Polly Mairead Davies
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pollydee.bsky.social
Polly Mairead Davies
@pollydee.bsky.social
270 followers 260 following 190 posts
Tea & wine drinker, cake lover. Reads a lot, writes a bit 🚀 Trans Femme 🏳️‍🌈She/They. Scot. Eòrpach/European🇪🇺.
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Polly Mairead Davies
neilwilliamson.bsky.social
If you're in Central Scotland and fancy a day of scifi and fantasy chat, come and join us at Picton on Saturday!
November 5, 2025 at 11:36 PM
Reposted by Polly Mairead Davies
marina-purkiss.bsky.social
A woman is killed by a man every 3 days in the UK...

78% are murdered by a partner/ex

Yet not once have I heard Reform talk about this

Not once have I heard them back measures to protect women’s safety

In fact, they voted against them...
October 31, 2025 at 10:22 AM
Reposted by Polly Mairead Davies
hierath77.bsky.social
Fingers crossed for @wtpress.bsky.social - Fight Like A Girl 2 is up for an award for Best Anthology at the @britfantasysoc.bsky.social Awards on Saturday! Wish us luck!

wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/anth...
Fight Like A Girl – Volume 2
ISBNs Paperback: 978-1-913892-84-5 EPUB: 978-1-913892-82-1 MOBI: 978-1-913892-83-8
wizardstowerpress.com
October 29, 2025 at 7:05 PM
Reposted by Polly Mairead Davies
georgetakei.bsky.social
The oligarchy wants full control of what we watch and read.
A tweet from Robert Reich states: “The richest man on earth owns X. The second richest man on earth is about to acquire TikTok and his family could soon own both Paramount and Warner Bros. The third richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The fourth richest man owns The Washington Post. See the problem here?”
October 27, 2025 at 8:30 PM
pollydee.bsky.social
This. There's talk of the need to build more housing, although social housing is only ever a fraction compared to more expensive homes, which the big building firms can make more frofit form.

Meanwhile, council homes all over are not being kept up.

www.aberdeenlive.news/news/aberdee...
Calls for 1,816 empty Aberdeen council homes to be brought back into public use
Living Rent Aberdeen delivered an open letter signed by local charities and community organisations calling for empty council homes to be brought back into use.
www.aberdeenlive.news
October 26, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Reposted by Polly Mairead Davies
hleehurley.com
Somebody IRL said this to me once. I told them to go home and actually count, then get back to me.

They did not.
bladeofthes.bsky.social BladeoftheSun @bladeofthes.bsky.social · 21d
Reform's Sarah Pochin “It drives me mad when I see adverts full of Black people, full of Asian people, full of you know, people that are basically anything other than White”

The face of racist Reform, if you are not White and you vote for them you are voting for your own slavery
October 25, 2025 at 8:18 PM
Reposted by Polly Mairead Davies
mimmymum.bsky.social
He who controls the media, controls the message (and the masses).

This is Orwellian.

#Educate #Create #Communicate #Resist
Elon Musk - $500B. Larry Ellison - $393B. Mark Zuckerbe -$270B. Jeff Bezos - $237B. Four men. Nearly $1.4 trillion stacked into private coffers and they own the platforms that shape what you see, hear, and believe. This isn't wealth; it's command-and-control: Musk runs the town square, Ellison is buying your entertainment, Zuckerberg owns your social life, Bezos holds the newsroom. Total war on public truth. If you think democracy survives when that much money controls the narrative, you're dreaming. Wake up: concentrated fortune = concentrated power = weaponized information.
October 26, 2025 at 8:05 AM
Reposted by Polly Mairead Davies
amberleymuseum.bsky.social
This is Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron and considered to be the first person to write a computer programme which was for Babbage's Analytical Machine. She died in 1842
In her honour, today is Ada Lovelace Day and is all about encouraging women and girls in mathematics, science and engineering.
October 8, 2025 at 12:32 PM
Reposted by Polly Mairead Davies
davidandress.bsky.social
The hilarious reality that immigrants to the UK already have "digital ID" that it's illegal for them to do anything without.

Labour want to impose this draconian surveillance on your granny.
shoaibmkhan.bsky.social Shoaib M Khan @shoaibmkhan.bsky.social · Sep 27
Digital IDs are a terrible, dangerous idea for numerous reasons.

But, even on their own terms, what's the gap they're supposed to fill?

It seems many people don't realise that we already have eVisas. All migrants get this "digital record" of their status and permission anyway.
September 27, 2025 at 8:46 AM
pollydee.bsky.social
Er, no!
hleehurley.com Lee Hurley @hleehurley.com · Sep 27
"Was Margaret Thatcher a feminist?" [Times]

Written by anti-trans activist Sarah Ditum.
Was Margaret Thatcher a feminist? The trailblazing Iron Lady had no love for women’s libbers, but they underrated her. By Sarah Ditum Margaret Thatcher at the Conservative Party conference in 1989. Next image › Book of the week The Incidental Feminist: Friend, Foe, Femme Fatale? The Truth About Thatcher by Tina Gaudoin Swift £22 pp352 One of my favourite stories about Margaret Thatcher is that in 1980 she was so infuriated by the police’s incompetent pursuit of the serial killer Peter Sutcliffe that her home secretary, Willie Whitelaw, had to dissuade her from travelling to Leeds and personally taking charge of the “Yorkshire Ripper” investigation. The anecdote is probably exaggerated (which might be why it doesn’t appear in Tina Gaudoin’s biographical study), but the depth of Thatcher’s anger was genuine.
September 27, 2025 at 8:40 AM
Reposted by Polly Mairead Davies
hleehurley.com
"The home secretary has warned of a “recipe for chaos” in criminal cases involving Palestine Action if the High Court is allowed to hear an appeal against its designation as a proscribed terror group." [Times]

Not overturn the case - just 'hear' the case.
September 27, 2025 at 8:18 AM
Reposted by Polly Mairead Davies
rjbarker.bsky.social
Yes! Apply for this. Have a great time and meet interesting people. The only 100% sure way of not getting it is by not applying.
drfionamoore.bsky.social Fiona Moore 🇨🇦 @drfionamoore.bsky.social · Sep 23
Next year's @easterconuk.bsky.social bursary is now live! Do apply and don't self-reject, I hear too many talented authors and artists saying "well I would go to Eastercon but I can't afford it." eastercon2026.org/bursary-sche...
Bursary Scheme Policy | Iridescence
eastercon2026.org
September 23, 2025 at 11:38 AM
Reposted by Polly Mairead Davies
sirbenfro.bsky.social
In many ways, the west has a Media problem more than anything else. We have allowed ourselves to become addicted to sensationalism and outrage, so that's what the media serves us.
September 22, 2025 at 11:09 AM
pollydee.bsky.social
I have a print of Dawn, and one of The Veil of Night, by this artist, arranged so the first rays of sunlight hit the former, and the last settle on the latter. They always get notice from any guests. I may have to get more, but need wall space.
serenamalyon.bsky.social Serena Malyon 🌞🌛 @serenamalyon.bsky.social · Sep 21
Steady - watercolour and acryla gouache on paper

💙One day left to get prints on saIe!💙
a painting of a giant blue ox carrying a city on its horns.
September 22, 2025 at 11:44 AM
Reposted by Polly Mairead Davies
serenamalyon.bsky.social
Steady - watercolour and acryla gouache on paper

💙One day left to get prints on saIe!💙
a painting of a giant blue ox carrying a city on its horns.
September 21, 2025 at 5:55 PM
Reposted by Polly Mairead Davies
tristangrayford.scot
GPEW seeing a big spike in membership this month should bury all the complaints that having a strong pro-trans rights line would hurt their breadth of appeal.

As if the continued successes of the SGP weren't evidence enough of that.

Transphobia isn't popular or compelling on the left.
September 20, 2025 at 10:43 AM
Reposted by Polly Mairead Davies
reactiveashley.bsky.social
1/🧵 Archive finds. This is the sweetest letter I’ve ever read at Kew.

On the pros and cons of issuing National Insurance contribution cards for trans people based on their lived gender. The “debate” sounds familiar, right?
Mr. Menneer Dr. Watkins-Pitchford has discussed with me our policy on these change of sex cases and has expressed some anxiety that we are running & risk of finding ourselves some day implicated in a minor public scandal. We always recognised that there was a risk that however careful our enquiries, we may be led into issuing a contribution card of the "wrong" sex to a person who is not a genuine trans-sexual, but a pervert whose object is to masquerade in clothes of the opposite sex for purposes which, under our present laws, are criminal. The fact that we have issued “wrong” cards in some scores of cases for the past few years without serious trouble suggests that the risk is not very great, though it certainly does not imply that it can be ignored. If we were criticised for what we are doing we should, I think, have & very good defence. In the first place there is nothing unlawful about it. Secondly any reasonable person would agree that it is desirable, on medical and social grounds, to assist genuine victims of this condition to adjust themselves to life in the community. The great majority are respectable and unhappy people who find it impossible to carry on a normal life as persons of the sex attributed to them at birth. It is not uncommon for them to be reduded to a suicidal frame of mind. our action is invariably based on the best medical advice we can get from specialists who are in touch with the patients and specifically recommend that he or she should be assisted to live and work as a person of the other sex. The possession of a national insurance card is not likely to be much help to anyone in the pursuit of criminal activities. On the face of things it is only useful for legitimate purposes of employment. It seems to me that the Ministry would only be likely to be oriticised if, in the course of his defence on a criminal charge, a person claimed that our having issued a card to him supported or authorised his masquerading as a person of the opposite sex. But masquerading is not, in itself, unlawlul, and it could not seriously be argued that we had abetted or condoned any criminal activity. In other words, the risk is really that we may be the subject of some damaging but ill-informed obiter dictum by & Magistrate or the press. I am confident that the right course is to accept this risk in the interests of the many genuine cases. It you agree, I propose that we should continue on the present lines. I shall of course be glad to consider any case in which Dr. Watkins-Pitchford feels doubtful about the application of our policy. (T. C. STEPHENS) 5th November, 1962. C.1. Copies to:- Dr. Watkins-Pitchford. Mr. Vaughan
September 16, 2025 at 11:28 AM
Reposted by Polly Mairead Davies
finhall.bsky.social
youtube.com/watch?v=1UO9...
ACT MY AGE. LIVE ON STAGE
Act My Age. Live on stage.
YouTube video by Fin Hall
youtube.com
September 15, 2025 at 10:40 PM
Reposted by Polly Mairead Davies
tristangrayford.scot
"We must decry political violence in the strongest terms no matter who is the target, or our society collapses."

Why can't I see a single mention of Melissa Hortman on your feed, then?

That goes for you, too, Mr Prime Minister.
September 14, 2025 at 9:11 AM
Reposted by Polly Mairead Davies
ukstoptrump.bsky.social
Yesterday, the largest far-right protest in UK history marched through London, led by racist Tommy Robinson.

Today, we say: They don’t speak for us — and they won’t have the last word.

This Wednesday we come together against Trump and for a better future. Do everything to be there.
September 14, 2025 at 8:30 AM
Reposted by Polly Mairead Davies
duncanrobinson.bsky.social
Shot, chaser

Young men more likely to vote Green than Reform. Young men second most progressive group of any demographic. Combined right-wing vote barely bigger than Green vote alone for young men
September 14, 2025 at 6:31 AM
Reposted by Polly Mairead Davies
ionafyfe.bsky.social
I'm delighted to be participating in the Elphinstone Institute Public Lecture Series at the @uniofaberdeen.bsky.social on 18th September. The event is free to attend.

📍MacRobert Building
📅 18th September
⏰ 18:30
🎟️ Free
More info: lnkd.in/esDT4AfP
Iona is standing with a beige background. The logos of AIberdeen Varsity and the Elphinstone Institute is on the poster. The text says "In Conversation with Iona Fyfe, Elphinstone Institute Public Lecture Series 18th September 18:00 Free"
September 11, 2025 at 11:31 PM
Reposted by Polly Mairead Davies
julietemckenna.bsky.social
Seems like a good day to (re)post this reminder. The default position for so much we see online now needs to be 'doubt and verify', certainly before sharing 'Trust but verify' is a relic of a bygone era.
September 11, 2025 at 8:30 AM
pollydee.bsky.social
I do not want to give the police any credit, because too many bad apples have rotted the barrel, but is it possible that there are a few good coppers (oxymoron?) who are practising malicious compliance, arresting so many, the govt stance becomes unenforceable?

I doubt it, but it'd be interesting.
September 8, 2025 at 12:02 PM
pollydee.bsky.social
This is an absolutely essential article. The rise of the far-right has to be stopped.

"You don’t stop the rise of the far right by trying to be far-right lite, or creating fear."
September 7, 2025 at 11:54 AM