Stan P. 🍉🏳️‍⚧️
LightNews LightNews
banner
skourkos.bsky.social
Stan P. 🍉🏳️‍⚧️
@skourkos.bsky.social
91 followers 260 following 21 posts
(they/them) queer trans lived experience (broken) academic. Mental health, PPIE, labour, resistance.
Posts Replies Media Videos
skourkos.bsky.social
The recommendations of the Sullivan Review on paring back ethics committees' oversight & EDI guidelines/input on research have devastating implications for the place of research participant autonomy & self-determination. All those working on #ppi #coproduction #livedexperience should pay attention
jaytoddgla.bsky.social Jay Todd 🏳️‍⚧️ @jaytoddgla.bsky.social · 5d
The Sullivan Review & Ethics: A Thread

A key problematic of the Review is its significant consequences for ethical principles/governance. Its 2nd report recommends universities consider ‘paring back the scope and power of ethics committees’ in varied ways Read them below

doi.org/10.1111/tran.70057
Text from Sullivan Review Report 2 that reads - 13. The expansion and politicisation of ethics committees poses serious risks to research, including research on sex and gender, potentially affecting researchers working from any perspective on this issue. To address this: a. The terms of reference of ethics committees should state that it is not within their remit to prevent researchers from using the concept of sex, collecting data on sex, or using sex-based language. b. Ethics committees should not refer researchers to ask advice from EDI committees. c. Universities should consider paring back the scope and power of ethics committees, including removing the requirement for low-risk research which does not involve any medical or other experimental intervention or contact with children or vulnerable populations or genuine risk of harm to research participants or researchers or potentially unlawful acts to undergo formal ethical review by default. Text from the Sullivan Review report 2 that reads - . Ethics committees must ensure that ethical review does not lead to onerous delays, in particular in the case of time-sensitive research. By default, ethics committees should approve research proposals and should do so promptly. e. Ethical review is continually expanding, for example to cover undergraduate students, and to cover secondary data analysis. This expansion should be halted. f. Ethics committees must explicitly distinguish between ethical risk and reputational risk, and not conflate the two. Reputational risk should never be treated as an ethical consideration, let alone a reason to treat a proposal as ‘high risk’ by an ethics committee. g. The centralisation of ethics committees should be reconsidered. Paradoxically, review by a centralised committee can lead to projects deemed ‘high risk’ being judged by academics lacking in relevant expertise, whereas ‘low risk’ projects are more likely to be judged by disciplinary peers. h. ESRC should review its guidance for research organisations and research ethics committees with a view to reducing the burden on research organisations, reducing risks to academic freedom, and acknowledging the risk of politicisation of ethics processes. Guidance should highlight the value of academic freedom as a value which underpins the ability of researchers to deliver knowledge as a public good which benefits society as a whole. The risk that research ethics committees may prevent valuable research from being carried out in a timely way should be noted. ESRC should engage with academic experts on research ethics and ensure transparency in the process of reviewing its guidance.
February 9, 2026 at 9:23 PM
Reposted by Stan P. 🍉🏳️‍⚧️
cerasellachis.bsky.social
Hope and Refusal in an Era of Criminalised Care: Responses to Pirate Care
7 – 8pm GMT, Tuesday 3rd of March 2026 (online)

Register:
lakeheadu.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

The Book Review Symposium publication can be found here: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

More info: vagabonds.xyz
#Anticapitalism
Poster for the event. On the left half, a tarot-like imagery is featured, in black and white, of pirate carers by the sea. On the right side, it reads 'please join us on March 3rd, 2026 at 7pm (UTC+0) online for a discussion of the book Pirate Care: Acts Against the Criminalisation of Solidarity with the authors and with contributors to a new critical forum on the book that appears in the Postdigital Science and Education Journal. To register, visit vagabonds.xyz
February 9, 2026 at 2:48 PM
Reposted by Stan P. 🍉🏳️‍⚧️
goodlawproject.org
One of the wickedest things Wes Streeting has ever done is push politically convenient falsehoods about suicide rates amongst young trans people. We have new data from the National Child Mortality Database that exposes the truth he tried to cover up.
New data shows surge in trans kids’ suicides following healthcare rollbacks | Good Law Project
A freedom of information request by Good Law Project has found that deaths by suicide of trans young people under 18 surged following the withdrawal of gender-affirming healthcare
goodlaw.social
February 7, 2026 at 9:09 AM
skourkos.bsky.social
Horrific that these people spent 18 months in jail but such extraordinary news that they were found not guilty
declassifieduk.org Declassified UK @declassifieduk.org · 5d
❗️BREAKING -- Palestine Action protesters found not guilty of burglary at Elbit weapons factory in Bristol.

The six activists were also not convicted of other charges, having spent 18 months in jail awaiting trial.

realmedia.press/filton-verdi...
February 4, 2026 at 1:05 PM
Reposted by Stan P. 🍉🏳️‍⚧️
stopoxevision.bsky.social
Following an article by @novaramedia.com we have now shared part one of the timeline of Oxford Health's installation of Oxevision.

The report outlines how the Trust invested millions in a technology its patients described as 'creepy', 'unsafe' and 'spying'
February 3, 2026 at 7:22 PM
Reposted by Stan P. 🍉🏳️‍⚧️
stopoxevision.bsky.social
“Creepy, unsafe and spying”

This report is written to accompany our complaint to Oxford Health. We are asking questions as to whether personal connections and vested interests may have influenced decisions pertaining to the technology

stopoxevision.wordpress.com/2026/02/03/c...
“Creepy, unsafe and spying”: The installation of Oxevision by Oxford Health NHS Trust part one
Image from Oxford Health Oxevision pilot. The Oxevision box here does not have the black screen designed to hide the camera as with the current model On 14th January 2026, Stop Oxevision submitted …
stopoxevision.wordpress.com
February 3, 2026 at 11:41 AM
skourkos.bsky.social
Recommendations of the Sullivan Review also have wider alarming implications for research: "paring down 'the scope &power of ethics committees’ in various ways, removing ethical oversight from some university-based research, & arguing that [EDI teams] should not issue guidance on data collection."
uofgnews.bsky.social UofGNews @uofgnews.bsky.social · 7d
Recommendations from the Sullivan Review could undermine the quality of public institutions’ research, erode academic freedom, and threaten the rights of trans and gender diverse people if widely adopted, @uofgges.bsky.social researchers have warned.

Read more here: www.gla.ac.uk/news/headlin...
February 3, 2026 at 11:32 AM
skourkos.bsky.social
Please read this excellent &timely critique of the Sullivan Review out today: it cogently argues that the SR's recommendation of a single binary sex-at-birth model for data collection undermines trans&gender diverse people's (& I'd say, by extension, all participants') self-determination in research
jaytoddgla.bsky.social Jay Todd 🏳️‍⚧️ @jaytoddgla.bsky.social · 7d
📣 Today @felicitycallard.bsky.social and I have published the first peer-reviewed response to the 'Sullivan Review' of research and data on sex and gender.

doi.org/10.1111/tran...

The Review could threaten trans rights and inclusion, erode academic freedom, and undermine research quality.
Graphic reading 'the UK Government-commissioned 'Sullivan Review' of sex and gender in data and research collection threatens British research and trans inclusion. Here's why.'
February 3, 2026 at 10:23 AM
Reposted by Stan P. 🍉🏳️‍⚧️
eicathomefinn.bsky.social
Vital case of University of Sussex vs Office for Students is in the High Court this week. The results will matter for all of us given the OfS's overreach and directions of travel.
The Office for Students’ (OfS) investigation into freedom of speech : In focus : News : University of Sussex
www.sussex.ac.uk
February 1, 2026 at 3:15 PM
Reposted by Stan P. 🍉🏳️‍⚧️
ayoub.bsky.social
The UK version of “Project 2025” by the Reform party includes a British ICE, a concentration camp for 24,000 people, mass surveillance and withdrawing from refugee, anti-torture and anti-trafficking conventions.

It’s on their website. That’s how comfortable fascists are in the UK today.
The Legislation Upon winning a general election, a Reform government under Prime Minister Nigel Farage will: 1) Leave the ECHR 2.) Repeal the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights. 3.) Pass The Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill: This Bill will: Create a legal duty to remove illegal migrants for the Home Secretary The Bill opens with a blunt obligation for the Home Secretary: "The Secretary of State shall ensure the removal from the United Kingdom of each person who does not have extant leave to remain and is not an Irish citizen or otherwise protected by regulations made under this Act." The following parts of the legislation are introduced on an emergency basis, with an in-built sunset clause after 5 years: Disapply the 1951 Refugee Convention, the UN Convention Against Torture, the Council of Europe Anti-Trafficking Convention (ECAT) Derogation is justified under the Vienna Convention doctrine of state of necessity: Britain faces a national emergency in which uncontrolled illegal migration undermines public order. These treaties will otherwise be used by activist judges to frustrate deportations, even after the repeals of the HRA and ECHR. Create Detention Power Without Hardial Singh Constraints This means illegal migrants can be detained until they are deported. Activist lawyers routinely use Hardial Singh to secure their client's bail, after which the client absconds. If you came to the UK illegally, you are ineligible for asylum. End of story All asylum claims will become inadmissible if made by a person within the Act's scope. If you came to the country illegally, you are ineligible for asylum in the UK. This strips the Home Office, the immigration tribunals and the higher courts of jurisdiction to even consider claims. A claim that cannot be considered cannot suspend removal and therefore, cannot delay a flight. Re-entering after deportation and destroying ID becomes a serious criminal offence Re-entry after deportation will be… The Operational Plan We will create an enforcement unit called UK Deportation Command, including an Illegal Migrant Identification Centre - harnessing cutting edge data fusion A Reform government will create a cutting edge enforcement data centre to relentlessly identify and detain all illegal migrants in the UK. Using powers granted by the new legislation, it will automatically share data between the Home Office, NHS, HMRC, DVLA, banks and the police. It will power bulk warrants, including mandatory biometric capture during any police encounter. Each power addresses a failure mode observed over the past decade - for example, banks and GP surgeries unaware of a customer's status, or overstayers slipping through because a warrant covered only a single property. Secure Immigration Removal Centres (SIRC) will be built rapidly to detain up to 24,000 Detention capacity for up to 24,000 will be created within 18 months. The Home Office will build Secure Immigration Removal Centres. This will be modular accommodation built in remote parts of the country. Conditions are basic but not punitive: prefabricated two-person rooms, canteen catering, on-site medical suites. Robust perimeters and internal movement controls prevent escapes. This enables detention-on-arrest: no more bail. This capacity would allow for up to 24,000 illegal migrants to be deported per month. Initial Voluntary Return Window A six-month Assisted Voluntary Return window precedes large-scale raids. Illegal migrants will be offered a financial incentive to self-deport. An app will be launched to facilitate this. The Deportation Flights The Home Office will scale up charters to 5 flights per day. To guard against last-minute aircraft unserviceability, the RAF will keep one Voyager aircraft on six-hour 'hot-spare' readiness. If a commercial charter breaks down, detainees can still be flown out that night, preserving operational integrity. The legal reset will mean activist lawyers will no longer be able preven…
January 26, 2026 at 1:22 PM
Reposted by Stan P. 🍉🏳️‍⚧️
alisonphipps.bsky.social
When the ‘news’ doesn’t report news but feeds prejudices people are being actively encouraged to have, then repression follows, with the suspension of civil liberties and rights of protest.

Which is in part how we have ended up with the highest number of arrests for alleged terror-related activity
January 31, 2026 at 9:11 AM
skourkos.bsky.social
So glad this piece is finally out: it broadens the reach of the work of Abdaljawad Omar & shows why an engagement with psychic life (& Palestinian reworkings of such) is crucial for understanding both the annihilatory violence of settler colonialism & the force & necessity of Palestinian resistance.
felicitycallard.bsky.social Felicity Callard @felicitycallard.bsky.social · 13d
I wrote on psychic life and Palestinian resistance

– to ensure more people read Abdaljawad Omar @hamayel.bsky.social.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
For the Palestinian people, psychic life is just as much a site of struggle for liberation as social life. Palestinians are persistently refused psychological amplitude, characteristics easily granted to those who are never worried they might fall out of what is constituted as the category of the human. Abdaljawad Omar’s writings in English published since October 7, 2023 (as well as writings by other Palestinians, other Arabs, and those of Palestinian descent) offer means of understanding material resistance in relation to the terrain of the psyche. Omar offers distinctive accounts of mourning, loss, and ruins, as well as of how settler colonialism reorganizes experiences of time and relations between past, present, and future. The article reads Omar’s writings against other accounts of mourning and of psychic phenomena that are indebted to psychoanalysis. Omar’s analyses of Palestinians’ resistance to unfreedom and annihilation open up other ways of understanding the psychic vicissitudes of those who suffer, grieve, and struggle to exit a colonial condition characterized by the colonizer’s repeated attempts to break psychic worlds as well as erase bodily life. Understandings of psychic life that do justice to how Palestine is redrawing the world are central to the work of ‘cracking history open’.
January 28, 2026 at 10:17 AM
skourkos.bsky.social
Naturally Palantir working for ICE
404media.co 404 Media @404media.co · 15d
Why Minneapolis? How are they choosing their targets?

404 Media also recently learned Palantir is working on a tool for ICE that populates a map with potential deportation targets based on addresses, and ICE is using it to find locations where lots of people it might detain could be based.
‘ELITE’: The Palantir App ICE Uses to Find Neighborhoods to Raid
Internal ICE material and testimony from an official obtained by 404 Media provides the clearest link yet between the technological infrastructure Palantir is building for ICE and the agency’s activit...
www.404media.co
January 26, 2026 at 8:28 AM
Reposted by Stan P. 🍉🏳️‍⚧️
louca-mai.bsky.social
📣 @nihrarcs.bsky.social #PPI webinar: Evaluating #PublicInvolvement with children & young people 🌟17/2/26
Presenters incl me, @helenabnett.bsky.social & @hertsypag.bsky.social + hosted by @skourkos.bsky.social & @elspethma.bsky.social

Info & booking: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/involving-...
Flyer. Importance of Public Involvement Research Webinar Series. Webinar 4. This webinar will share findings from two evaluations of young people’s advisory groups (YPAGs), both co-produced with young group members. It will highlight lessons for meaningful and inclusive Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) with children and young people (CYP) and explore practical implications for PPIE professionals, researchers and CYP involved in research. Chaired by Dr Stan Papoulias, PPIE research theme lead at NIHR ARC South London. Facilitated by Dr Elspeth Mathie, Inclusive Involvement in Research theme lead at NIHR ARC East of England. Speakers: Dr Louca-Mai Brady, Reader in Youth Involvement and Health; Dr Helen Abnett and Lauren Denyer, Research Fellows, UH; and young members of the Herts YPAG. Who should attend? Anyone who is interested or involved in CYP’s involvement in research, including young people. Tuesday 17th February, 12:00-13:30. Register now!
January 19, 2026 at 4:25 PM
skourkos.bsky.social
This cannot be emphasised enough: the phrase is itself eliminationist as it sets up being trans as pretense/deception and is calculated to pruriently evoke body parts & elicit disgust.
felicitycallard.bsky.social Felicity Callard @felicitycallard.bsky.social · 23d
The ferocity with which the vile phrase “a biological male who identifies as a woman” is being embedded across multiple media in Britain is horrifying. It shows how quickly support for eliminationist attacks against trans and gender diverse people is being solidified
January 18, 2026 at 12:27 PM
Reposted by Stan P. 🍉🏳️‍⚧️
defendourjuries.bsky.social
An urgent appeal to save the lives of Palestine Action hunger strikers.

Former hunger strikers from Ireland, Palestine and Guantanamo Bay call on the UK government to take immediate action.

www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...
An urgent appeal to save the lives of Palestine Action hunger strikers
Former hunger strikers from Ireland, Palestine and Guantanamo Bay call on the UK government to take immediate action.
www.aljazeera.com
January 11, 2026 at 1:03 PM
skourkos.bsky.social
Follow this brilliant group of activists campaigning to stop Oxevision, the intrusive & dehumanising surveillance system rolled out across large numbers of UK mental health wards. Who benefits from the adoption of such 'innovative' tech? And why have patients been excluded from its implementation?
stopoxevision.bsky.social Stop Oxevision @stopoxevision.bsky.social · Dec 17
We have updated our website to include information on the December hearings of the Lampard Inquiry, in which legal representatives of Core Participants were given the opportunity to address the Chair on any procedural issues

Short thread

stopoxevision.wordpress.com/2025/10/28/l...
Lampard Inquiry Oxevision Hearings
An overview of the Lampard Inquiry evidence heard on Oxevision
stopoxevision.wordpress.com
January 10, 2026 at 5:53 PM