Lizzy (she/they)

Former Archaeologist, Therapy Radiographer, Sometime Athlete 🦴 ☢️ 🏃‍♀️ 🌱 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️

[Dr Helen Webberley (she/her) @HelenWebberley]

In 2019, Caster Semenya was told she could no longer participate in sport unless she took hormone suppressants.

As a doctor, I find this unacceptable.

Medicine is prescribed for the benefit of the patient's health - not because a sports committee dictates it.

Genetic advantages are seen throughout the sporting world.

🏊‍♂️Michael Phelps has a super large wingspan and lung capacity.

🤸‍♀️Simone Biles is only 4ft8, allowing her to retain skills she's had since childhood (while other gymnasts have to re-learn new techniques as they grow.)

🏀Boban Marjanovic has the largest hands in the NBA, and is so tall he can dunk without jumping.

Do we ask any of these athletes to retire?
Do we ask them to undergo surgery to reduce their size?
Do we ask them to take growth hormones, or drugs that alter their abilities?

Absolutely not.

The truth is, because testosterone is linked to gender identity, it has once again been forced into the spotlight by the press.

While I'm relieved on the European Court's decision Semenya's rights were violated, it's a disgrace it even happened in the first place. Hopefully this can be an educational moment for everyone.

1 in 5 women have high testosterone levels.

And genetic advantages are seen in all corners of the sporting world.

Can we all start celebrating these incredible human beings, instead of trying to cut them out?

[Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod]

Only capitalism could turn unlimited free electricity into a problem.

[Edwin Hayward @edwinhayward]

Here's how the future is going to play out...

(Long - please expand the tweet.)

1. The Tories will keep on wrecking things faster and faster as the GE approaches. They'll act like irresponsible teenagers who know they don't have to clean up in the morning after a wild drunken binge.

Why?
A) It's their last chance to firehose cash at their friends and cronies.
B) It's an opportunity to further feather their own nests before they're out of office.
C) It stuffs Labour even more - we'll return to this soon enough.
D) The more chaos they cause and the more scandals they trigger, the less chance there is of any one case of wrongdoing being investigated.

From a Tory POV, the best stuff to break is anything that's unfixable. For instance, the closure of all train ticket offices. Once those have been turned into coffee concessions and the staff fired or moved elsewhere, both the facilities and the expertise will be gone for good.

2. Regardless of actual policies, Labour will win the GE on a desperate tide of people wanting to Get The Tories out. However (and this will prove vital later) their future freedom to manoevre will be severely limited by the bright red lines they've been laying down on stuff like Brexit.

Related aside: Remember, the losing party has a blank slate. The electorate thumbed their noses at the manifesto, so they have total freedom to bin it. ("Nobody liked what we had to offer, so we need to do something different.") But this isn't true of the winning party. Even though pledges do get broken and manifesto commitments forgotten, they are still constrained by what they promised to win office.

3. Labour will start trying to fix the stuff the Tories broke. It will prove very expensive. Mending stuff is always more expensive than breaking it. It will be slow going too. And Labour will be trapped by the need to be "fiscally responsible" in a way the Tories never would, because our mainly RW media is waiting to tear them a new one if they spend as much as a single brass penny without accounting for where it came from.

Related aside 2: Is the political playing field level when it comes to British media? Absolutely not. It's totally unfair. But this is a known known, so Labour have to find ways to win - and win repeatedly - despite being hobbled by the press.

4. Labour will try to Make Brexit Work. The RW tabloids will tear bigger strips off them than usual, painting even minor concessions as a Great Betrayal. (If you're not paying attention, you need to realise that the tabloids pillory Labour every. single. day. So this will be a ramping up rather than a different attitude.)

Related aside 3: Since anything Labour does to "undo Brexit" will be portrayed as a betrayal, no matter how insignificant, they might as well take huge lumbering steps rather than teeny tiny ones. It won't make the tabloids more rabid than they're inevitably going to be.

5. Make Brexit Work won't. Work, that is. You might as well try and put the toothpaste back in the tube after you brushed your teeth with it. Brexit is inherently unworkable by its very nature. The small improvements won't be nearly enough for Rejoiners, will infuriate still-Leavers, and will barely move the dial on Britain's Brexit problems.

Related aside 4: Young voters who came of voting age since the referendum already break 86/14 in favour of Rejoin. By the time we get through a first Labour term, anyone under 32 will be overwhelmingly keen to re-enter the EU.

6. Meanwhile, Labour will also have to spend more and more and more to keep stuff from literally falling apart. Think sewers, water pipes, collapsing schools, crumbling hospitals. The legacy of Tory underinvestment has played havoc with already fragile infrastructure. Again, stern questions will be asked about where the money is coming from.

7. The rump of the Tory party, whatever's left after the GE wipeout, will sit on the sidelines laughing and jeering. "Typical Labour. Always spending money they don't have." They will point to every single broken thing, claiming they're all Labour's fault - and the RW media will amplify the message.

8. If they're very lucky, Labour will go into the GE-after-next with the overall situation in Britain slightly better than when they took office. We'll only be knee-deep in metaphoric (and maybe literal) sewage, rather than thigh-deep.

9. The Tories and RW press will continue their tag-teaming attacks. ("Same old Labour. Can't be trusted with the economy. Can't get anything working. Can't even fix Brexit, despite all their lofty promises.)

10. GE2: Electric Boogaloo.
Labour are stuck. The taunts about their flagship Make Brexit Work policy hit home - because they're true. And that lubricates the way for all the other lies the Tories and the RW media are spinning about them to slip down like honey.

If Labour pivot towards SM/CU/Rejoin to try to win GE2, they might as well tattoo "we wasted the last 5 years and prolonged the damage because we didn't know what the hell we were doing" on their foreheads. They may pivot anyway, because the alternative is even worse. This is where those bright red lines (remember them?) will come back to bite them in the fundament so hard, they won't be able to sit down for a month. The press will scream "U-turn" and again it will be absolutely true: a U-turn so big, it's visible from the Moon.

Related aside 5: There's no Get the Tories Out vote in GE2. Why? Because they're already out. The impetus to keep them out won't win over disgruntled voters who already lent their votes to Labour once with gritted teeth, despite Labour not doing what they wanted on things like Brexit and PR.

11. Labour lose GE2. A one-term wonder, and they're done. The Tories do what they do best: they blame all Britain's ills on Labour, and start wrecking the country afresh with a clean slate. Heck, they're still bleating about the "No money left" letter today, so we know exactly how this stuff plays out.

Related aside 6: From the standpoint of history, being PM is perhaps 100x more important than being Leader of the Opposition. A place in posterity for eternity is the grand prize that even very rich people can't buy (though their wealth can certainly help towards attaining it). So Keir Starmer won't be nearly as disappointed as you might imagine. If he makes it a full term, that's already longer than May, Johnson, Truss (!) and Sunak managed. His standing is assured. Put another way: his incentives are not our incentives.

12. Another ruinous decade or so of Tory rule. (We know how hard it is for Labour to win. They need the Tories to mess up so badly that a tide of outrage carries them over the finish line. That tide is unlikely to rise again over a term dominated by constant reminders of "Labour's failings" playing out 24/7 in the RW press and on RW TV and radio.)

Deep breath. Have a coffee and a biscuit. You've earned them. We've seen the problem. Now it's time to tackle the solution.

Scroll back up through the scenario above. Notice how Brexit runs through it, like a vein pumping poison.

That's why Labour need to change their fundamental attitude towards Brexit, and they need to do it now - not just before the GE.

Stop ruling things out. Not saying you won't do something isn't the same as saying you will do it. Read the previous sentence a few times - it does make sense. Think along the lines of "Labour will do whatever it takes to mitigate the damage Brexit is causing Britain". The actual message can be polished by the pros. It's the intent that matters. Without the red lines on SM/CU/Rejoin, anything becomes possible.

By making the change now, it blunts the moaning in the media. Why? Because it dilutes the impact of the u-turn over a year or more, rather than concentrating it into the last month of intense scrutiny just before the GE.

The other vital ingredient is PR.

Simply put, PR is the only hope we have of achieving any sort of long-term stability.

Why? Because many of the problems Britain faces will take 2, 3, 4+ election cycles to fix. And they need fixing. But the only conceivable way of unlocking the time to fix them is to form long-term partnerships in the national interest. In other words, PR.

PR rids us of the short-termism mindset that has dragged Britain down for decades. Though the exact balance in Parliament will change from GE to GE, even under PR, a coalition will almost certain be possible without involving the Tories or other RW parties. It is better to have a share of power forever than absolute power for a few years before the other lot come in and undo everything you worked towards.

Related aside 7: Don't think of GEs in terms of a 5-year cycle. When the party in power changes, their first year is spent trying to pick through the mess and understand what's going on. And the final year of every 5-year cycle is focused on the next GE. So there are really only ever 4 (and more often 3) years of actual governing possible under FPTP in every 5-year election cycle.

Summary: Labour needs to adopt a completely different attitude to Brexit (stop ruling stuff out, and make the change now) and move to introduce PR.

Phew, we're very nearly done. Congratulations on making it this far.

In parting: You may disagree with what you just read. You probably will. But please take a big step back and evaluate whether your disagreement is because it's just too horrible to think about the real world in the stark terms I painted above. Also, please consider whether your support for a particular party is blinding you to the reality of what they can hope to achieve in a short 5-year (really 3) period in office.

Thanks for your interest, and have a great day.

(P.S. If you found the above interesting, please RT to share this with others.)

[NHS @NHSuk]

Don't worry about getting us a birthday card to celebrate #NHS75...

Instead, we'll be more than happy with you getting an organ donor card for registering to become a donor for the first time.

Confirm your organ donation decision today

❤️ https://t.co/6CaXmcHhh3

[London Review of Books @LRB]

‘At the Seed Vault’s tenth anniversary celebrations, water had to be pumped out of its foyers after another warmest month on record melted the permafrost that was the whole reason the vault had been built in Longyearbyen.’

Sam Kinchin-Smith on Svalbard:

https://t.co/Zef0wO6P44

[Historic England @HistoricEngland]

This simple Norman church, St Mary's in Kempley, Gloucestershire, contains some of England's best-preserved medieval wall paintings.

Those in the chancel are particularly rare, from the early 12th century, and are the most complete set of Romanesque frescos in northern Europe.

[Jack D 🏳️‍🌈 @JackDunc1]

Everyone has noticed how the anti-trans mob are now openly coming for absolutely anyone and anything LGB too right? We all knew it would happen but the speed is unreal.

Same reason you see so much racism from them too. They are just bog standard fascists. #PrideMonth

[Caroline Lucas @CarolineLucas]

“Inflation has been caused by corporate profiteering, not wage increases. The OECD looked at whether workers, business or governments had contributed most to inflation, & data revealed in the UK business was most to blame”. Spot on ⁦@OwenJones84⁩ 👇 https://t.co/FC7n3fAAIU

[Dr Liz O'Riordan @Liz_ORiordan]

Do you really know how to examine your breasts? Let me teach you how a breast surgeon does it and show you what a breast cancer feels like 👇 https://t.co/QD1EjSxz1a

Please share this with everyone you know, and subscribe to my YouTube channel so you don’t miss my next video

[OUTpatients 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @OUTpatientsUK]

Our Founder was on Not Your Grandma's Cancer Show again for @Shinecancersupp with with @TatumDeRoeck and @diddyscott! Check it out.

#LTTcancer #lgbtqia #cancer #cancerawareness #CancerSupport
#CancerCommunity #CancerAwareness #Community #sex #queersex #sexwithcancer

[Philip Pullman @PhilipPullman]

That Jeremy Clarkson can write things like that, and publish them unashamed, tells us all we need to know about the way Rupert Murdoch has poisoned and rotted our public life.

[Tony Whitehouse @Whitehouse_ICU]

I have watched in dismay the managed deterioration of the #NHS and public services.

The consequences for the UK aren't, in my view, about private healthcare or not, they are about whether there will be any healthcare at all for all but the rich.

Here's why... 🧵 1/n

[Bradshaw Foundation @BradshawFND]

@LeeRberger team find widespread use of controlled fire for light & cooking in the Rising Star Cave System, attributed most likely to the small-brained ancient hominin species #Homonaledi https://t.co/l7OSWIwqps

[Tom Jones @Baddogonline]

@ThereAreNoStars @LeeRberger Here's a talk he gave the other day. He found fire pits at the opening of every chamber, coal, ash, soot, and burnt animal bones. More will be definite in a few years when all the soil can be studied and after carbon dating. https://t.co/ykZ42AtzeI

[Lee R Berger @LeeRberger]

https://t.co/c8I5GXelRa

[ge🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @drgeorgiarivers]

I'm recruiting participants to be involved in my PhD project on cervical screening for trans+ people! Please click this link https://t.co/SpY1SraTx4 for more information. Feel free to contact me via DM or email ([email protected]) to ask any questions. Thank you🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

[Rowland Manthorpe @rowlsmanthorpe]

And here’s my long read, which goes more into the daily reality of long covid and the simple things that can make a big difference
https://t.co/rvLv8qpkII

[Rowland Manthorpe @rowlsmanthorpe]

Here’s the film I made about this experience. Watch till the end! I promise it will be worth it
https://t.co/8mmbTZlcBM

[Vagina Museum @vagina_museum]

Since it's #InternationalMensDay, here's a thread of every part of the gynaecological anatomy that is named after a man, with a bit of trivia about each man. Some of the bits are very specific. Before you ask, there are no parts of the gynaecological anatomy named after women...