Stephanie Callaghan

A recent “systematic review” claiming transgender women show no meaningful strength differences from women after hormones went viral in progressive circles, but it should never have been published. It included studies that didn’t even meet its own criteria, and excluded relevant studies that did but contradicted its preferred conclusion. It made sweeping claims based on limited (and flawed) data, and one outlier study drove the headline result. This did not pass even basic expectations for scientific rigor, and yet it passed peer review in a top journal. Exercise scientist @JamesLNuzzo does the rigorous, line-by-line review this paper should have received before publication, breaking down exactly where it went wrong and why the conclusions don’t hold up. Read the full article below. 🔗realityslaststand.com/p/how-a-flawed…

Following Thursday's general election to the Scottish Parliament, we have published a short blog looking at the results. We will publish our full results briefing early next week. 👇spice-spotlight.scot/2026/05/09/the…

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Congratulations @StevenBonnarSNP The closing constituency declaration - last but not least!

I have contacted SNP leader John Swinney and Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth to congratulate them on their enormous mandates. For the first time ever, there could be three pro-independence First Ministers across these islands. More and more people are looking towards a future beyond the constraints of the Union. I look forward to continuing to build the friendship between the people of our nations, and to working closely with both John and Rhun in the time ahead.

Historic change is happening. For the first time ever, there could be three nationalist, pro-Independence First Ministers across these islands. The demand for independence is growing.

@SkyNews highlighting ERROR: Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse SNP Gain from Labour (not HOLD) @AlexKerrSNP

The B7071 Bothwell Road in Uddingston remains closed due to the fire last night.

America went to war in the Middle East to secure oil. China just sold everyone the exit. While Washington burned through alliances and aircraft carriers, Beijing spent a decade quietly monopolizing solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles. The Iran war didn’t slow that down. It accelerated it. Oil prices spiked. Clean energy orders went through the roof. Chinese battery exports are up 57% year on year. Solar, batteries and EVs hit $22 billion in a single month. Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

Woman of the Day Philippa Garrett Fawcett, born OTD in 1868 in Cambridge, daughter of the suffragist Millicent Garrett Fawcett and niece of Britain’s first female doctor Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, who achieved a rare distinction in her own right. On 7 June 1890 at the age of 22, she took first place in the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos, the first time a woman had done so. It caused havoc. The Tripos was famously difficult: 12 papers and 192 progressively more difficult questions over eight days, and for those in contention for the title of Wrangler, a further three days of exams consisting of 63 still more testing problems. Preparation took months. To attain first prize as Senior Wrangler, Cambridge’s champion mathematician, was regarded as the greatest intellectual distinction of all. No fewer than nine Senior Wranglers including Sir Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking became Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. Philippa rose at 8am and studied for an intense six hours a day, often not retiring until 11pm, but she didn’t go as far as her competitors who worked through the night with wet towels wrapped around their heads. She knew she was being watched. The scandalised Pall Mall Gazette reported that she dared to wear “her thick brown hair down to her shoulders, and has even been known (so I have heard) to ride on top of a bus” but she was determined - according to a contemporary news report - to deny ammunition to those who tried “to make out that the women’s colleges are peopled by eccentrics.” Women then were considered incapable of mastering maths. Fragile, dependent creatures prone to nerves and possessed of a mind several degrees inferior to a man’s, studying during puberty was tantamount to dicing with death because most Victorian scholars believed that “the brain and ovary could not develop at the same time.” To take first place was unthinkable. Yet Philippa did. She knocked spots off the second place candidate with a score a full 13% higher than his. Did this accord her the much prized title of Senior Wrangler, First among Cambridge mathematics Firsts? What do you think? As her cousin Marion reported: “It was a most exciting scene in the Senate…The gallery was crowded with girls and a few men, and the floor of the building was thronged with undergraduates as tightly packed as they could be. The lists were read out from the gallery and we heard splendidly. All the men’s names were read first, the Senior Wrangler [G.T. Bennett of St John’s College] was much cheered. At last the man who had been reading shouted “Women.” A fearfully agitating moment for Philippa it must have been. He signalled with his hand for the men to keep quiet, but had to wait some time. At last he read Philippa’s name, and announced that she was “Above the Senior Wrangler.” That’s right. Only a man could be named Senior Wrangler, so the bloke in the No. 2 spot got the title. Philippa was simply listed as “Above the Senior Wrangler” instead. Despite this grudging nod from the university, Philippa’s achievement attracted media attention internationally, and the Daily Telegraph made this its lead story stating, “Once again has woman demonstrated her superiority in the face of an incredulous and somewhat unsympathetic world... And now the last trench has been carried by Amazonian assault, and the whole citadel of learning lies open and defenceless before the victorious students of Newnham and Girton. There is no longer any field of learning in which the lady student does not excel.” You’d think that Cambridge would be proud to award a degree to someone of such exceptional ability, wouldn’t you? Nah. Women could attend lectures and take the same exams, but they were denied degrees on the basis of their sex. Instead, they were handed a Certificate of Proficiency, which makes it sound as though they’d mastered making sausage rolls in a Bake-off contest. Philippa promptly became a “Steamboat Lady”. Until I read about Phillippa, I’d never heard of “steamboat ladies” but it was the nickname given to women students from Oxbridge who travelled to Trinity College Dublin between 1904 and 1906 to be awarded an ad eundem degree - an academic degree awarded on the grounds of mutual recognition or equivalence. Trinity had long held the view that there was no reason to restrict women students from graduating on the same terms as men if they achieved the same grades, and its Board agreed to recognise eligible female Oxbridge students by awarding a Trinity degree. The Board anticipated that only small numbers of women would take up the offer to graduate: Irishwomen who had studied at Oxbridge. In fact by 1907, Trinity granted degrees to some 720 "steamboat ladies”, all of whom would have been awarded degrees if they had been men. How much talent and potential was lost? Philippa became a mathematics lecturer at Newnham College for ten years before going to South Africa to set up teacher training colleges. She died on in June 1948, two months after her 80th birthday, and one month after Cambridge finally conceded that yes, women could be awarded a degree.

@Womban1972 @CllrGregLennon @HRwritesnews @CammieMcManus97 @CllrAdamSmith @PeterMcDade @PaulDiMasci0 For clarity, I confirmed the accuracy of the comment by @StevenBonnarSNP, since he referred to me. Without implying this tells the whole story, I can also confirm that Cllr Lennon's comments (here and in council chamber) are also accurate. Hope that helps

Kirsten Larson, the NLC councillor who told her SNP colleagues the 'only thing jordan linden is guilty of is being a young person' is now asking for one of Linden's victims to show 'dignity and respect' towards HER. You could not make this shit up.

Former Goldman Sachs Chief Economist Jim O'Neill exposes the devastating reality of Brexit. He confirms the UK lost massive investment and trade benefits, warning that British universities are now struggling to attract the top global intellectual talent.

"that the universal credit change will only affect “new” claimants says the quiet part out loud: anyone can become disabled or chronically ill at any point... every time gov slash the safety net, we can’t know if it will be us, a loved one, or a stranger who will fall through it"

In 1930, rural Virginia, a Black girl born into sharecropping poverty wasn't supposed to leave the tobacco fields. But Gladys Mae Brown had other plans.... Her hands picked crops. Her mind solved equations no one asked her to solve. Her parents, despite barely scraping by, made a choice that defied every expectation placed on them. They kept her in school. She became valedictorian at a segregated high school with torn textbooks and broken windows. She earned a scholarship to Virginia State College in an era when being Black, female, and intellectually brilliant meant the world tried to crush you three different ways. In 1956, she walked through the doors of the Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgren as the second Black woman they'd ever hired. Four Black employees. Hundreds of white men. Most didn't think she'd survive the week. They were catastrophically wrong. Gladys calculated weapons trajectories by hand. Complex differential equations that consumed hours of meticulous work. Her accuracy became legendary. When computers arrived, she didn't resist the future. She learned Fortran. She mastered programming languages. She transformed weeks of calculations into hours. Then came Seasat in the 1970s. The first satellite studying Earth's oceans from orbit. She became project manager. But her true contribution remained hidden in the mathematics. For GPS to function, you need Earth's exact shape. Not close. Exact. Earth isn't a smooth sphere. It's an asymmetrical, gravity-distorted, irregular mass of mountains and ocean trenches. Gladys spent years constructing mathematical models describing every deviation, every curve, every gravitational anomaly of our planet's true form. She analyzed satellite data. She built geoid models. Tedious, invisible, revolutionary work. That mathematics became the foundation of GPS. Every navigation app. Every emergency rescue. Every autonomous vehicle. Every precision farming system. Her equations make it possible. Forty-two years at Dahlgren. Retirement in 1998. GPS fully operational worldwide. Billions of users. Almost nobody knew her name. She raised three children. Earned her PhD at seventy after surviving a stroke. Lived quietly. Until 2018, when someone at a sorority event read her biography aloud. The room went silent. The story exploded. At eighty-eight, Gladys West was inducted into the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame. The world finally learned her name. She mapped the entire planet. Then everyone forgot. Until they remembered. Gladys West worked alongside her husband Ira West, who was also a mathematician at the Naval Proving Ground. They met at Dahlgren and built both a family and parallel careers in an environment that actively discriminated against them. After retirement, she didn't stop. She earned her PhD from Virginia Tech at age 70, proving that intellectual curiosity doesn't have an expiration date. The GPS system relies on something called the geoid, a mathematical model of Earth's shape that accounts for gravitational variations. Gladys West's calculations helped create these models by analyzing millions of data points from satellite altimetry. Without accurate geoid models, GPS coordinates would be off by hundreds of meters, making the technology essentially useless. Her story remained hidden partly because classified military work doesn't generate headlines. Many pioneers of satellite and navigation technology worked in obscurity for national security reasons. The sorority member who recognized her contribution was reading through Alpha Kappa Alpha biographies when she noticed the GPS connection and brought it to public attention. © Women Stories #drthehistories

@Womban1972 @PaulDiMasci0 @StevenBonnarSNP UB branch is full of decent folk, & the shock of this debacle will stay with us all. Steven & I fully backed branch members coming together to act decisively My deepest respect to all survivors- and to those who refused 2b cowed. Their courage & tenacity exposed this predator 🕊

My thoughts are with every brave survivor of Jordan Linden’s sexual offences. My heart goes out to them, I hope they take strength seeing justice served. I sincerely hope they are receiving the full support they need and deserve.

I welcome this announcement and thank the @iocmedia for restoring dignity, fairness and safety to its policies regarding the female category - rooted in common sense, facts and science! 👏 This achievement would not have been possible if it were not for the tireless campaigning and hard work of many women rights defenders, athletes, experts and scientists! Congratulations to you too!

Right and fair "Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females, determined on the basis of a one‑time SRY gene screening."

@ChrisMcEleny then those people need to be able to sit at the table. There’s no substitute for lived experience in the room. The best policies come from those directly affected.

@ChrisMcEleny Family‑friendly politics isn’t a “perk” - it’s how you build a representative democracy Nowhere is that more essential than our parliament and councils If we want decisions that actually work for people with young kids, caring responsibilities, disabilities, & island communities

Is a bus driver, nurse, shop worker, electrician, or the vast majority of jobs family friendly? MSPs seem to want to work in a workplace that has far superior rights and entitlements than the rest of the country whom they legislate for. (reserved caveats etc yes)

@pugsandparrots @WomenOScotland You've been through so much Ellie - really hope you're keeping better and not suffering pain 🤗

@WomenOScotland @StephySNP Exactly. I've had endo for 30+yrs, numerous surgeries, hysterectomy, and treatment with puberty blockers. This vile man has no idea what it's like. For him to be attending meetings, talking about the condition as something that affects "us women" is an utter disgrace.

Endometriosis is a female disease Women were dismissed, misdiagnosed and told our pain was imaginary - I lived it That history is brutal & uniquely ours. It demands respect. “Inclusive language” that scrubs the word women erases us. It retraumatises us. Enough gaslighting🔥

@pugsandparrots @WomenOScotland 😮 “us women”? A male‑bodied person including himself in a female disease is just wrong - it overwrites women’s experiences - #endo is female‑specific I would feel compelled to challenge such talk, not to be unkind, but to protect the integrity of women’s lived exp & endurance