Transgender health in Leeds: An addendum

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Last month I wrote a post about the state of transgender health in the NHS in Leeds. However, I realise that the post, written from the perspective of a cisgender ally, misses out the most important aspect of all: the transgender perspective. I hence asked on the LUU LGBT Society’s group page for said perspective, … Read more

Liberal Youth Spring Conference 2012

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The Spring Conference of Liberal Youth was held in the lovely city of Leeds, thanks to a successful bid submitted by our branch, Leeds Liberal Youth. I have to admit, I was a Conference virgin, having not been to either a Liberal Youth nor a Federal Conference before (rather stupidly electing not to go to the 2011 Conference in Sheffield). But, with a Conference taking place in my proverbial back yard, I felt I was obligated to go. That, and I was part of the host.

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Transgender people and NHS Leeds

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Just a short post, based on something I came across today while waiting for an appointment at the GP’s today. As you would, while waiting for the appointment I had a flick through some of the leaflets on display, and one of the leaflets was rather conspicuous in what was – or was not – present:

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Women and gaming

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Recently I’ve been discussing with a few friends about women in the gaming community as a whole. And as it’s [[International Women’s Day]], what better day to post about it? It’s no big secret that the gaming community is stereotypically male, white, middle-class, and geeky. And people wonder why, at the same time images such as these appear on the internet:

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Leeds University Union election 2012!

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You may remember last year I did a bunch of scientificesque posts about which candidates I’d vote for in the LUU executive election last year. In retrospect, that’s not really the best way to decide to vote for: it’s better to inspect the candidates beyond a twenty-or-so questions. The candidates are on LUU’s website, so without further ado…

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Stop SOPA

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I’m not an American, but I still think that the [[Stop Online Piracy Act]] should be killed. With fire. Then resurrected to be killed again, to emphasise it’s a really bad idea. Watch the below video, or get involved at AmericanCensorship.org If you want a handy guide, visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Rhys Morgan, and an attack on free speech

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[[Rhys Morgan]] hit the headlines a few weeks ago due to his work in publicising [[Stanislaw Burzynski]]’s fradulent alternative medicine practices. I hold him in some high regard as, at his age, I wasn’t too heavily involved in skepticism (although a friend of mine was, and was partially the reason why I later became active in the atheist movement).

Also in the news was a dispute between University College London and their atheist society, after an image from the webcomic [[Jesus and Mo]] was used to promote one of their facebook event. Obviously, this caused Muslims on campus to complain about the offensiveness of the image. It’s nothing new; Leeds Atheist Society was forced to cancel a showing and debate of the controversial film [[Fitna (film)|Fitna]] back in 2009 for the same reason.

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The Goon who Kicked the Tropers’ Nest

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Forgive me for the title; I’ve been on a [[Stieg Larsson]] bender over the past week or so, which you can blame on the Fincher/Craig/Mara movie. The English movie led me to the books and the Swedish movies. As of today, I’ve finished Hornet’s Nest (the novel). It’s relevant, I promise.  My first post delved into the ideas of “subjectivity” on the wiki, and my second about the community. In retrospect, those two barely scratch the surface; this’ll be a bumper post touching on some stuff which, themselves, may get a blog post unrelated to TV Tropes.

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The darker side of Occupy and the language of conspiracy theory

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So, the Occupy movement. Let’s get something straight, first: I like the idea of Occupy, what it was like in its infancy around the world: a grassroots movement to expose corporate malfeasance and the like. A left-wing version of the Tea Party, but without birther idiots. But I don’t like Occupy as it is today. There’s a reason for that. People have stopped caring, so a lot of sympathisers, like myself, stopped being involved. It left the movement with only the dedicated people. And it’s not dedicated anarchists or dedicated socialists or dedicated liberals, it’s the dedicated anti-establishment.

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Troll of Duty: Metacritic Warfare?

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You can tell it’s November when the big games come out just at the right time stores can knock a few dollars off the price as a Black Friday “discount”; indeed, over the past six weeks, we’ve seen new games for Battlefield, Sonic the Hedgehog, Uncharted, The Elder Scrolls, Arkham (as in Asylum), Saints Row and, of course, our yearly instalments of Assassin’s Creed and Call of Duty. The finale of the Modern Warfare franchise got rave reviews from the professional critics but got a raft of zeros from the public. It’s not escaped notice, and among other people, the ever incorrigible Jim Sterling posted a bit about it here, and you know what? He’s right.

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