Sally-Anne Wherry
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sawherry.bsky.social
Sally-Anne Wherry
@sawherry.bsky.social
730 followers 590 following 1.7K posts
Advanced Practice Academic, PhD student studying the intergenerational impact of the contaminated blood scandal in haemophiliac familes

Orcid ID: 0000-0002-2496-1178

Alt text for profile picture: grey haired woman smiling with glasses and a grey scarf
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sawherry.bsky.social
Sally-Anne Wherry @sawherry.bsky.social · Nov 10
With all the new people, I should do another intro. I'm a geek, who is owned by a boxer dog called Harley, living in Gloucestershire. I have two and a bit kids, one and a bit of which are found family trans boys who are joyous to have with us. I sew when I have spoons. I have bipolar.
sawherry.bsky.social
Important and useful thread.
December 8, 2025 at 3:01 PM
sawherry.bsky.social
My beliefs stop at the end of your nose. Do I force you to be a humanist? I don't harrass Christians for their beliefs, but I will defend the right of people to live their authentic lives as a trans person, or queer. (you want to silently judge, go to it, but do get your hate out of my ears)
hagenilda.bsky.social Dr Jo Edge 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 @hagenilda.bsky.social · 23h
I mean, it's obvious. You can think something but not say it in a way that demeans someone else? Eg if you are a devout Christian that's fine, but you can't harass a gay colleague bc of it? Why is this hard?
melarune.bsky.social Dominie Leigh @melarune.bsky.social · 1d
"[The Tribunal held that] Mrs Peggie had in some of her remarks impermissibly manifested her gender
critical beliefs"

So there *is* a floor on this thing. They *can't* just say whatever the hell they like under the banner of protected beliefs. That'll come as a shock to some of them, I'm sure
December 8, 2025 at 2:07 PM
sawherry.bsky.social
This is pulling the ladder up after them - it is SO vital and I came through a route that did precisely this for me. I then went on to a fully funding nurse training that gave me and my daughter enough to live off... Talk about removing ladders from poverty.
noreenmasud.bsky.social Noreen Masud @noreenmasud.bsky.social · 1d
it's gutting to see access and widening participation initiatives being binned across the university sector. ELCE here at Bristol, Essex Pathways here. nothing pushes my personal, visceral buttons like the idea of denying academic study to someone whose life it could change
ucuessex.bsky.social UCU Essex @ucuessex.bsky.social · 3d
In yet more devastating news, the VC has confirmed her plans to cut 80% of academic staff from Essex Pathways, our foundation year department. This would effectively close down all our existing foundation year programmes through the back door.

But it's not a done deal yet. Please share urgently.
December 8, 2025 at 9:14 AM
Reposted by Sally-Anne Wherry
drmeagantyler.bsky.social
If you've had any tough days during #AcWriMo, I highly recommend adopting Taika Waititi's expansive classification system for writing. Another handy tip from the academia / writing / research meme stash. #PhDchat #academicsky #academicchatter #highered
Four images of Taika Waititi, each with part of a quote that reads: "Sometimes, writing is opening up your laptop, looking at a blank page on 'final draft' for about 8 hours and then feeling sad and then closing it. And that's still classified as writing."
November 27, 2025 at 11:47 PM
Reposted by Sally-Anne Wherry
thesiswhisperer.bsky.social
Latest episode of On The Reg is now also on YouTube ✅✅✅: is boredom your academic super power? Video version here youtu.be/h0-OdBAme1k?... or on your favourite player via @buzzsprout.bsky.social here onthereg.buzzsprout.com
Is boredom your academic superpower? (episode 82)
YouTube video by On The Reg Pod
youtu.be
November 30, 2025 at 6:00 AM
sawherry.bsky.social
@thesiswhisperer.bsky.social have you seen the work but squiggly career podcasters? They strike me ss good books for your review. A lot about values and how they affect careers
December 6, 2025 at 9:15 AM
Reposted by Sally-Anne Wherry
thesiswhisperer.bsky.social
I'd appreciate help circulating this survey, part of our overall work on neurodivergence.

This one is on behalf of the graduate deans, to develop better supervision guidelines.

You can help by boosting and circulating the link in your various networks 🙏 redcap.unisq.edu.au/surveys/?s=D...
Developing guidelines for supervising Neurodivergent HDR students
redcap.unisq.edu.au
November 10, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Reposted by Sally-Anne Wherry
markrubin.bsky.social
“Positivism Creep”

“The subtle, often unacknowledged infiltration of positivist or post-positivist assumptions into methodologies where they do not naturally, philosophically, practically, or epistemologically belong.”

By @thomasgraves.bsky.social @maddipow.bsky.social @annayahprosser.bsky.social
Many developments to reform the research landscape have occurred over the past decade. These changes have been made with broad goals to improve the ‘openness’ of research and often assumed to be ‘methodologically -agnostic’; that is, they ostensibly have benefits for all researchers occupying all epistemological and methodological positions. ‘Open science’ initiatives such as study pre-registration (i.e., specifying research aims and analytical plan ahead of data access), open data sharing, open-access publication, and open materials sharing are becoming increasingly mainstream across many fields within social research and the natural sciences. While there has been much criticism of these interventions, largely from the qualitative research community, we want to draw attention to a troubling trend in the promotion of open science: the leaking of standards relevant only to quantitative research to all paradigms. Or, as others refer to it, “positivism creep”. Here, we situate positivism creep (i.e., the creeping of positivist conventions to all research) within research policy, we highlight its increasing prevalence within open science reforms, and we warn against a future which could alienate many non-positivist scholars. We argue that the primary framing of open science as the pursuit of reproducibility and objectivity risks promoting positivism creep in the social sciences and humanities. In particular, we suggest that overly strict open research requirements placed by funders may reduce the range and variety of epistemological positions that can be taken by researchers, with particularly deleterious effects for qualitative researchers.
December 5, 2025 at 7:07 PM
sawherry.bsky.social
I love eurovision so much. I will not be watching it. I inflicted it on my family every year until recent times
December 6, 2025 at 8:58 AM
Reposted by Sally-Anne Wherry
danielsohege.bsky.social
Considering Streeting's well stated belief autism, ADHD etc, along with mental health issues, are "overdiagnosed", I won't hold my breath for this doing anything other than being used to cut support, along with opportunities for diagnosis, for people who need it. #r4today
www.bbc.com/news/article...
Streeting orders review into mental health and ADHD diagnosis
The health secretary said the aim was to tackle a rising demand for services and the increased pressure on the NHS.
www.bbc.com
December 4, 2025 at 7:12 AM
Reposted by Sally-Anne Wherry
philipcbaldwin.bsky.social
“The data for transgender people is particularly alarming — there were 102 anti-trans hate crimes in the city last year, a staggering 95 percent of which were violent.”

#TransRightsAreHumanRights

www.advocate.com/crime/anti-l...
Anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes reached record-highs last year in this gay haven
In one of the friendliest cities for LGBTQ+ people, hate crimes based on gender identity reached a "record-high" last year.
www.advocate.com
December 6, 2025 at 7:58 AM
sawherry.bsky.social
I may have won a thing. Other staff kindly nominated me and I shall endeavour to be they person described in my nomination
A lovely certificate declaring me the winner of a staff award for research and scholarship
December 6, 2025 at 8:31 AM
Reposted by Sally-Anne Wherry
hagenilda.bsky.social
This is a phenomenal effort from staff and reps given the turnout for the indicative ballot – to improve on that by nearly 10% is amazing. But as HEC we need to do some serious reflecting. The proportion of Yes and No votes are also revealing (70/30) #UCU #UKHE /1

www.ucu.org.uk/article/1427...
UCU higher education industrial action ballot results
This morning (Tuesday 2 December 2025) we were notified by Civica Election Services of the results of our UK-wide higher education ballot, and I am sorry to report that turnout has fallen short of the...
www.ucu.org.uk
December 2, 2025 at 11:25 AM
Reposted by Sally-Anne Wherry
vthuppil.bsky.social
UCU Left + six other HEC members who travel with UCU Left left their common sense at home on the day voted for a ballot that they were warned was doomed to fail

They and they alone own this failure

We literally warned them and they did not care
hagenilda.bsky.social Dr Jo Edge 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 @hagenilda.bsky.social · 5d
Hearing about alarming, defamatory all-branch emails being sent blaming the GS (who does not sit on HEC) for the failure of the #UKHE ballot.

HEC called the ballot. The GS does not sit on HEC. She did her job and acted on HEC's instruction, no matter her personal view. This isn't on her.
December 3, 2025 at 10:49 PM
Reposted by Sally-Anne Wherry
davehitchcock.bsky.social
Unfortunately the HE 2025 ballot failed at 39% turnout. I have written about why and about what desperately needs to change in UCU's national structures off the back of this result. Some HEC members need to chi up and understand their role in all this, and how disconnected they are from members.
The HE Ballot failed, now what?
If you’re reading this it is because today the UCU’s 2025 national ballot over pay and conditions in universities has failed. The last time…
hitchcockian.medium.com
December 2, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Reposted by Sally-Anne Wherry
karengregory.bsky.social
There seems to be a lot of mutual desire for UCU to be a stronger union capable of meeting the moment, but less desire (or know how?) to do the slow and less heroic work of listening to people and organising from those mundane realities.

ucucommons.org/industrial-b...
Industrial Action Ballot Result Statement
UCU Commons members are disappointed in the outcome of the ballot; a failed ballot is not a result that any of us wanted. However, we know that many members have lost faith in our union’s elected comm...
ucucommons.org
December 3, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Reposted by Sally-Anne Wherry
petraboynton.bsky.social
Being Well in Academia is in Routledge's Black Friday sale so treat yourself or buy it for a friend.

Remember, I give free wellbeing talks to universities that stock it so now's a good time to ask your librarian if they have a copy and, if not, to get one 😉

www.routledge.com/Being-Well-i...
A copy of 'Being Well in Academia: ways to feel stronger, safer and more connected' rests against a larger pile of the same book.
December 2, 2025 at 10:32 PM
Reposted by Sally-Anne Wherry
retractionwatch.com
A review article concluding the weed killer Roundup--aka glyphosate--“does not pose a health risk to humans” has been retracted 8 years after documents released in a court case revealed employees of Monsanto, the company that developed it, wrote the article but were not named as coauthors.
Glyphosate safety article retracted eight years after Monsanto ghostwriting revealed in court
Credit: Mike Mozart/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) A review article concluding the weed killer Roundup “does not pose a health risk to humans” has been retracted eight years after documents released in a court…
retractionwatch.com
December 4, 2025 at 4:19 PM
Reposted by Sally-Anne Wherry
hscpgtuog.bsky.social
Open day today at UoG! Come and visit our PG hub in Oxstalls (oh and those undergrad people too). We have chocolate. There are also some courses over at the new shiny city campus. @gloshealthnhs.bsky.social @gloshospitals.bsky.social @uniofglos.bsky.social
One of the buildings at Oxstalls Campus - it has a hub in it that looks like chocolate might be there
November 23, 2025 at 9:25 AM
Reposted by Sally-Anne Wherry
simonforstroud.bsky.social
With more than 80 parliamentarians I have signed this letter calling on the Government to stop Israeli settler violence & displacement of Palestinians in communities like Umm al-Khair.

The UK has a duty to uphold international law and protect those facing persecution.

caabu.org/news/news/80...
80 Parliamentarians demand UK government act to stop Israel's settler violence and forced dispossession of Palestinians in communities like Umm al Khair
Over 80 UK Parliamentarians have written to the Foreign Secretary Rt Hon. Yvette Cooper on the escalating settler violence, systematic depravation and threat of mass demolitions and forcible transfer…
caabu.org
November 22, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Reposted by Sally-Anne Wherry
senthorun.bsky.social
Over two decades ago, a Labour government repealed “Section 28” which aimed to prevent positive discussions about homosexuality and gay lives in schools. Now a Labour government pursues transphobia and erases trans and non-binary lives. Today’s political transphobia is basically recycled homophobia.
amnestyuk.bsky.social Amnesty International UK @amnestyuk.bsky.social · 21d
Twenty-two years ago today Section 28 was repealed.

But we're seeing history repeat itself as some in the media and in politics spread bigotry and misinformation about trans people.

1/8🧵
November 18, 2025 at 6:25 PM
sawherry.bsky.social
Massive campaign. Brilliant work by the union staff and members.
ucu.org.uk University and College Union (UCU) @ucu.org.uk · 20d
90% voted YES.
32 colleges over the line.
17 colleges already won pay awards.

This is a huge organising win for our FE members.

College bosses must work with us, staff deserve a fair deal, especially when many are paid £7k–£9k less than in sixth forms.

Next steps announced next week.
November 18, 2025 at 8:03 PM
Reposted by Sally-Anne Wherry
mollycrabapple.bsky.social
Hey authors! Check to see if Anthropic stole your book to train their slop generator on. You’re entitled to $1500 per stolen Work.

Look up your work, and if you’re in the database, file a claim
secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup/
Submit a Claim
secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com
November 18, 2025 at 7:39 AM
sawherry.bsky.social
I am so so glad we are ... you know, preserving basic humanity.
November 18, 2025 at 7:25 PM
Reposted by Sally-Anne Wherry
nadiawhittomemp.bsky.social
The government should be ashamed that its migration policies are being cheered on by Tommy Robinson and Reform.

Instead of standing up to anti-migrant hate, this is laying the foundations for the far-right.

I questioned the Home Secretary on how she can be proposing such obviously cruel policies.
November 17, 2025 at 4:27 PM