Val Stevenson
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valstevenson24.bsky.social
Val Stevenson
@valstevenson24.bsky.social
Idler; previously editor/lecturer. Intolerant of whimsy. Pronouns: sex-based. Londoner/Irish/European. DMs = block. Gibbering idiocy = mute.
Reposted by Val Stevenson
Because this is Bluesky, very little commentary on the BBC's disgraceful capitulation to Transactivism over the past decade. Senior figures either too afraid, or too cowardly to stand up to the post-modernist censorious bullies. This is a far greater scandal than the Trump editing nonsense.
November 11, 2025 at 1:26 PM
"[Junior LGBT] people were treated as experts simply because they were believers in the idea of gender identity [..] so they’re allowed to spout this gobbledegook and they’re treated as experts when it comes to which language to use." With luck, the Red Guard will now be reined in.
November 10, 2025 at 12:42 PM
Reposted by Val Stevenson
Hadley Freeman: “Anyone who was on Twitter in that weird period of 2018-23 will know how witchfinders operate, leaping on any perceived swerves from progressive orthodoxies by other writers with the enthusiasm of flies on excrement, demanding their banishment.”
🎁
www.thetimes.com/article/b33c...
Activist witchfinders still rule the book world
Kate Clanchy has had an apology from a publisher. Others are still waiting
www.thetimes.com
November 9, 2025 at 11:17 AM
Reposted by Val Stevenson
Sanction evasion incl by way of Russia's trading partners (i.e. India, Caucasus, Central Asia) has plagued the West since the war began - Germany and Bulgaria conducted raids in the summer against firms who were evading.

Incredibly embarrassing for the UK, most vocal in this, to be failing too.
Exclusive: Officials are urgently trying to establish whether a £36m purchase of Russian aircraft breached the UK's sanctions regime

The government only discovered it had happened after being alerted by @theobserveruk.bsky.social

observer.co.uk/news/nationa...
Anger as £38m is spent on plane imports from Russia | The Observer
observer.co.uk
November 9, 2025 at 7:52 AM
Reposted by Val Stevenson
Great look at how @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social “pie in the sky” proposals are just normal in the developed world. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Europeans recognize Zohran Mamdani’s supposedly radical policies as ‘normal’
Critics of New York City’s mayor-elect have said his pledges of free bus service and universal childcare are unrealistic, but in Europe it’s a given
www.theguardian.com
November 7, 2025 at 12:31 PM
Reposted by Val Stevenson
Opinion | Sudan Is in Free Fall
www.nytimes.com
November 6, 2025 at 3:12 PM
Brava!
November 5, 2025 at 9:53 AM
In a shocking development, Cycling UK's 100 Women in Cycling is open only to women, as defined by the not-so-recent Supreme Court decision. The comments under the Cycling Weekly article are strongly supportive of Cycling UK's decision.
'Do we need to exclude people even more?' – Cycling UK's 100 Women in Cycling criticised for not accepting nominations for trans women
Cycling charity say that only biological women can be on list
www.cyclingweekly.com
November 5, 2025 at 9:04 AM
Reposted by Val Stevenson
This shouldn't be difficult. Females use female only spaces. Males use male only spaces.
There! I just sorted it for you.
My letter in the Guardian about why the Equality and Human Rights Commission's guidance on sex and gender is unworkable and goes far beyond what the Supreme Court judgement actually said.
November 4, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Pusillanimous and very, very short-sighted.
'Lesbian Labour and LGB Labour said they were “extremely disappointed” by delays ... and said: “Our Labour government has been given the perfect opportunity to ... ensure the Equality Act is now implemented correctly and in accordance with the law.'
labourlist.org/2025/11/labo...
Labour under pressure over delays to EHRC trans guidance - LabourList
The Labour government has been accused by gender-critical groups of slow-walking guidance for schools and businesses following the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman.
labourlist.org
November 4, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Reposted by Val Stevenson
'It would be a grave mistake if ministers were to acquiesce in the watering down, or subversion, of a ruling that is as right as it is clear.'
'The law is the law. Sir Keir Starmer of all people should beware of the consequences of bringing it into disrepute.'
www.thetimes.com/comment/the-...
Tactics used to thwart the Supreme Court’s trans ruling must end
It would be a grave mistake if ministers were to acquiesce in the watering down, or subversion, of a ruling that is as right as it is clear
www.thetimes.com
November 4, 2025 at 9:15 AM
Awww, bless…
The Green Party condemns Russia’s invasion, backs Ukraine’s sovereignty, and urges peace talks. It opposes NATO expansion and supports replacing NATO with a cooperative, non-militarised European security framework 💚
November 3, 2025 at 11:18 AM
Fine, passionate speech that states what should bleeding obvious: occupation ain’t peace, in Ukraine or elsewhere.
Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the Center for Civil Liberties, spoke at De Balie in Amsterdam about the role of citizens in war, Russian aggression, and the fact that occupation is not peace.

📹 Center for Civil Liberties/Facebook
November 2, 2025 at 11:27 PM
Reposted by Val Stevenson
The ECB is obeying the law. If the Good Law Project want to change the law they need to lobby parliament but that would mean open public debate about the rationale of allowing biological men to play in women's teams. Legal action against the ECB will inevitably fail and is a waste of time and money.
November 2, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Reposted by Val Stevenson
She is using her energy and money very effectively to stand up for women's rights, numpty.
Deal with it.
November 1, 2025 at 7:57 AM
Reposted by Val Stevenson
“I haven’t seen violence like this since Rwanda. The velocity and ferocity of the RSF killing civilians since Sunday is unlike anything I’ve seen in 26 years of doing this work, and HRL [Yale Humanitarian Research Lab] has been reporting on the RSF and the Sudanese war for a while.”

Incredibly grim
“Individuals on the ground sent a message that reached us Monday morning that 1,200 were dead,” Nathaniel Raymond, the lab’s executive director, said. “By that evening, they said 10,000. By Tuesday, we couldn’t reach them anymore. We assume our ground contacts are dead.”
Yale lab reports mass killings in Sudan, calls for student activism
The Humanitarian Research Lab was told this week that over 10,000 people in Sudan were killed within three days.
yaledailynews.com
October 31, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Reposted by Val Stevenson
standing up for women is not diminishing anyone. pointing out that men are not women is not diminishing them, it is describing reality.
October 31, 2025 at 10:37 PM
Reposted by Val Stevenson
Do these clowns even know what the term "dolls" refers to? I presume you do, Cyndicate, but for anyone else reading this "Dolls" is a term used to distinguish the small minority of trans-identified men who "pass" as women from the "bricks", who obviously don't. The distinction is rather grotesque.
October 31, 2025 at 9:59 PM
Reposted by Val Stevenson
I agree with all this!
"At its core, gender identity is regressive. It drags us backwards into sexist clichés that feminism fought to dismantle. It tells us that to be a man or a woman is to conform to a script of clothes, behaviours, and roles."
The Day I Stop Writing About Gender Identity

Read and subscribe for free:

open.substack.com/pub/katiepin...
October 30, 2025 at 12:38 AM
Splendid thread on union history.
JD Vance claims that diversity weakens unions, as people end up distrusting each other and not organizing.

Let me tell you two menswear stories related to this claim. 🧵
October 30, 2025 at 11:31 AM
”legislators across so many states are suddenly deciding that biological sex [..] is a relic of the past to be discarded like phrenology or geocentrism”. Mad as a box of frogs, these lads.
October 29, 2025 at 12:24 PM
Reposted by Val Stevenson
Retired U.S. Army Major General Randy Manner: "The deployments we’re currently seeing inside American cities…are not only un-American and wrong, they’re being done at the expense of our young men and women in uniform."

newsletter.ofthebrave.org/p/i-helped-l...
I helped lead the National Guard. Troops don’t belong in our cities.
We must not permit this gross misuse of the military to be normalized.
newsletter.ofthebrave.org
October 28, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Val Stevenson
Quite a world when a federal judge has to call in a federal official to specifically tell him he can't use tear gas on children in Halloween costumes
October 28, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Val Stevenson
Crockett: You have a president who consistently is obsessing over two women of color that are members of the house, I don't know what black woman hurt him in his past, honey, but it is really taking him through it.
October 28, 2025 at 1:18 AM