Fergus Murray
@fergus.oolong.co.uk
Monotropic writer, science tutor, Autistic community organiser and independent researcher. Based in Edinburgh.
they/them.
https://linktr.ee/0olong
they/them.
https://linktr.ee/0olong
Pinned
Fergus Murray
@fergus.oolong.co.uk
· Jan 24
Hi everyone!
I'm Fergus Murray. I'm a science person, writer of nonfiction, and #Autistic community organiser (Chair of @amasedin.bsky.social). Also #ADHD, but I often just say I'm monotropic.
I'm here to post and learn more about #neurodiversity, politics, science, language and other things.
I'm Fergus Murray. I'm a science person, writer of nonfiction, and #Autistic community organiser (Chair of @amasedin.bsky.social). Also #ADHD, but I often just say I'm monotropic.
I'm here to post and learn more about #neurodiversity, politics, science, language and other things.
I thought I might make a pinned thread of my threads here (some of which are effectively photo albums) starting with this long Introductory thread:
bsky.app/profile/ferg...
bsky.app/profile/ferg...
Reposted by Fergus Murray
‘Starmer hopes lifting the 2-child cap will cheer up his unhappy MPs’
Not lift families out of poverty
Not help the poor and vulnerable
Not improve people’s lives
CHEER UP HIS UNHAPPY MPS
Not lift families out of poverty
Not help the poor and vulnerable
Not improve people’s lives
CHEER UP HIS UNHAPPY MPS
In September, HuffPost UK revealed Starmer had decided the 2-child benefit cap must go.
One MP says: “It’s a recognition that we need to show some kind of progressive inclination, and presumably to try and cool the leadership talk.”
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/amp/entry/st...
One MP says: “It’s a recognition that we need to show some kind of progressive inclination, and presumably to try and cool the leadership talk.”
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/amp/entry/st...
Starmer Hopes Lifting The 2-Child Benefit Cap Will Cheer Up His Unhappy MPs. But Is It Too Late?
The prime minister is being urged by his allies to use his Labour conference speech to "draw a line" over recent controversies.
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk
November 11, 2025 at 11:47 AM
‘Starmer hopes lifting the 2-child cap will cheer up his unhappy MPs’
Not lift families out of poverty
Not help the poor and vulnerable
Not improve people’s lives
CHEER UP HIS UNHAPPY MPS
Not lift families out of poverty
Not help the poor and vulnerable
Not improve people’s lives
CHEER UP HIS UNHAPPY MPS
Reposted by Fergus Murray
Was having a conversation recently about these people and how they have to believe they are right. They truly believe history will laud. They couldn't do what they do if they believed anything else.
I came across a clip from yesterday from LBC of John Sopel and Emily Maitlis talking to Shelagh Fogarty about what's happening at the BBC and they all conceded the complainant DID have a point about the BBC's pro-trans bias and it was just three people being transphobic for a couple of minutes.
Emily Maitlis admitting she worked at the bbc to try and get healthcare for trans people shut down
November 11, 2025 at 8:55 AM
Was having a conversation recently about these people and how they have to believe they are right. They truly believe history will laud. They couldn't do what they do if they believed anything else.
Reposted by Fergus Murray
A radio programme like the Shipping Forecast but it’s called Bin Day and it just reads out every single council in the country’s bin schedule
November 10, 2025 at 11:53 PM
A radio programme like the Shipping Forecast but it’s called Bin Day and it just reads out every single council in the country’s bin schedule
Reposted by Fergus Murray
Wow: Per Hamdi's legal team, his only charge was a visa overstay — after Trump revoked his visa.
Despite DHS tweeting that Hamdi supported terrorism, they never charged him with any criminality.
In other words: Trump revoked a journalist's visa, so agents could arrest him for overstaying his visa.
Despite DHS tweeting that Hamdi supported terrorism, they never charged him with any criminality.
In other words: Trump revoked a journalist's visa, so agents could arrest him for overstaying his visa.
NEW: British journalist Sami Hamdi is being released from US detention.
Trump administration agents detained him two weeks ago at the San Francisco airport — hours after he addressed an event, where he urged US leaders to take an “America First” approach rather than “Israel First.”
Trump administration agents detained him two weeks ago at the San Francisco airport — hours after he addressed an event, where he urged US leaders to take an “America First” approach rather than “Israel First.”
November 10, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Wow: Per Hamdi's legal team, his only charge was a visa overstay — after Trump revoked his visa.
Despite DHS tweeting that Hamdi supported terrorism, they never charged him with any criminality.
In other words: Trump revoked a journalist's visa, so agents could arrest him for overstaying his visa.
Despite DHS tweeting that Hamdi supported terrorism, they never charged him with any criminality.
In other words: Trump revoked a journalist's visa, so agents could arrest him for overstaying his visa.
When Labour came into office, the BBC had been thoroughly toryfied, for years.
They must have known that in the state it was in, a lot of the people who'd once have defended it wouldn't much care any more.
Did they not care either? Did they want it to die?
Or are they just blithely incompetent?
They must have known that in the state it was in, a lot of the people who'd once have defended it wouldn't much care any more.
Did they not care either? Did they want it to die?
Or are they just blithely incompetent?
I do not understand the Labour government's reticence over defending the BBC and social media regulation. Their long-term survival basically depends on it. Their cowardice in the face of it may be the single thing they are most remembered for.
on.ft.com/3JVxC1Z via @FT
on.ft.com/3JVxC1Z via @FT
BBC faces ‘existential’ threat after exit of top executives
Broadcaster’s deepest crisis in recent history comes amid fresh questions over its future role in British society
on.ft.com
November 11, 2025 at 8:58 AM
When Labour came into office, the BBC had been thoroughly toryfied, for years.
They must have known that in the state it was in, a lot of the people who'd once have defended it wouldn't much care any more.
Did they not care either? Did they want it to die?
Or are they just blithely incompetent?
They must have known that in the state it was in, a lot of the people who'd once have defended it wouldn't much care any more.
Did they not care either? Did they want it to die?
Or are they just blithely incompetent?
Reposted by Fergus Murray
As with the EHRC, I think there has been a deliberate wrecking strategy, where there first stage (now pretty much complete in both cases) is to corrupt the organisation to the extent that the people who would defended it the hardest instead see it as irretrievably broken.
November 11, 2025 at 8:08 AM
As with the EHRC, I think there has been a deliberate wrecking strategy, where there first stage (now pretty much complete in both cases) is to corrupt the organisation to the extent that the people who would defended it the hardest instead see it as irretrievably broken.
Reposted by Fergus Murray
✨ A Sprinkle of JoyousJoyness ✨
So SMOL.
Have a JoyousJoyfulJoyness day!
#happy #kangaroo #australia #animal #smol #cute #joyousjoyness #repost
So SMOL.
Have a JoyousJoyfulJoyness day!
#happy #kangaroo #australia #animal #smol #cute #joyousjoyness #repost
November 10, 2025 at 10:01 PM
✨ A Sprinkle of JoyousJoyness ✨
So SMOL.
Have a JoyousJoyfulJoyness day!
#happy #kangaroo #australia #animal #smol #cute #joyousjoyness #repost
So SMOL.
Have a JoyousJoyfulJoyness day!
#happy #kangaroo #australia #animal #smol #cute #joyousjoyness #repost
Reposted by Fergus Murray
Nobody resigned over this...
November 10, 2025 at 8:09 PM
Nobody resigned over this...
Reposted by Fergus Murray
The only measures the Labour party have taken are actively harmful to trans youth: the puberty blocker ban, further healthcare restrictions introducing a new trans-only s 28 in schools, still no ban on conversion therapy, exponentially growing waiting lists, the supreme court horrorshow...
What other measures?
And how do those children typically access the media they've been radicalised by? 🤔
Measures like this are not intended *instead of* measures to keep trans kids and adults safer, but they're not at odds with those objectives either.
Measures like this are not intended *instead of* measures to keep trans kids and adults safer, but they're not at odds with those objectives either.
November 10, 2025 at 7:24 PM
The only measures the Labour party have taken are actively harmful to trans youth: the puberty blocker ban, further healthcare restrictions introducing a new trans-only s 28 in schools, still no ban on conversion therapy, exponentially growing waiting lists, the supreme court horrorshow...
Reposted by Fergus Murray
As much as we love & support & fight for her rights, as cis parents we will never truly, fully understand. Thats why we listen to her, but also to trans adults who have been where our daughter is and how we can better support her. 2/
November 10, 2025 at 7:04 PM
As much as we love & support & fight for her rights, as cis parents we will never truly, fully understand. Thats why we listen to her, but also to trans adults who have been where our daughter is and how we can better support her. 2/
Reposted by Fergus Murray
There was a time when I'd have cared deeply about the BBC.
But they adopted a deliberate policy of kowtowing to the right, backing away from every fight, believing compliance would protect the license fee, and the right would leave them alone.
Stand up to bullies, or get knocked down by reality.
But they adopted a deliberate policy of kowtowing to the right, backing away from every fight, believing compliance would protect the license fee, and the right would leave them alone.
Stand up to bullies, or get knocked down by reality.
November 10, 2025 at 5:34 PM
There was a time when I'd have cared deeply about the BBC.
But they adopted a deliberate policy of kowtowing to the right, backing away from every fight, believing compliance would protect the license fee, and the right would leave them alone.
Stand up to bullies, or get knocked down by reality.
But they adopted a deliberate policy of kowtowing to the right, backing away from every fight, believing compliance would protect the license fee, and the right would leave them alone.
Stand up to bullies, or get knocked down by reality.
Reposted by Fergus Murray
When Rosie Duffield is in on it I think we can safely say the anti-phone campaign in Brianna's name is actively at odds with tackling transphobia
November 10, 2025 at 2:25 PM
When Rosie Duffield is in on it I think we can safely say the anti-phone campaign in Brianna's name is actively at odds with tackling transphobia
Reposted by Fergus Murray
End political appointments to the BBC.
Now.
We badly need a properly functioning BBC.
It is essential for our democracy.
Now.
We badly need a properly functioning BBC.
It is essential for our democracy.
But that is not enough. No.10 should never have been in a position to install Gibb in the first place. It shouldn't control the board membership, the DG appointment, or the purse strings. What's required is genuine independence for the BBC.
November 10, 2025 at 1:30 PM
End political appointments to the BBC.
Now.
We badly need a properly functioning BBC.
It is essential for our democracy.
Now.
We badly need a properly functioning BBC.
It is essential for our democracy.
Reposted by Fergus Murray
Move your physical books over to Blurb.
Create your own ebooks with free software.
Upload them to your own website.
Sell your own work and collect payment thru stripe.
Pay only for your hosting, the cost of printing and the standard card processing fee (3 or 4%)
I'll show you exactly how.
Create your own ebooks with free software.
Upload them to your own website.
Sell your own work and collect payment thru stripe.
Pay only for your hosting, the cost of printing and the standard card processing fee (3 or 4%)
I'll show you exactly how.
Writers, radicals, creative lovers of indpendence and integrity:
FUCK OFF WITH AMAZN ALREADY.
Stand for something jfc.
Independtly publish with Blurb and cut bezos out of your earnings entirely.
Live on your values and stick to it.
FUCK OFF WITH AMAZN ALREADY.
Stand for something jfc.
Independtly publish with Blurb and cut bezos out of your earnings entirely.
Live on your values and stick to it.
5 Reasons To Self-Publish With Blurb
Blurb is the self-publishing platform all writers deserve. The Blurb website easily guides you through how to self-publish.
ruthnineke.co
November 10, 2025 at 1:13 PM
Move your physical books over to Blurb.
Create your own ebooks with free software.
Upload them to your own website.
Sell your own work and collect payment thru stripe.
Pay only for your hosting, the cost of printing and the standard card processing fee (3 or 4%)
I'll show you exactly how.
Create your own ebooks with free software.
Upload them to your own website.
Sell your own work and collect payment thru stripe.
Pay only for your hosting, the cost of printing and the standard card processing fee (3 or 4%)
I'll show you exactly how.
Reposted by Fergus Murray
Look, at the point when your game of dress-up results in a month-long mystery around a robbery at the Louvre, I think it’s fair to say you’ve made your dream come true
Loving today's news that the mysterious "fedora man" outside the Louvre heist was actually a 15-year-old museum visitor who dresses like a 1940s French detective all the time, just because. apnews.com/article/louv...
Fedora man unmasked: Meet the teen behind the Louvre mystery photo
Fifteen-year-old Pedro Elias Garzon Delvaux has become an internet sensation after an Associated Press photo captured him outside the Louvre on the day of a crown jewels heist.
apnews.com
November 9, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Look, at the point when your game of dress-up results in a month-long mystery around a robbery at the Louvre, I think it’s fair to say you’ve made your dream come true
Reposted by Fergus Murray
Note that still in post at the BBC is Robbie Gibb, who helped set up GB News, and John McAndrew, formerly director of news and programmes at GB News.
November 10, 2025 at 5:56 AM
Note that still in post at the BBC is Robbie Gibb, who helped set up GB News, and John McAndrew, formerly director of news and programmes at GB News.
Reposted by Fergus Murray
Once every 20 years or so, the director-general of the BBC is forced to resign for being insufficiently rightwing. Alastair Milne in 1987. Greg Dyke in 2004. Tim Davie in 2025. The great irony is that the BBC was in all cases profoundly biased towards established power. But just not biased enough …
November 10, 2025 at 5:44 AM
Once every 20 years or so, the director-general of the BBC is forced to resign for being insufficiently rightwing. Alastair Milne in 1987. Greg Dyke in 2004. Tim Davie in 2025. The great irony is that the BBC was in all cases profoundly biased towards established power. But just not biased enough …
Reposted by Fergus Murray
One organisation said the MPs' "only crime was defending the commitment to social justice that our party was founded on"
leftfootforward.org/2025/11/labo...
leftfootforward.org/2025/11/labo...
Labour restores whip to four MPs who voted against welfare cuts
'There will always be disagreements in politics, what defines us is how we resolve them.'
leftfootforward.org
November 10, 2025 at 10:03 AM
One organisation said the MPs' "only crime was defending the commitment to social justice that our party was founded on"
leftfootforward.org/2025/11/labo...
leftfootforward.org/2025/11/labo...
Reposted by Fergus Murray
if you terfs actually spent time reading radical feminists instead of selectively quoting them you’d realise, very quickly, that ‘gender critical’ is just bigotry rooted in patriarchy.
here is catherine mackinnon:
here is catherine mackinnon:
![Much of the current debate has centered on (endlessly obsessed over, actually) whether trans women are women. Honestly, seeing “women” as a turf to be defended, as opposed to a set of imperatives and limitations to be criticized, challenged, changed, or transcended, has been pretty startling. One might think that trans women—assigned male at birth, leaving masculinity behind, drawn to and embracing womanhood for themselves—would be welcomed. Yet a group of philosophers purporting feminism slide sloppily from “female sex” through “feminine gender” straight to “women” as if no move has been made,[4] eventually reverting to the dictionary: a woman is an “adult human female.”[5] Defining women by biology—adult is biological age, human is biological species, female is biological sex—used to be criticized as biological essentialism. Those winging to the Right are thrilled by this putatively feminist reduction of women to female body parts, preferably chromosomes and reproductive apparatus, qualities chosen so that whatever is considered definitive of sex is not only physical but cannot be physically changed into.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:bcgtpezwhu5ynanpiezkmfim/bafkreigw3lotshdxaqfr6b42ttj2keuc4dywkwtbjag7fvnxlm5lonzr54@jpeg)
December 28, 2024 at 12:13 PM
if you terfs actually spent time reading radical feminists instead of selectively quoting them you’d realise, very quickly, that ‘gender critical’ is just bigotry rooted in patriarchy.
here is catherine mackinnon:
here is catherine mackinnon:
So I chaired a panel at Edinburgh's Radical Book Fair yesterday, about #WeirdPride and unruliness, with two fantastic queer, neurodivergent, nonbinary writers and activists: @acaciathorns.bsky.social and @cjdebarra.bsky.social.
I loved hearing their thoughts on this.
www.youtube.com/live/vTW_j-H...
I loved hearing their thoughts on this.
www.youtube.com/live/vTW_j-H...
November 9, 2025 at 8:34 PM
So I chaired a panel at Edinburgh's Radical Book Fair yesterday, about #WeirdPride and unruliness, with two fantastic queer, neurodivergent, nonbinary writers and activists: @acaciathorns.bsky.social and @cjdebarra.bsky.social.
I loved hearing their thoughts on this.
www.youtube.com/live/vTW_j-H...
I loved hearing their thoughts on this.
www.youtube.com/live/vTW_j-H...
Reposted by Fergus Murray
I knew it would take less than a day for a tiktok dj to make something.
November 5, 2025 at 12:13 PM
I knew it would take less than a day for a tiktok dj to make something.
Reposted by Fergus Murray
Sharing an upcoming publication with the chapter I co-authored with @fergus.oolong.co.uk
Embracing Monotropism and Flow
It Takes All Kinds of Minds: Fostering Neurodivergent Thriving at School
Ed. Rachael Davis @claruineill.bsky.social & @suereviews.bsky.social
www.routledge.com/It-Takes-All...
Embracing Monotropism and Flow
It Takes All Kinds of Minds: Fostering Neurodivergent Thriving at School
Ed. Rachael Davis @claruineill.bsky.social & @suereviews.bsky.social
www.routledge.com/It-Takes-All...
November 9, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Sharing an upcoming publication with the chapter I co-authored with @fergus.oolong.co.uk
Embracing Monotropism and Flow
It Takes All Kinds of Minds: Fostering Neurodivergent Thriving at School
Ed. Rachael Davis @claruineill.bsky.social & @suereviews.bsky.social
www.routledge.com/It-Takes-All...
Embracing Monotropism and Flow
It Takes All Kinds of Minds: Fostering Neurodivergent Thriving at School
Ed. Rachael Davis @claruineill.bsky.social & @suereviews.bsky.social
www.routledge.com/It-Takes-All...
Reposted by Fergus Murray
So a transphobe is threatening @northwestbylines.co.uk with defamation over this 100% accurate and factual piece of Journalism.
Support us by sharing it far and wide 🏳️⚧️
northwestbylines.co.uk/news/equalit...
Support us by sharing it far and wide 🏳️⚧️
northwestbylines.co.uk/news/equalit...
A demonstration of compassion and unity by the trans and cis community
Trans and cis people united in a heartwarming display of kindness outside the Scottish (Holyrood) Parliament on 1 November
northwestbylines.co.uk
November 9, 2025 at 1:30 PM
So a transphobe is threatening @northwestbylines.co.uk with defamation over this 100% accurate and factual piece of Journalism.
Support us by sharing it far and wide 🏳️⚧️
northwestbylines.co.uk/news/equalit...
Support us by sharing it far and wide 🏳️⚧️
northwestbylines.co.uk/news/equalit...
Reposted by Fergus Murray
One of the more difficult parts of having a monotropic brain is the unevenness of expectations it can generate. People will see me blaze through certain tasks & expect me to be a correspondingly competent human in other respects, then get perplexed (or frustrated) when I need help with “the basics”
November 8, 2025 at 11:50 PM
One of the more difficult parts of having a monotropic brain is the unevenness of expectations it can generate. People will see me blaze through certain tasks & expect me to be a correspondingly competent human in other respects, then get perplexed (or frustrated) when I need help with “the basics”
Reposted by Fergus Murray
I rarely talk about the process of getting my work published but this one is a definite exception. I have never experienced this before in my career.
Both of the TV editors working with me on this piece were let go in the middle of the editing process. www.teenvogue.com/story/politi...
Both of the TV editors working with me on this piece were let go in the middle of the editing process. www.teenvogue.com/story/politi...
Politicizing Transgender Athletes Is Dangerous. Lia Smith Deserved Better.
"Let her passing be an inflection point for how you think about trans rights and trans people more generally."
www.teenvogue.com
November 9, 2025 at 1:26 AM
I rarely talk about the process of getting my work published but this one is a definite exception. I have never experienced this before in my career.
Both of the TV editors working with me on this piece were let go in the middle of the editing process. www.teenvogue.com/story/politi...
Both of the TV editors working with me on this piece were let go in the middle of the editing process. www.teenvogue.com/story/politi...