arrived!
Moving Britain, by Design
a visual identity proposal for Great British Railways.
Read the full proposal here:
mbbd.lkbergen.com
or
bit.ly/mbbd-gd (Google Drive)
Let me show you some highlights - 🧵👇
ALT Front cover for "Moving Britain, by Design", a proposal for a fully considered, and more accessible visual indentity for Great British Railways.
2
5
138
19,810
Jun 4
Between 5 and 13 May 2026, the Higher Education Policy Institute (@HEPI_news) asked 1,018 undergraduate students aged 18 to 21 for their views on a range of topical issues on which views are known to be divided.
Topics explored included the use of single-sex changing rooms by people who identify as the sex in question (shown in screenshot), assisted dying, and abortion.
The results have now been published at hepi.ac.uk/reports/a-breed-a…
The paper also draws comparisons between the views of the undergraduates polled and those of the wider population - for example, with the changing rooms question, the comparison is made with polling data commissioned by @SexMattersOrg.
The differences are not as great as you might expect.
This is very good work from HEPI - an organisation prepared to do the kinds of work and thinking that other sector bodies are resourced, but too conflicted or nervous, to do themselves.
In particular, I like the straightforward language HEPI has tended to use in its polling questions, since we know that obfuscating language has been a problem with some of these topics.
2
6
16
935
Jun 3
A simple guide to running the modern struggle session. No expertise or experience necessary.
1. Create complete confusion between “western privilege” and “white privilege”.
2. Fake a warmth, while your words express superiority.
3. Practice those ‘minimal encouragers’, to give the strugglee positive strokes when they say what you want them to say. Something like the kind of “Um, umm” 😋🍨 you might utter when eating a nice dessert will do the trick nicely.
In essence, what you’re looking to do is make someone feel they need to be ashamed and to educate themselves, without really knowing quite why, and while, of course, you say nothing of substance or of interest yourself.
And if you can get to the point where they are self-flagellating, and you’re mainly just along for the ride, you know you’ve cracked it!
Oh, and don’t forget to issue those invoice! But people rarely need a reminder to do that bit. 🧾 x.com/SholaMos1/status/20617…
1
1
2
321