Rob Mullins
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Rob Mullins
@robertmullins.bsky.social
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Associate Professor, University of Queensland.
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Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · Jun 16
My article "Does Nature Need Rights?" (coauthored with the wonderful Lulu Weis), forthcoming in the OJLS, is now available open access: academic.oup.com/ojls/advance...
Does Nature Need Rights?
Abstract. Rights of nature (RoN) appear to provide a promising alternative to anthropocentric environmental rights. But do they meet the demands of transfo
academic.oup.com
Reposted by Rob Mullins
jael.bsky.social
The Trump administration today announced a new government-backed fossil fuel industry mascot.

Meet Coalie the lump of coal!
Drawing (AI Gen?) of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum next to an anthropomorphic lump of coal wearing an OSM vest
January 22, 2026 at 7:00 PM
Reposted by Rob Mullins
crookedfootball.bsky.social
Rules-based international order. And what stronger rule is there than the one against torture (a fortiori sexual torture)? And yet, Europe looks the other way
‘I could not stay silent’: Palestinian prisoner tells of sexual abuse in Israeli jail
Sami al-Saei has defied social stigma to speak out about what a report calls a ‘grave pattern’ of sexual violence
www.theguardian.com
January 21, 2026 at 8:15 AM
robertmullins.bsky.social
As of 2019, the policy in England and Wales was that someone in this man's position would have to show that his genitals, chromosomes and gonads were congruent and the opposite to the sex on his birth certificate in order to correct it. Otherwise he would need to apply for a GRC.
hleehurley.com Lee Hurley @hleehurley.com · 2d
"A story of sex and identity to make you gasp" [Times]
A story of sex and identity to make you gasp TV review James Jackson The film follows Jim, who was christened Kristi and raised as a female Next image › The Secret of Me Channel 4 ★★★★☆ The most remarkable moment of the documentary The Secret of Me came right at the end when a middle-aged man named Jim finally came face-to-face with Dr Carter, who had surgically made him a girl shortly after birth in 1976. Why? Because the baby’s phallus size “was nowhere near the size of a penis you’d expect on an infant” (so said the doctor). This was a well-intentioned decision, green-lit by the parents, but the fact that “Kristi”, as Jim was christened, then spent years as a very confused girl because the truth was kept secret from her (under medical advice) now looks little less than cruel. Yet the confrontation between Jim and Carter was notable for its tentative civility. The doctor, while explaining why the decision was taken in the baby’s best interests, admitted that “in retrospect it was wrong”. Jim’s intensely personal story, told directly into the camera, was the upshot of what happens when science all too readily accepts a single wonderful theory — one, as it would turn out, based on bogus research. In the 1960s the academic Dr John Money’s idea that an individual’s core gender identity is shaped in their early years, and isn’t something innate, essentially resulted in countless intersex babies undergoing these operations — ones described in this film as “genital mutilation”. Surgery at birth for babies with ambiguous genitalia isn’t banned in most countries (including the UK). Jim, now in his fifties and hirsutely male, clarified right at the start: “I know what you’re thinking — this is a transgender story. But it’s not.” He wasn’t born into the wrong body, but the right one. It was the doctors who decided he should be female.
January 21, 2026 at 9:11 AM
robertmullins.bsky.social
I thought I had found an example--cannabis--but from what I can tell there is no ban on prescription of cannabis to u16s and even some possible use cases.
robertmullins.bsky.social Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 4d
Apart from nut allergies and cigarettes, which are the only examples I've seen cass and co-authors offer, can anyone give me an example of another medication that is banned on the basis of a "precautionary principle" for u16s? People really ought to think about where this is going.
hleehurley.com Lee Hurley @hleehurley.com · 4d
Hilary Cass, who wants to ban u16s from social media, comparing social media use to a nut allergy because that's how she does science for kids.
January 20, 2026 at 9:50 AM
robertmullins.bsky.social
Apart from nut allergies and cigarettes, which are the only examples I've seen cass and co-authors offer, can anyone give me an example of another medication that is banned on the basis of a "precautionary principle" for u16s? People really ought to think about where this is going.
hleehurley.com Lee Hurley @hleehurley.com · 4d
Hilary Cass, who wants to ban u16s from social media, comparing social media use to a nut allergy because that's how she does science for kids.
Baroness Cass backs ban on social media for under-16s Oliver Wright - Policy Editor, Ben Clatworthy - Whitehall Editor, Max Kendix, Stefan Boscia The paediatric doctor who led the damning review into NHS treatment of children with gender dysphoria will spearhead an effort to ban under-16s from using social media. Baroness Cass said medics were seeing young people fall victim to sextortion, cyberbullying and radicalisation, and that the “longer we wait, the more children we fail”. She is now leading a cross-party move in the Lords to ban under-16s from apps such as Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram. An open letter signed by 60 Labour MPs urges the government “to show leadership on this issue” by raising the minimum age for using social media. Cass, writing for The Times, likened the danger posed to children by social media to other preventable health threats. “Consider nut allergies. When children died, their families demanded action to protect others,” she said. “We did not tell grieving parents we needed more data, or that causation wasn’t conclusive, or that most children like nuts so we wouldn’t act.” Cass has tabled an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill that would introduce an Australia-style ban on social media for under-16s, which is backed by the Conservatives as well as Baroness Berger, the Labour peer. No government decision has yet been made on whether to oppose the amendment in a vote expected to take place on Wednesday. Sir Keir Starmer is said to have become more open to a ban amid growing pressure from backbenchers. Government sources said another option under consideration could involve raising the “digital age of consent”, which governs whose data can be processed by internet companies, from 13 to 16. Ian Russell, whose daughter Molly took her own life at 14 after being bombarded with self-harm and suicide content, has said bans could have “unintended consequences” that leave children at “greater risk of harm by treating the s Ian Russell, whose daughter Molly took her own life at 14 after being bombarded with self-harm and suicide content, has said bans could have “unintended consequences” that leave children at “greater risk of harm by treating the symptoms, not the problem”. Russell, who chairs the Molly Rose Foundation, and the NSPCC, the children’s charity, believe the law should be tightened to put the onus on technology companies. They want an Online Wellbeing Act to force platforms to build algorithms that direct accurate, reliable and safe content to children, rather than feeding them potentially dangerous posts. They said in a joint statement: “Blanket bans on social media would fail to deliver the improvement in children’s safety and wellbeing that they so urgently need. They are a blunt response that fails to address the successive shortcomings of tech companies and governments to act decisively.” Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, said yesterday that she believed the country is “not doing enough” to keep children and young people safe. She told the BBC: “I do think we need to look at the existing legislation we’ve got and see whether it goes far enough. There are strong arguments for banning under-16s from social media but there are also real concerns ... about whether it pushes children to darker, less regulated places on the internet.” A government spokesman said: “It’s important that we properly scrutinise the evidence to make sure that we take the right decisions.”
January 19, 2026 at 8:59 AM
robertmullins.bsky.social
Trans people have 'sex-based rights' too. That's what P v S (1996), And Goodwin (2002) were about, let alone Bostock. They have the right to change sex, or (if you can't bring yourself to say it) to change *all* of the sex characteristics they can change (including the toilets they use).
robertmullins.bsky.social Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · 7d
If 'separate but equal' isn't fair for cis people why should it be any fairer for trans people?
January 17, 2026 at 7:08 AM
robertmullins.bsky.social
I am suspicious of hate speech laws, and these changes are too rushed to be sure of their impact. But so long as we have defamation laws we should have commensurate provisions for defamation of protected groups. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...
Could Labor’s hate speech laws damage Australia’s free speech? Here’s what you need to know about the contentious bill
Coalition, Greens and free speech advocates have expressed concern about the bill, which looks set to fail in its current form. Here’s why
www.theguardian.com
January 17, 2026 at 3:34 AM
robertmullins.bsky.social
This piece about Bari Weiss university is really cheering me up. There's something darkly funny about the natural lawyers and Straussians ruining it for everyone.
January 16, 2026 at 10:20 PM
robertmullins.bsky.social
The thing is that if you accept what Lady Hale said in Coll about segregation as true, "third spaces" should be almost impossible to justify in law. They aren't a dignified option.
jessothomson.co.uk Jess O'Thomson @jessothomson.co.uk · 7d
It makes this point multiple times in a few different ways, but here is a particularly explicit example of their conclusion that is trans people, and not GCs, who ought to be segregated to third spaces
We remind ourselves that the PCP (in this case PCP 1) must correspond to a real need on the part of the Trust; it must be appropriate with a view to achieving the objectives pursued and it must be reasonably necessary to that end. We have seen the discriminatory effect of the PCP, in that it puts women - and the Claimants to the disadvantage set out above and amounted to harassment of them, in contravention of section 26 of the Equality Act 2010. In balancing the discriminatory effect of the PCP against the reasonable needs of the Trust to respect the gender identity of its employees, it is relevant to consider whether a lesser measure was also available to the Trust. A lesser measure clearly was available. This was to provide Rose, the only transgender employee using the female changing room with alternative, suitable and dignified facilities in which to comply with the Trust's Uniform policy. In our judgement, this would have respected Rose's gender identity and would have respected the biological sex of the Claimants. It would achieve equal respect for both characteristics. It is a fallacy that in order rightfully to respect Rose's rights Rose must be given access to the female changing room
January 16, 2026 at 10:17 PM
Reposted by Rob Mullins
robertmullins.bsky.social
I think my many followers are sick of me repeating myself so I'm just going to retweet this whenever something ghoulish happens to trans people in the UK: consider saying something. It's important and easy.
robertmullins.bsky.social Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · Nov 25
I'm going to repeat my request that any of my current or former colleagues in the UK think about being more outspoken about this.
batariangal.bsky.social Julianna 💎 @batariangal.bsky.social · Nov 25
I don’t like subtweeting people I consider online friends, but there is a subset of people who are very worried about the ongoing radicalisation of our political elite but won’t ever acknowledge the echoes with the radicalisation of their colleagues on trans rights
December 3, 2025 at 9:50 AM
Reposted by Rob Mullins
chrisoregan.bsky.social
It genuinely is good and important. And it still represents one of the best things about the Web.
25 years of Wikipedia
wikipedia25.org
January 15, 2026 at 9:12 AM
Reposted by Rob Mullins
liamhogan.id.au
Australia manages to reintegrate, every year, a new cohort of retired rugby league players
nilsgilman.bsky.social Nils Gilman @nilsgilman.bsky.social · 10d
It’s worth considering that an overnight dismantling of ICE in 2029 would release into the wild a whole herd of specialists in violence with scant other marketable skills.
January 15, 2026 at 1:52 AM
robertmullins.bsky.social
I have realized it was paywalled. Sorry all. There is a preprint available here: ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid...
January 13, 2026 at 10:41 AM
robertmullins.bsky.social
An interesting discussion of FWS by some prominent bioethicists here. I don't agree with all of it, but they make an undeniable point about the need for change to protect the rights of intersex people. 1/ jme.bmj.com/content/earl...
Who is a man and who is a woman? Implications of the UK Supreme Court decision
On 16 April 2025, the Supreme Court of the UK ruled that when interpreting the UK’s Equality Act (2010)—the Act of the UK Parliament that details protections against unlawful discrimination—the terms ...
jme.bmj.com
January 13, 2026 at 5:52 AM
robertmullins.bsky.social
For better or worse, it's very hard to construct a politics based on disdain for elite expertise that also carves out an exception for central bank independence.
January 12, 2026 at 1:50 AM
robertmullins.bsky.social
I refuse to believe this sort of reporting is responding to consumer demand, except in the sense that the ultra rich patrons and editorial team have become the only relevant consumers of their own product.
gbbranstetter.bsky.social Gillian Branstetter @gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 14d
What are we even doing here
January 9, 2026 at 12:47 PM
Reposted by Rob Mullins
robertmullins.bsky.social
As I always do when something like this happens, I'm missing John today: johngardnerathome.info/pdfs/thorbur...
johngardnerathome.info
January 7, 2026 at 11:15 PM
Reposted by Rob Mullins
mbsolheim.bsky.social
10,000 people honoring Renee Nicole Good
at the site of her murder
January 8, 2026 at 3:09 AM
robertmullins.bsky.social
This is how they covered the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh. Next they'll have ICE goons at this poor woman's funeral.
donmoyn.bsky.social Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 16d
If the headline is "disputed shooting" rather than straightforwardly telling the public what happened this rewards the DHS for lying about these events
NY Times headline Live Updates: Minneapolis Mayor Disputes Federal Account of Fatal ICE Shooting
January 7, 2026 at 9:56 PM
Reposted by Rob Mullins
olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
"I’m going to pause here just to review: an institution that purports to be a university has told a philosophy professor he is forbidden from teaching Plato."

surreal times

dailynous.com/2026/01/06/t...
Texas A&M Bans Plato - Daily Nous
Drop the race and gender material from your course and the Plato readings, or teach a different course. You have a day to decide. That's a paraphrase of what Martin Peterson, professor of philosophy a...
dailynous.com
January 7, 2026 at 10:36 AM
Reposted by Rob Mullins
chrisoregan.bsky.social
Sometimes you can find remnants of what the Internet used to be like: mini-essays, albeit often quite idiosyncratic and quirky, on random topics by well-informed amateurs. This page is from 1996 and talks about the PRC's character simplification. zhongwen.com
Learn Chinese Characters
Free web version of Chinese Characters published by Yale University Press.
zhongwen.com
January 4, 2026 at 11:23 PM
robertmullins.bsky.social
Someone in Australian publishing should be reaching out to Rafe. This is raw but astonishingly good.
economeager.bsky.social Rafe Meager (they/them) @economeager.bsky.social · 21d
I wrote about the endless temptation successful people feel to justify and feel justified in a clearly toxic system. Happy new year.

open.substack.com/pub/rottenan...
Caveat Vendor
Universities, audience capture, and bullshit; Beowulf, Kendrick Lamar
open.substack.com
January 3, 2026 at 5:23 AM
Reposted by Rob Mullins
economeager.bsky.social
I wrote about the endless temptation successful people feel to justify and feel justified in a clearly toxic system. Happy new year.

open.substack.com/pub/rottenan...
Caveat Vendor
Universities, audience capture, and bullshit; Beowulf, Kendrick Lamar
open.substack.com
January 2, 2026 at 11:00 AM
robertmullins.bsky.social
I think Mary-Ann Stephenson and those who agree with her should think more carefully about what a meaningful right to marry in your acquired sex might look like.
Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) chairwoman Mary-Ann Stephenson said while practically they are of no use to a transgender person trying to access a toilet or a changing room of their acquired gender, such certificates remain important in other ways. In an interview with the Press Association, she said: “I think in terms of people’s right to marry in their legal sex, to be buried in their legal sex, and so on – and it was the right to marry which was the original case that went to the European Court of Human Rights – the gender recognition certificates are still very important to people.”
January 1, 2026 at 10:28 PM
robertmullins.bsky.social
I keep meaning to add some detail to this thread and now seems as good a time as any. I realise I was a little cryptic.
robertmullins.bsky.social Rob Mullins @robertmullins.bsky.social · Dec 15
I think freedom of association is the most glaring weakness in the current gender critical legal position in the UK, and probably the issue that will force a legal change.
January 1, 2026 at 9:54 AM