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Carol Ballantine

@cballantine.bsky.social

840 followers 690 following 160 posts

Social scientist, researcher, writer. Currently researching sexual & gender based violence in HEIs. Adjunct fellow, ucd school of geography. Writing in the Stinging Fly, Banshee & elsewhere. She/ Her

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Carol Ballantine @cballantine.bsky.social · May 5

Carol Ballantine says she worries about parents like her trying to make sense of gender in an ever-more polarised context.
www.thejournal.ie/readme/trans...

Opinion: Trans lives aren’t black and white, our conversations about them shouldn’t be either

Carol Ballantine says she worries about parents like her trying to make sense of gender in an ever-more polarised context.

www.thejournal.ie

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Carol Ballantine @cballantine.bsky.social · 2d

My favourite bookshop I’m so sorry to hear this. Solidarity, @booksupstairs.bsky.social 💪🏼

Keith Ridgway @rid9way.bsky.social · 2d

Best wishes to @booksupstairs.bsky.social, staff and customers. Glad to hear that this isn't as bad as it might have been. Sincerely hope that it's just a stupid attack, rather than a stupid and sinister one.

‘Really shocking’: Independent Dublin bookstore damaged in arson attack

Books Upstairs manager hopes to partially open the D’Olier Street store later on Monday

www.irishtimes.com

Carol Ballantine @cballantine.bsky.social · 2d

Speaking as an author coming to painful terms with a book that hasn’t proved marketable (yet), this is bang on. You’re asking someone to take a chance on selling your work. It’s a relationship. Nobody owes you a book deal
I know there’s a market for my book, but the right editor is still a moonshot.

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Carol Ballantine @cballantine.bsky.social · 3d

Improvised owl physio would be a good title for a story, or a band. Read the whole thread, it’s heartening!

Dr Delyth Badder @folklorewales.com · 3d

Six weeks ago, I picked up a year-old tawny owl with a broken leg off the main road near our home and dropped him off at our nearest vet.

After a few days, I received one of the most bizarre phone calls I’ve ever had, asking “So when are you coming to pick up your owl?” 🧵

Carol Ballantine @cballantine.bsky.social · 3d

In case any of the geographers in my network miss this

Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 7d

A cartoon from my new book PHYSICS FOR CATS which comes out a week tomorrow! Preorder at you local bookshop or online: www.tomgauld.com/comic-books-v2

Image 1.
Title: Slides for my lecture at the geology conference
Three diagrams of layered forms labelled with:
Sandstone,
Shale,
Igneous rock,
Limestone,
Granite.

Image 2.
Title: Slides for my lecture at the desserts conference
The same diagrams now labelled with:
Sprinkles,
Custard,
Chocolate,
Sponge cake,
Berry compote,
Biscuit base.

Carol Ballantine @cballantine.bsky.social · 3d

Tomorrow evening, in my absolute career highlight, I’ll be responding to the launch of this book in Dublin. Join us in the gutter bookshop at 6.30!

Senthorun S. Raj @senthorun.bsky.social · 3d

“To assemble, to say no, to do no, throws so much open … doing what we can, when we can, however we can, in the wear and tear, for as long as it takes.”

Just read @saranahmed.bsky.social’s energising new book on complaining as a collective task of feminist and queer world (un)building. Get a copy!

Hand holds up the book, “No Is Not A Lonely Utterance: The Art and Activism of Complaining.”

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Reposted by Carol Ballantine

Edward Elderman @elderman.bsky.social · 11d

This only happens to you once

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Carol Ballantine @cballantine.bsky.social · 13d

This is really great. I nodded throughout, but was especially taken by this bit

Carol Ballantine @cballantine.bsky.social · 13d

That’s excellent, thank you!!

Reposted by Carol Ballantine

Aurelien Mondon @aurelmondon.bsky.social · 17d

It should be obvious by now that free speech in incredibly unequal societies is not a useful aim

Without a level playing field, some voices are far louder and some far easier to shut down

Free speech can only be worthwhile if it's accompanied by radical reform of our public space to democratise it

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Carol Ballantine @cballantine.bsky.social · 20d

Oops - apologies - I was writing on my phone/ walking dog/ paraphrasing from memory… none of which is wise or good for mental health!! I totally take your point and thank you for the thread and the link!

Carol Ballantine @cballantine.bsky.social · 20d

This is a great thread - but I have 1 point. I disagree that transphobes in the medical establishment are “fake” or anti- medicine. Medicine (#notallmedicine, I know) has a deep history of colluding with power to justify & maintain an oppressive status quo. This is the system working as designed.

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Carol Ballantine @cballantine.bsky.social · 23d

Also haven’t read/ won’t read, but I’m v familiar with her MO, so presuming: she sets up Catholicism as communitarian, solidaristic, caring - and “woke liberalism” as synonymous with disaster capitalism. This is so lazy. It’s possible to oppose all oppressive regimes, not pick between them.

Reposted by Carol Ballantine

Zohran Kwame Mamdani @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social · 29d

"How Are the Very Rich Feeling About New York’s Next Mayor?"

A Dramatic Reading of The Recent New York Times Dispatch from the Hamptons.

Presented by The Gilded Age's Morgan Spector.

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Carol Ballantine @cballantine.bsky.social · Sep 1

Still intrigued… maybe some geographers have leads? @queerdrew.bsky.social @deanphelan.bsky.social @aidanobrien.bsky.social @pbresnihan.bsky.social

Carol Ballantine @cballantine.bsky.social · Aug 31

I’m intrigued by this… hope somebody can help!

Gráinne Blair @grainneblair.bsky.social · Aug 31

#Speirgorm 1985 Globe wanted urgently please. Anyone got one gathering dust somewhere. No later ones please it’s specific the the named countries in 1985. Loads of fake stuff out there

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Carol Ballantine @cballantine.bsky.social · Aug 31

I’m intrigued by this… hope somebody can help!

Gráinne Blair @grainneblair.bsky.social · Aug 31

#Speirgorm 1985 Globe wanted urgently please. Anyone got one gathering dust somewhere. No later ones please it’s specific the the named countries in 1985. Loads of fake stuff out there

Carol Ballantine @cballantine.bsky.social · Aug 30

Once I was walking my toddler twins through trinity and an ageing professor stopped to chat. Turned out his name was Felix too - but he went by the Irish, Feidhlimigh, like the song about the boat, he told me 🚤

Carol Ballantine @cballantine.bsky.social · Aug 30

Oi! My son’s called Felix! He was one of just 10 babies with that name in Ireland in 2010, and one of the others was in his class in primary school 🫣

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Reposted by Carol Ballantine

Karen Sugrue 🏳️‍⚧️🌈🇵🇸 @karsugrue.bsky.social · Aug 30

Toilets for everyone. It’s so simple. Makes everyone feel safe & cuts out the ridiculous queues for women’s loos while men have no queues. Inclusive policies help everyone.

Well done @electricpicnic.bsky.social

#transrightsarehumanrights

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Reposted by Carol Ballantine

Sarah has a suggestion @goatsarah.org · Aug 29

As it's still valid, presumably if I don't keep following it, I am also breaking the law and subject to arrest.
The law of the land simultaneously requires me to be both a man and a woman and if I do either then I am breaking the law and subject to arrest. (11/13)

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Reposted by Carol Ballantine

Simon McGarr @tupped.bsky.social · Aug 28

I fully support the Basic Income for Artists scheme, with only one caveat.

My caveat is that I think that it shouldn’t be restricted to artists, but be made available to everyone (many of whom will turn out to have been hidden artists all along)

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Reposted by Carol Ballantine

Jess Traynor @jesstraynor.bsky.social · Aug 27

Delighted with this review of New Arcana in the the Poetry Book Society autumn brochure 🍂

@bloodaxebooks.bsky.social

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Carol Ballantine @cballantine.bsky.social · Aug 24

Among the things I miss about the awful Other Place: x.com/EveryBaldGuy

Every Bald Guy Is Actually Foucault (@EveryBaldGuy) / X

x.com

Reposted by Carol Ballantine

Banshee Press @bansheepress.bsky.social · Aug 22

Banshee Press will open for book submissions from 1-15 October. More details to follow soon. Ready your manuscripts! 📝

bansheepress.org/read/banshee...

Banshee Press will open for book submissions from 1-15 October — Banshee Press

Banshee Press will be accepting book-length submissions of fiction, poetry and memoir from 1-15 October 2025 . All submitted manuscripts will be considered for our 2027 and 2028 lists (and perhaps…

bansheepress.org

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Carol Ballantine @cballantine.bsky.social · Aug 17

Just giving this another spin on the socials because that’s how dissemination seems to work these days

Carol Ballantine @cballantine.bsky.social · Aug 1

For *Quare Éire*, I wrote about a queer primary school performance of Grease: the musical.
It felt like a perfect queering of gaeilge and Irishness.
The essay is at the end of this thread, but first, I want to tell you something…

quareeire.wordpress.com

quare Éire

quareeire.wordpress.com

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Reposted by Carol Ballantine

Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · Aug 13

27 years ago, two years after the introduction of effective HIV treatment, the Bay Area Reporter, San Francisco’s lesbian and gay community newspaper, ran ‘No Obits’ as its headline.
It was the first edition not to report an AIDS death in almost 15 years.

The Bay Area Reporter front page, 13 August 1998.
The headline ‘No obits’ is written in red above the lead story.

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