Oli Spleen
LightNews LightNews
banner
olispleen.bsky.social
Oli Spleen
@olispleen.bsky.social
41 followers 41 following 25 posts
Solo artist, writer & frontperson.
My latest album is “Still Life”.
Posts Replies Media Videos
olispleen.bsky.social
Rob Reiner 🕯️ 1947 - 2025.
Rob Reiner: "Silence in the face of authoritarianism is complicity. Speaking out is a patriotic act. Democracy doesn't defend itself. It requires participation, vigilance & courage from ordinary people."
December 16, 2025 at 3:00 PM
olispleen.bsky.social
TONIGHT! Lewes...

www.facebook.com/share/16Yt2c...
December 12, 2025 at 4:50 PM
olispleen.bsky.social
#translivesmatter #transrights #transrightsarehumanrights #hastings #hastingsindependentpress #pinknarcissusband
When Hastings Independent Press first launched over eleven years ago, its founding mission was to offer a unique community-lead alternative to the mainstream fearmongering, scapegoating and divisive rhetoric that is the fodder of the daily tabloids. For many years it held true to this intent and I was proud to have published various articles covering everything from marriage equality, the Orlando Pulse massacre and my covid lockdown experiences as well as various poems. This week I was disappointed to discover an anonymous article titled "All About Eve". This piece was seemingly created to feed directly into the scaremongering, transphobic narrative that has already resulted in women being attacked for just wanting to use the public toilets here and in America. Much like the recent Supreme Court Ruling that the article cites, which did not ask for the testimony of any transgender or gender non-conforming people; this was a one-sided opinion piece written with no real consideration of those who this harmful legislation affects. I come from a family of gender non-conforming women, my grandmother would tell us how she raised eyebrows in her Cornish village in the thirties as “the first girl in town to wear slacks” and my mother has always preferred short hair and trousers over long hair and a dress. When I was at school I was bullied for my own androgyny and inability to be boisterous as well as my mother’s percieved masculine nature. She is now in a civil partnership with a woman. Some ten years ago my niece also came out as lesbian and she often gets mistaken for a boy. Sadly what this current hysteria around trans women is doing is enabling attacks on many non gender conforming women. My niece has already been harassed for using the women's toilets and the keyboardist in my current band, a six foot two cisgendered woman who is clearly very feminine presenting in her dress and mannerisms; has lately been misgendered as a result of this toxic rhetoric, solely due to her height. These are by no means the only cases of women being misgendered and even attacked for simply wanting to use the toilet. Here and in America attacks on predominantly lesbian women trying to access the restrooms have increased alongside this rising transphobic rhetoric. Tiffany Liles-Taylor from Leicestershire, a cancer survivor who underwent chemotherapy and a double mastectomy, said that she is scared of using public toilets after being repeatedly mistaken for a man. I have spent most of the last twenty five years in Brighton where I was embraced and welcomed by the transgender community there. Through my transgender friends I began to consider myself non-binary and my band Pink Narcissus was even given the privilege of performing at Trans Pride in 2017 (I have regrettably never had the opportunity to play any of the regular Pride events). Subsequently I know as many transgender men (assigned female at birth) as I do trans women. These trans men have every apparent characteristic of a man but by the Supreme Court Ruling’s definition should be forced to use women’s spaces solely because they were assigned female at birth. I have also met several people who are intersex, as in biologically born between genders. These people make up around one-point-seven percent of the population. However the biological lie of binary sex that the Supreme Court would have us believe, denies the very existence of these people. Many intersex children are forced into unnecessary surgeries in childhood and have a binary gender imposed on them by their guardians, simply because we do not have a culture that accepts the reality of gender as a spectrum. The HIP article suggested that it is the gender affirming care for children that is harmful, citing surgeries and breast binding as common practices for minors, this is simply not true. The only common practice is that puberty blockers are offered to prevent a transgender child from being subjected to the body horror of experiencing the “wrong” puberty. This is an experience that close friends of mine have testified was traumatising for them and say could be a lifesaver for others to not be subjected to. When I was ten-years-old Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher implemented a legislation called Section 28. This prohibited local authorities from "promoting homosexuality" or teaching about it in a positive light, effectively denying children the awareness of the existence of people such as myself in the hope that as a result homosexuality would simply go away. What it instead did was enable homophobia to go unchecked in the schoolyard, driving children such as myself to the brink of suicide. Now the UK government under its Labour leadership has just updated its Relationships and Sex Education guidance for schools in England. From September 2026, schools will be prohibited from teaching that all people have a gender identity and teachers will be denied the ability to suggest that social transition can help children in distress. This legislation seeks to erase the existence of transgender people and will undoubtedly do great harm to the most vulnerable in our society. Ultimately all this rhetoric around transgender women is distracting from the very real fact that it is cisgendered men not transgender women who inflict the most violence against women. Transgender women who are statistically far more likely to be the victims of violence and hate crimes are now being unfairly scapegoated to distract from the very real violence that is perpetrated by cisgendered men. If we are to learn anything from history it's that at times of political upheaval when right-wing forces are on the rise, it is always those who are the most marginalised and vulnerable who are targeted first. My transgender friends simply want to live and exist as themselves. If we don't speak up to protect their rights now, who will be there to defend ours when the time comes.
August 20, 2025 at 12:25 PM
olispleen.bsky.social
Tonight Pig, Hastings, the return of SPLEEN! #hastingsgigs
July 25, 2025 at 11:44 AM
olispleen.bsky.social
The return of SPLEEN

July 25th - The Pig Hastings
August 9th - The Pipeline Brighton

#spleenbrighton
July 18, 2025 at 11:08 AM
olispleen.bsky.social
Image by @wefail.bsky.social

#poemforpalestine #neveragain #kierstarmer #palestineaction #poemforpeace
NEVER AGAIN Overwhelmed by a world  That will not hear the cries  That twists the truth  That lies That gaslights and denies Enables genocide  In self-defence disguise  Labelling us terrorists  It is they who terrorise  Demonise / dehumanise  Deem us extremists and equate Pleas for peace as cries of hate  So much projection and distraction  Orwellian refractions To make us feel That it is we Who have lost our minds We who daily bare witness To manifold horrors  Enacted without shame The perpetrators / traitors  Act the victim as they blame  Those of us just crying out;  "Please, not in our name" all that we are saying is; "Never again means never again" Nothing.
July 7, 2025 at 8:53 PM
olispleen.bsky.social
Seven years ago I made the only tweet of mine that went viral, with almost a thousand retweets and two-thousand-four-hundred likes. It brought all the trolls out of hiding where they used the word "woke" against me as an insult which was the first time I'd heard it used that way.
June 24, 2025 at 12:13 PM
olispleen.bsky.social
People of Hastings, Brighton, Worthing & London, I have some dates for you! 🤩

June 19th - Hastings, Printworks
July 1st - Hastings, Jenny Lind
July 12th - Worthing, Charles Dickens
July 25th - Hastings, The Pig
August 9th - Brighton, Pipeline
September 11th - London, Hope & Anchor
June 12, 2025 at 2:11 PM
olispleen.bsky.social
One week to go until our Poet Town fundraiser for The Refugee Buddy Project @salenagodden.bsky.social

DATE: Thurs 19 June, 7.30pm | VENUE: The Printworks, Hastings | COST: Free/Donation

🎟️ www.tickettailor.com/events/poett...

Poet Town: The Poetry of Hastings & Thereabouts, out September 1st.
June 12, 2025 at 2:01 PM
olispleen.bsky.social
The return of SPLEEN, July and August dates...
May 8, 2025 at 11:20 AM
olispleen.bsky.social
March 21, 2025 at 1:08 AM
olispleen.bsky.social
Oli Spleen & The Smithmanthers return to Brighton's Folklore Rooms to usher in the spring with guests Mishkin Fitzgerald and The Barbarian Horde. Saturday April 5th.
February 23, 2025 at 1:18 PM
olispleen.bsky.social
Hello to Blue Sky and my first follower @salenagodden.bsky.social 💙🦋💙 x
November 28, 2024 at 2:53 PM