Sarah Stone

Live for hiking, mountains and the great outdoors 🏕 Equality and Fairness 🏳️‍🌈

[Harvey Proctor @KHarveyProctor]

Mr Yusuf,

For the avoidance of doubt, I pleaded guilty in 1987 to an offence of gross indecency under laws that discriminated against homosexual men. The age of consent was then 21 for gay men & 16 for heterosexuals. Those discriminatory offences no longer exist.

Also, the individual who was 17 was ‘wired for sound’ by Robert Maxwell’s paper. He said on the tape he was over 21. Unfortunately, there was a lacuna in the law in 1987 which provided heterosexuals with a defence. If heterosexuals believed those they had sexual relations with were of consensual age, & the jury believed this, then they could find the accused not guilty.

No such defence pertained to homosexuals. If the younger person was under 21, the offence was committed. I did not realise this lacuna in the law existed until my lawyer, Sir David Napley, informed me. I then told him immediately I would plead guilty.

Parliament has since recognised that these laws were unjust. Under the so-called “Alan Turing law”, people convicted of consensual homosexual offences under repealed legislation can have those convictions disregarded & pardoned as part of righting historic wrongs.

Also, what I did was neither gross nor indecent. It was done in private and between consenting adults.

I have never hidden any of this.

What you are doing is attempting to weaponise a historic conviction under discriminatory laws to discredit me because you disagree with my views, & blind loyalty. That is your choice.

My point remains unchanged: politicians should respect the police’s request not to speculate during a live murder investigation. Personal abuse is no answer to a principled argument.

You are free to criticise me, & to answer a principled argument with personal abuse & character assassination - however unbecoming - but personal vilification is no substitute for civil debate.

Ann Widdecombe believed in decency, free speech & the rule of law - which is why she stood by me and offered me practical, private & public support throughout my ordeals. I rather think she would have expected better.

[World Climbing @worldclimbing]

THE WAIT IS OVER!! 🤩

@albertogines_ 🇪🇸 is a World Climbing Series gold medallist in Chamonix!

A long-awaited victory for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion, who finally adds the brightest medal to his collection!

[Sarah Stone @Curiosity_Jig]

@Irishgirlbragh_ 'Raising awareness of an under represented part of the community' reads better but otherwise it looks good Becca

[India Willoughby @IndiaWilloughby]

The Far Religious Right are parasitic. They cannot openly say who they are and what they want. They have to infect a host. #WomensRights

[Sarah Stone @Curiosity_Jig]

@JennaJacobin Go for it Jenna. What's stopping you?

[Climbing Mag @ClimbingMag]

oof...

📸 @brainrot.beta

[Climber Magazine @climbermagazine]

Janja Garnbret climbs Bibliographie (F9b+)

Garnbret achieved another milestone in her remarkable career when she completed the first female ascent of Bibliographie. This is one of the world's hardest sport climbs at a confirmed grade F9b+. https://t.co/sisxCtwHs1

[Jenna Taylor ♀️ @JennaJacobin]

This article and narrative you're trying to sell here repeatedly conflate a sociological observation with an empirical conclusion.

Hacking's "looping effects" describe how classifications influence people's self-understanding.

They do NOT demonstrate that the underlying phenomenon was socially invented.

That same framework has been applied to PTSD, ADHD, Autism, and homosexuality without implying those conditions or identities are socially created.

Increased visibility can lead to increased recognition, reduced stigma, improved diagnosis, or serve as a sign of genuine societal change.

It doesn't mean it's all a fabrication.

I can't believe the people taking my right to exist away are pushing pseudoscience vibes masked with badly interpreted sociology and coming to conclusions like "social contagion" or "trans is a fabrication."

🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

[Sarah Stone @Curiosity_Jig]

@Irishgirlbragh_ That's awesome, I'm looking forward to reading it.

[India Willoughby @IndiaWilloughby]

Utterly vile. All of these paper thin fronts are hate groups. Racists for trans people.

But because terrorising trans folk been now legalised, legitimised and protected in the UK - THEY take the moral high ground. THEY are the “human rights campaigners.”

They have bottomless funds thanks to the Edinburgh Funder and Religious Right. Sick.

What are you going to do about this @andyburnham @Lord_Collins @uklabour ? Are you serious about protecting the REAL LGBT community?

[@_rt* @literatura_rte]

Yu Huan Huan

[Marysia @marysia_cc]

good morning
illus. Isabel Serna

[lifesobjective @lifesobjective3]

🔴

[Emotion & Music @Emotion78687]

A Different Corner was born from raw emotion. George Michael wrote and recorded it in just 14 hours, calling it the sound of "a man truly heartbroken."

[World's Amazing Things @Hana_b30]

An Indigo Buntings clings to a sunflower in a sunflower field while vocalizing in Poolesville, Maryland.

📸 Anthony Barsotti

[Pop Crave @PopCrave]

Madonna becomes the first female artist from the US to score a #1 album across five decades in the UK:

1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, 2020s

[BabelColour @StuartHumphryes]

Travel back in time 110 years to the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona, USA. I have cleaned & enhanced this striking Autochrome plate of a Hopi surveying the landscape, framed against the sky. It was published in the National Geographic magazine in 1916 and was taken by Franklin Price Knott using an early colour glass plate process. It isn't colourised.

[books 📖 @bookpoets]

happiness lives in three places