Sam Gramann

In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey.

[England Cricket @englandcricket]

T20 World Cup opening act confirmed 😍

Wicked is the opening act for our first match of the World Cup on the 12th June 🧙‍♀️

[England and Wales Cricket Board @ECB_cricket]

🧹✨From West End to world stage.

We’re thrilled to announce that @WickedUK will open the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2026 at Edgbaston on 12 June, ahead of England v Sri Lanka.

For one night only, the magic of Wicked meets the drama of world-class cricket 💚🏏

🎟️ https://t.co/jp7g2OnuIB

[Sam Gramann @samgramann]

@jonoblain Barking up the wrong…..Never mind.

[Anders Åslund @anders_aslund]

I might be overoptimistic, but it does appear as if Trump has just lost it:
1. His war of choice against Iran is an obvious disaster.
2. Trump does not know how to get out of this war, so he is stupidly escalating without chance of victory.
3. Trump has alienated all countries in the world with the exception of Israel.
4. Trump has blown up NATO & other US alliances & even with Saudi Arabia.
5. By prompting Iran to block the Strait of Hormuz, Trump has caused tremendous damage to the global economy.
6. Trump has nothing to offer the US, just cutting benefits. We are waiting for the recession caused by his war on iran.
7. He has started sacking his most loyal appointees because they are also the most incompetent. This is likely to continue.
8. Trump has put the US army in an Iranian quagmire that is likely to get much worse as competent generals protest and resign.
Trump = an incompetent & despicable US alone.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

I've signed. This is an unethical experiment on children who can't give meaningful consent.
https://t.co/zHvzVIyq7g

[Emma Hilton @FondOfBeetles]

Every girl deserves a fair chance in sports. Developing a rapid, low-cost sex screening method can protect women’s categories and promote equality. Your support can make this vision a reality. Please share and consider donating to help fund this crucial research! https://t.co/OFgRxEcqsW

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

This government tells us in one breath that it wants to stamp out misogyny, and in the next that it will be fighting in the Supreme Court to remove women’s and girls’ rights to single-sex spaces.

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

A fan caught a baseball that was thrown into the stands, but decided to give it to a child.

Just a few minutes later, this happened...

[Kathleen Stock @Docstockk]

Wrote for @unherd about signs of collapse in gender ideology, and how some philosophers are attempting to hold back the tide. https://t.co/rEKoro0Czs

[All The Right Movies @ATRightMovies]

BACK TO THE FUTURE was released 40 years ago today. One of the most beloved movies of the 1980s, and the film that made Michael J. Fox a movie star, the behind the scenes story is pretty heavy…

1/45

[All The Right Movies @ATRightMovies]

JAWS was released 50 years ago today. Regarded the first summer blockbuster and a landmark of Hollywood, the making of story is so crazy it begs the question of how it was ever made…

1/47

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Before vs after the vaccines introduction

[Miguel Delaney @MiguelDelaney]

Qatar win the European Cup. An absurd sentence, but a farce of a match, that was an exhibition of superior power - in multiple senses

The record scoreline symbolised the scale of football's issues

You can be happy for Luis Enrique and concerned for this

https://t.co/Y68zX4nLZL

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

In light of recent open letters from academia and the arts criticising the UK's Supreme Court ruling on sex-based rights, it's possibly worth remembering that nobody sane believes, or has ever believed, that humans can change sex, or that binary sex isn't a material fact. These letters do nothing but remind us of what we know only too well: that pretending to believe these things has become an elitist badge of virtue.

I often wonder whether the signatories of such letters have to quieten their consciences before publicly boosting a movement intent on removing women's and girls' rights, which bullies gay people who admit openly they don't want opposite sex partners, and campaigns for the continued sterilisation of vulnerable and troubled kids. Do they feel any qualms at all while chanting the foundational lie of their religion: Trans Women are Women, Trans Men are Men?

I have no idea. All I know for sure is that it's a complete waste of time telling a gender activist that their favourite slogan is self-contradictory nonsense, because the lie is the whole point. They're not repeating it because it's true - they know full well it's not true - but because they believe they can make it true, sort of, if they force everyone else to agree. The foundational lie functions as both catechism and crucifix: the set form of words that obviates the tedious necessity of coming up with your own explanation of why you're one of the Godly, and an exorcist's weapon which will defeat demonic facts and reason, and promote the advance of righteous pseudoscience and sophistry.

Some argue that signatories of these sorts of letters are motivated by fear: fear for their careers, of course, but also fear of their co-religionists, who include angry, narcissistic men who threaten and sometimes enact violence on non-believers; back-stabbing colleagues ever ready to report wrongthink; the online shamers and doxxers and rape threateners, and, of course, the influential zealots in the upper echelons of liberal professions (though we can quibble whether they're actually liberal at all, given the draconian authoritarianism that seems to have engulfed so many). Gender ideology could give medieval Catholicism a run for its money when it comes to punishing heretics, so isn't it common sense to keep your head down and recite your Hail Mulvaneys?

But before we start feeling too sorry for any cowed and fearful TWAWites who're TERFy on the sly, let's not forget what a high proportion of them have willingly snatched up pitchforks and torches to join the inquisitional purges. Call me lacking in proper womanly sympathy, but I find the harm they've enabled and in some cases directly championed or funded - the hounding and shaming of vulnerable women, the forced loss of livelihoods, the unregulated medical experiment on minors - tends to dry up my tears at source.

History is littered with the debris of irrational and harmful belief systems that once seemed unassailable. As Orwell said, 'Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.' Gender ideology may have embedded itself deeply into our institutions, where it's been imposed, top-down, on the supposedly unenlightened, but it is not invulnerable.

Court losses are starting to stack up. The condescension, overreach, entitlement and aggression of gender activists is eroding public support daily. Women are fighting back and winning significant victories. Sporting bodies have miraculously awoken from their slumber and remembered that males tend to be larger, stronger and faster than females. Parts of the medical establishment are questioning cutting healthy breasts off teenaged girls is really the best way to fix their mental health problems.

One seemingly harmless little white lie - Trans Women are Women, Trans Men are Men - uttered in most cases without any real thought at all, and a few short years later, people who think of themselves as supremely virtuous are typing 'yes, rapists' pronouns are absolutely the hill I'll die on,' rubbing shoulders with those who call for women to be hanged and decapitated for wanting all-female rape crisis centres, and furiously denying clear and mounting evidence of the greatest medical scandal in a century.

I wonder if they ever ask themselves how they got here, and I wonder whether any of them will ever feel shame.

[Helen Joyce @HJoyceGender]

This is just one instance of the catastrophic miseducation of our youth. Young people have been taught pernicious falsehoods in university for the past 20 years, and unsurprisingly some of them believe those lies and are bringing them into workplaces. Buckle up...

[Sam Gramann @samgramann]

First tweet in ages. Some things are worth the wait….🏆

[Sam Gramann @samgramann]

Oh, will you stop going on about Benjamin Netanyahu, you’re never going to meet him.

[Sky News @SkyNews]

BREAKING: Benjamin Netanyahu is to present a ceasefire deal to his Israeli cabinet

⬇️ Read more
https://t.co/1NUpWI9M9V

[Sam Gramann @samgramann]

🤯

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

In 1951, Adelbert Ames created the mind-boggling ‘Ames Window’. It’s so effective that even when you know how it works you can’t break the illusion

[📹 The Curiosity Show]

[Nicole Lampert @nicolelampert]

That the Guardian has an antisemitism problem is no secret. But it’s rare that a writer for the organisation would be so explicit. Bravo to @jayrayner1 who has spoken out now he’s left:

Writing on Facebook, Rayner wrote: “I'm not sorry to be leaving Guardian newspapers. For years now being Jewish, however non-observant, and working for the company has been uncomfortable, at times excruciating.
"Viner likes to deny it but there are antisemites on the daily's staff and she has not had the courage to face them down. For years now I have made a point of sending her a back channel email each time the Guardian has published another outrage. It will be a joy to know that I'm not a part of that anymore.”

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

🧵on the deliberate suppression of information about the known, potential and inadequately researched consequences of puberty blockers 👇