Dr. Sandra Duffy Golden
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sandraduffy.bsky.social
Dr. Sandra Duffy Golden
@sandraduffy.bsky.social
7.8K followers 2K following 7.8K posts
Law lecturer, dog parent, imported Bristolian, Irish. Using law for trans liberation, reproductive justice, post-/de-coloniality. They/she. AuDHD. Fond of penguins. Views personal. 🇵🇸

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sandraduffy.bsky.social
More footnotes to this section.
[49] ‘Lesbian Protestors Drop In On Lords,’ Daily Telegraph, 3rd February 1988, at 1. [50] This also gave rise to some interesting headlines in the next morning’s press, including ‘Beeb Man Sits on Lesbian’ (Daily Mirror, 24th May 1988). [51] Stonewall included public figures such as actors Michael Cashman and Ian McKellen. McKellen gave a speech on Section 28 in July 1988 in which he observed, “I'm prepared to believe the ex-member of her cabinet who tells me that Mrs.Thatcher has no objection to individual homosexuals and employs quite a few of them. What she cannot stand is groups of homosexuals. By the same token she doesn't mind trade-unionists, it's just that she doesn't like them joining trade-unions. You can't have homosexuality on the rates anymore. She is privatising homosexuality. Well I for one intend to take out shares.”
November 11, 2025 at 10:42 AM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
(which was a good enough quote that it had to go in the footnote)
[48] It is unfortunate for the researcher that the Hansard record of this event extends only to one word: “[Interruption.]” (Hansard, House of Lords, 2nd February 1988, Column 1021) However the Yorkshire Post’s front page from the next day (‘The Gay Commandos,’ 3rd February 1988, British Newspaper Archive) carries an astonished quote from Tory MP Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman, who stated that “it was the most extraordinary scene. It beat anything that ever happened in the Commons.”
November 10, 2025 at 3:48 PM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
Just in case you were wondering, Google's AI is here to helpfully fact-check my search.
A screencap from Google's search results. It reads: "The statement that sexual intercourse began in 1963 is from a poem and is not a factual claim. It comes from Philip Larkin's 1967 poem Annus Mirabilis, which uses this line to poetically mark the start of the "sexual revolution" in Britain."
November 3, 2025 at 11:53 AM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
This is the correct reaction.
A greyhound's face, obscured by the paw that's hiding its snoot.
November 3, 2025 at 8:36 AM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
Happy Hallowe'en / Oíche Shamhna shona daoibh
Sandra, a white femme person with short wavy brown hair and black glasses, smiling at the camera. They are slightly flushed from the cold outside. They are wearing purple lipstick and a black jumper with a white cartoon vampire bat on it.
October 31, 2025 at 5:06 PM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
Very important crow writing companion. @mxfrankduffy.bsky.social
A coffee mug held in front of a laptop screen with Gdocs open. The mug is pink on the inside and white on the outside, with a drawing of a cartoon crow on it. The crow has a speech bubble saying 'not gay as in happy but queer as in tired.'
October 30, 2025 at 11:38 AM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
Hi Angus! I'm a migrant. Irish, if you're wondering. I live in a flat surrounded by residential houses and only a ten-minute walk from the High Street, but it's not secure. My wife even lets me have a key to the front door.

Do you want to talk to her, or should I just turn myself in?
I’m deeply concerned by reports that the UK Government plans to house up to 300 migrants at Cameron Barracks in Inverness. This site is surrounded by residential houses and is only a ten-minute walk from the High Street - it’s simply not an appropriate or secure location. More..
October 28, 2025 at 9:55 PM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
Delivered to: under a bin.
A plastic-wrapped parcel from Dunelm. Someone (the courier) is upending one of my recycling bins to put over it.
October 27, 2025 at 6:38 PM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
Lecture writing.
Screenshot of a lecture slide being written. The heading is 'Trans rights in the UK.' It currently has one bullet point written out in the textbox. The bullet point reads 'Situation: not great'.
October 20, 2025 at 12:59 PM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
I'm only in the job 5 years, and I feel like this.

(Screenshot because QPs disabled; posted because I agree with OP, we do.)
I'm a tenured professor with an endowed chair. Looking back, I don't think the freshly minted PhD version of me could land a job in today's market. I was smart, I was driven - but mostly, I was lucky. More of us in academia need to admit that.
October 10, 2025 at 6:38 PM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
Describe your Bluesky account in a single image
Two contestants from Glow Up. One of them is saying, 'Nonbinary psychic powers.'
October 6, 2025 at 9:15 AM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
Proof:
The camera is looking down at Sandra's arm. Their hand rests on their laptop but the rest of their arm is obscured by Ró's head. She is black and white and her nose is very pointy. She has her eyes closed and is somehow managing to sleep in this position.
October 1, 2025 at 7:54 AM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
Found it!
A tweet reading: basketball's all like gimme that pumpkin i need it and tennis is like fuck this lemon you take it
September 11, 2025 at 6:40 PM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
Yes... hahahaha... YES
The cover of 168 Songs of Hatred and Failure: A History of Manic Street Preachers, by Keith Cameron. It has Polaroid photos of the band as young people.
September 11, 2025 at 6:21 PM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
And that's the core of it.
It is difficult to understand the logic behind the Supreme Court’s decision and judgment in FWS, unless you begin from a position wherein transgender women do not count as women - or at least, do not count as women to the same extent as cisgender women. They are seen as women* - women, with a qualifier; women whose womanhood can be revoked for the convenience of the law and the State.
September 8, 2025 at 10:07 AM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
Post a PERFECT album from the 90s that isn't Nirvana or Pearl Jam
The cover of The Holy Bible by Manic Street Preachers, featuring a triptych of paintings by Jenny Saville.
September 3, 2025 at 6:01 PM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
Commenting on politics on bsky like:
A 6 panel comic. 1: a yellow bird says: 'hey so I'm going to go out on a limb here.' 2: he hops out along a tree limb 3: hop 4: hop 5: hop 6: satisfied, he sits at the end of the branch and sings.
September 2, 2025 at 1:58 PM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
3 min sketch
Bad pencil sketch of a bat.
August 25, 2025 at 11:51 AM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
Sandra in a green Ireland women's jersey.
August 24, 2025 at 10:54 AM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
Co-writing an article in which we plan to give the Empire a kicking.
Lastly, the article examines the sociolegal situation in the United Kingdom in the present day, contending that the Brexit moment of rupture gave voice to a myriad of bigotries which each have their roots in colonial logics. The binarised, us-and-them, vision of society which Brexit exposed has allowed for the eruption of polarised social and political discourse, magnifying white supremacist, transphobic, and queerphobic viewpoints while pushing marginalised populations further away from the centre. The increased visibility of these marginalised demographics in the post-Brexit years - in particular, trans people, people of colour, and migrants - has come with increasingly heated rhetoric demanding their exclusion from society. We contend that these exhortations to alienation have their roots in the post-imperial shadows still hanging over British law and society. This manner of thinking exposes the deeply binarist logic at the core of Britain - manifesting as patriarchal, nationalist, and racist discourses which are driving society apart.
August 6, 2025 at 10:53 AM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
Not just gormless but entirely gorm-free.
A greyhounds head on a sofa cushion. She is asleep with her ears up and her jaw hanging open to reveal big scary teeth (not).
July 21, 2025 at 8:23 AM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
Proud to be a big gay genderqueer femme transfeminist scholactivist on #InternationalNonBinaryPeoplesDay
Sandra, a white femme person, looks up at the camera with a smile. They have short brown curly hair and big glasses and are wearing a black shirt.
July 14, 2025 at 10:29 AM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
'Workspace with velcro dog, 2025'
Photo of Sandra's sofa. They are sitting at one end. On their knee is a laptop. On the back of the sofa is their open thesis. Taking up 75% of the space is a large black and white greyhound.
July 11, 2025 at 10:25 AM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
Truly this is where I belong.
The Jock-Nerd/Prep-Goth test result, showing that I am in the lower right (goth/nerd) sector
July 8, 2025 at 1:22 PM
sandraduffy.bsky.social
WIP: on a pivotal and tragic moment of Irish queer history. #amwriting
In August of the same year, Declan Flynn, a young gay man, was murdered in Fairview Park. The park was a well-known meeting place and cruising spot for gay men, and that summer, it had been repeatedly threatened by a gang of teenagers who intimidated passers-by and assaulted several people. Flynn was assaulted, robbed, and left for dead in the park. The killing horrified the gay community, and further outrage was sparked by the trial of the youths accused of the attack. They were convicted of manslaughter and given suspended sentences. The youths had expressly homophobic intentions in committing the crime: they considered their summer of hate crime as ‘clear[ing] our park of what we call queers.’ It was habitual and indiscriminate: ‘The girls always went home when they went queer bashing or bashing people they thought were queers. Sometimes it didn’t really matter if they were or not but it was better if they were because queers used to molest young kids and stuff like that in the park… A few of them had been queer bashing for six weeks before and had battered 20 steamers.’ Addressing them in court, the presiding judge, Gannon J, said that he felt compelled to impose a sentence to express ‘the abhorrence of the community’ but that it was also ‘important the public should know it could never have been murder,’ even though it was ‘an appalling thing’ for the victim and his family. The perpetrators went home; later that evening, they celebrated in the park. It is difficult to read the Flynn killing and the ensuing court case as anything short of institutionalised homophobia in the Irish legal system. The dismissal of Flynn’s death as ‘an appalling thing,’ but not one worthy of imprisoning the accused; the way in which the court overlooked the boys’ admissions of previous assaults and homophobic views and their vigilante-like anti-queer activities all summer. The trial was seen as a condensed expression of the way the justice system saw gay men. Criminalised, alienated, and ultimately disposable - objected. Ferriter also cites another incident of a gay man who attempted to report queer-bashing, not long before Flynn was killed. The Gardaí ‘jeered and laughed [him] out of the station.’ In the course of the apology made by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to men convicted under criminalisation, he stated that ‘When the Oireachtas makes something a crime, people believe that they have a licence to punish those whom they believe are committing it. These were young men who grew up in a society that feared and hated homosexuality. They took the law into their own hands, and all too often, people allowed the law to do its bashing for them.’ The tragedy proved to be a galvanising moment for Ireland’s gay community and their allies. In the aftermath of the trial, a protest march was held from the city centre to Fairview Park, in memory of Flynn. Later that summer would see Ireland’s first Pride march, and Flynn’s death became thought of by some as ‘Ireland’s Stonewall.’ The protest march would also coalesce many of the left-wing political groups in Ireland, as it was attended by ‘homosexuals, trade unionists, various groups, notably feminist or affiliated to AAC (the Anti-Amendment Campaign),’ who would later form the protest movement around abortion law reform. In 2018, twenty-five years later, Ireland’s first Trans and Intersex Pride march would retrace the route from the northside of the city centre to Fairview Park.
July 7, 2025 at 10:20 AM