Notices by RolloTreadway (rollotreadway@beige.party), page 2

@RickiTarr Nihilists can find joy in big sandwich.
Hedonists can find joy in big sandwich.
Anarchists can find joy in big sandwich.
Satanists can find joy in big sandwich.

Big sandwich unites us all.

Went to the library! Walked out with some books!

Also, the pride display in the library has Trans Britain: Our Long Journey from the Shadows by @christineburns placed very prominently, which was nice to see.

This amendment has PASSED. 379 votes to 137.

The further amendment with wider reforms will not now be voted on (the two were contradictory, so one passing means the other must fall).

The result of this will not be immediate, the Crime and Policing Bill still has stages to go through, but it will pass in due course. Possibly before the summer recess. As the Bill (which covers many many things, not just abortion) is important Government legislation, it will not be delayed any more than is strictly necessary within the normal Parliamentary processes.

This is a big day. No more will people who have had miscarriages be harassed by police and forced to prove that they didn't have an illegal abortion. No more will people who had legal abortions be harassed and forced to prove that it was indeed legal. No more will people who believed they were having legal abortions, who broke a technical rule through no fault of their own, be harassed, investigated, prosecuted, convicted.

I hope that we can go on from this and have the wholesale reform of abortion law that is needed. But for right now, the persecution of people who are or have recently been pregnant will end, and that is to be welcomed greatly.

#UKPol #abortion

The house has divided to vote on the first of the amendments, which simply removes all threat of prosecution (and by extension, investigation, police harassment etc) from all people who are/have been pregnant, on any matter relating to their pregnancy.

This would not affect anything else in relation to abortion. It would only ensure that the pregnant person cannot face any criminal charge if they have failed (or are suspected to have failed, accused of having failed, etc) to stay within the strict regulatory bounds of our abortion law.

In practice, no more prosecution or police investigations for people who were attempting to have a wholly legal abortion, who believed they were having a wholly legal abortion, who broke one of those rules through no fault of their own. It also would mean no more prosecution and harassment of people who have miscarried, and who are accused by police of having an illegal abortion.



There are arguments in favour of both this amendment and the other one that may come later (which would introduce much more sweeping reforms in addition to the core principle). Whichever is the ideal amendment, I'm very nervous that neither will pass.

#UKPol #abortion

Morning. Woke in the middle of the night certain that someone was in my house, they were supposed to be here, I was supposed to be doing... something? with them. I panicked and yelled my apologies and hurriedly got dressed and went downstairs. At which point I realised that, no, nobody is here, why would they be? What would they be doing? But it seemed so certain and clear that they, whoever they were, were waiting for me and I'd rudely gone to bed.

Anyway, hope you're all well.

@skinnylatte Is that making screensavers of fish, or making screensavers for fish? It's both, isn't it?

This week's #ThursdayFiveList theme is #HighCamp. So here are five fabulous songs - and I've resisted the temptation to just go 100% Eurovision. I've only gone 40% Eurovision. Which I feel is quite restrained.

I. Jordan ft. Felix Mufti - Real Hot n Naughty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P0UGqsItlA

Conchita Wurst - Rise Like a Phoenix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaolVEJEjV4

The Magnetic Fields - Long Forgotten Fairytale
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX2mca5whac

Little Richard - Tutti Frutti
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SlOj_-_rTI

Cezar - It's My Life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV3xp5ZXSYA


I realise that there are many videos of Little Richard significantly more camp than that one. But I still wanted to include it, partly because it's Little Richard and even in a suit and tie, Little Richard was relentlessly fabulous. And partly because the original lyrics to Tutti Frutti (which Little Richard used to play live, but were toned down somewhat for commercial release), went:

Tutti Frutti, good booty
If it don't fit, don't force it
You can grease it, make it easy

and I think we can toast Little Richard as the true pioneer of being wildly gay in pop music.

I made it through the day. It was difficult and I'm very done in. But apart from one very small request early this morning, nobody has piled extra work on me.

I do feel unwell again though. It's been far too much. Maybe watching Eurovision tonight can help me.

I want to say a few things, after having read the Supreme Court judgement on the characteristic of sex in the Equality Act.

Firstly, that my heart and all support I have goes to all trans/enby/other people here and elsewhere. No doubt, a great many arseholes will misunderstand this decision, and I am very aware that pointing out that their behaviour remains wrong in law and potentially criminal will not alleviate that pain. Transphobes are always wrong; that they have a new way to be wrong helps nobody, and only causes more pain. I wish I could ease that pain, and know that I stand with all trans/enby/other people in any effort to ease that pain.

It has been the case since time immemorial that two problems dog our judicial system at all levels: that having the money to pay for better lawyers can distort decisions, and that the judiciary - especially at senior levels - is dreadfully lacking in diversity. I felt that latter point especially when reading the claim in the judgement that MPs and Parliamentary drafters could not possibly have been mistaken or ill-informed when considering the rights and needs of trans people; it's clearly the case in 2025 that many MPs and Parliamentary drafters do not much understand trans rights issues, and it would have been even more so a decade and a half ago, when the Equality Act was being drafted and debated in Parliament.

However, many people who might read this - in the UK and elsewhere - will have little or no familiarity with this country's judiciary, and I want to clarify a point the repeatedly comes up in regard to legal rights:

This is not the US, and regardless of the dominance of the US on social media, its constitutional quirks are not widely repeated. The UK Supreme Court is not an activist court. It does not have conservative judges and liberal judges. It does not have judges appointed on the whim of a temporary political leader. Its judges are appointed by representatives of panels which appoint to lower courts (plus two existing members of the Supreme Court), which themselves are a mix of various legal professionals and lay people. I feel it is essential to make clear that this is not, as it would be in the US, a matter of right-wing judges appointed by right-wing politicians to make right-wing decisions.

It is a matter of poorly written law, which Parliament will one day seek to revise and clarify. As I've said, I disagree with a fundamental part of the decision because I disagree with the assumption that Parliament was adequately informed and competent at the time of the Equality Act; without that assumption, I don't believe it would be possible to reach the Court's conclusion. Others may feel it would still be a possible conclusion, I claim no professional expertise.

But it is still a matter of how the law is worded, and how Parliament may seek to amend the law in future.

This is important because it must guide action. MPs are in the decisive position. Parliament could, if it wished, pass an Act tomorrow to guarantee trans rights (unlike other countries, the right of Parliament in the UK to pass and enforce an Act explicitly negating a Supreme Court decision is effectively unlimited, as seen in last year's absurd political actions regarding the safety or otherwise of Rwanda).

But we all know it will not do so, we all know there is not a majority in Parliament in favour of greater and more explicit legal protections for trans people. Activism must focus on changing that balance through persuasion and education. Write to your MP. Protest. Support and/or join groups campaigning for legal recognition of trans rights. If it's relevant and viable where you are (which of course it isn't in many places, but I shan't go on a rant about electoral reform just now), consider how your vote could change the Parliamentary balance. Don't bother with effing online petitions, they do more harm than good.

There will be a time (either at the back end of this Parliament, or - I'd suggest more likely - not long after the next election) when Parliament does seek to amend the Equality Act. Its own commission recommends doing so, and I believe that we can certainly read the later paragraphs of this judgement as further encouragement in that direction. This battle will come. Be ready.

But also remember this, as many will in the coming days weeks and months try to persuade you otherwise:

The decision today affects a very narrow range of circumstances, beyond those covered by existing legal provisions. It is not a wide-ranging judgement, even if transphobic media try to pretend that it is.

The right of all trans people, whatever their circumstances, to be free of discrimination and harassment remains unchanged. Being trans remains a protected characteristic under the Equality Act. Trans people cannot be excluded on a whim (and the status of toilets and changing facilities is not altered by this decision, as - contrary to what transphobes believe - the sign on a toilet has never been a matter of law in the UK, except as regards adequate provision of disabled toilets).

It is also true, and clearly iterated in the judgement, that discrimination on the grounds of sex as a protected characteristic continues to be based on the discriminator's *perception*; if a trans person is discriminated against or harassed based on the discriminator perceiving them as being male or female (regardless of the trans person's identity), that remains an offence.

I say this not to diminish the harm and pain caused by this judgement, both in its specific application, and more significantly, in the cultural impact and effective encouragement of transphobia. I say this as a reminder that those legal protections still exist, and there are far more circumstances in which a trans woman's right to be treated as a woman is guaranteed, than there are circumstances affected by the decision. Transphobes will seek to argue otherwise. They are wrong. Do not believe, as they want you to believe, that trans people are now unprotected from discrimination and harassment.

And believe me when I say that I remain in awe of your strength and humanity, and that I continue to believe that your strength and humanity will win out in the end.

Occasional reminder, seeing as it's #InternationalAsexualityDay, and people sometimes get confused about this:

Asexual people are not necessarily aromantic
Aromantic people are not necessarily asexual

Some asexual people are also aromantic, and some aren't, and some are fluid in one or both regards

Some asexual people enjoy sex in the right circumstances, some don't
Some aromantic people enjoy being in a relationship in the right circumstances, some don't

All these people are valid and cool people!

@icedquinn Most countries manage just fine with having rules that control money in politics and consequences for breaching those rules. I'm sorry that the US has political courts that don't want such rules to exist.

Whatever sentence may emerge, whatever may happen on appeal (I'm assuming there's a right to appeal, perhaps wrongly, I know nothing about the French judicial system), I still want to congratulate France because - if nothing else - there's a willingness to see 'using excessive money to distort elections' as a bad thing that should be stopped.

We could all do with more of that attitude, I think.

Okay, having looked into it a bit more thoroughly: beta.argyle.social is full of copied accounts, exact - save for the lack of pictures - and I presume unconsenting copies of real people and organisations who have accounts elsewhere on fedi.

All the accounts appear to have lots of follows and followers, because they all follow each other.

You might want to look to see if there's an account in your name on that server? Although I'm not sure what you can do about it if there is.

There's also an alpha.argyle.social and a gamma.argyle.social - no other Greek letters as far as I can see.

Whatever it is, it's dodgy as hell and worth blocking the instances entirely.

Every tv show should come with an option to explain who everyone is, what they previously did, and what happened in the past, in case you forgot. Because I always forget.

If some bloke walks into the scene and the main character suddenly looks unhappy, I want to be able to click a button and it says 'this is Bob, the main character's ex-husband, who had an affair in s01e03. As a direct result of this, the main character was in a car crash which led to the death of a harmless old lady and a secret crack addiction.'

@RickiTarr One of the most remarkable things about Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy is that she managed to make a coherent story, despite the fact that all the male characters are called Thomas, Edward or Henry, and all the female characters are Elizabeth, Anne or Mary.

@TheBreadmonkey I know this is a bit niche and parochial, but from personal experience, I have felt like it's a good comparison: using fedi instead of the big corporate social media is like supporting your local non-league football club.

You're not one of millions of people all talking about the same kind of thing. You don't have a vast audience with which to say celebratory things when it all goes well or sympathetic things when it doesn't.

People don't care about your club. Many don't know it exists. It's not visible, it's not prominent, it's not conveniently accessible through every possible medium. Things go wrong, quite often, and you have to expect that as part of your lot in life. Nothing is ever entirely easy.

But what you get in return from supporting your local non-league club is a community that genuinely cares about you and wants to be your friend. You get a club that sees you as a human being, who are glad you're there, who value your opinion, who want you to be happy. If you're not happy, you won't be alone, and if you protest then you're not easy to ignore. The people running the club are probably just ordinary locals who care and don't mind wasting their time and money.

You don't get exploited as purely a commercial resource. You're not lost and irrelevant among millions of identical customers. You don't have to worry about funding a murderous dictatorship or a monstrous capitalist. When people complain about everything that's wrong with modern football, they don't mean you.

And sometimes, you get a degree of joy that people who attach themselves to Liverpool or Man City etc will never experience: the joy of seeing the little guy achieve way beyond expectations, and actually being part of that.

@dalias @ChrisMayLA6 No. By all means, blame the right-wing media for spending generations stoking the flames - of course that's true.

But you can't simply pretend that it doesn't exist. You can't simply ignore how a lot of people genuinely feel because you feel differently. That would only lead to the problem growing out of control.

@ChrisMayLA6 Anti-immigration sentiment usually rises in line with inequality and weakened public services. The answer is to combat the causes, not the symptoms.

With South Korean President Yoon having been narrowly elected thanks to the votes he got from incels and misogynists, then turning out to be - surprise! - a terrible president who tried to launch a coup yesterday, and with similar leaders being much the same in other countries too: is it time we stopped giving men the vote? Perhaps the male brain is just too emotional and irrational to understand the important issues.