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Kit Colliver

@presentlyincorrect.bsky.social

700 followers 430 following 190 posts

I take my cats on walks, work on queering housing and social policy, take action where I can, and knit socks. 📍Edinburgh 🏢 Research Associate, York Law School 🏳️‍⚧️ Organise with @rtie.org (@resistingtransphobiaedi on instagram) they/them

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Kit Colliver @presentlyincorrect.bsky.social · Jan 29

I’m part of a small group working to create a supportive community for trans and non-binary scholars in the UK. Open to folks working in any field. If this is of interest to you or you’d like more info you can DM me :)
#academicsky
🌈🎓

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Kit Colliver @presentlyincorrect.bsky.social · 2d

Does body doubling help? There’s a zoom writing group I use with morning and afternoon sessions www.szwg.co.uk

Reposted by Kit Colliver

Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · Sep 8

Ironically, it appears that AI chatbots hallucinate for the same reason that students feel compelled to use them:

They were socialized in a high-stakes testing culture that rewards guessing and maybe getting it right over admitting when there's something you just don't know.

Why Language Models Hallucinate, by Kalai et al.

Like students facing hard exam questions, large language models sometimes guess when
uncertain, producing plausible yet incorrect statements instead of admitting uncertainty. Such
“hallucinations” persist even in state-of-the-art systems and undermine trust. We argue that
language models hallucinate because the training and evaluation procedures reward guessing over
acknowledging uncertainty, and we analyze the statistical causes of hallucinations in the modern
training pipeline. Hallucinations need not be mysterious—they originate simply as errors in binary
classification. If incorrect statements cannot be distinguished from facts, then hallucinations
in pretrained language models will arise through natural statistical pressures. We then argue
that hallucinations persist due to the way most evaluations are graded—language models are
optimized to be good test-takers, and guessing when uncertain improves test performance. This
“epidemic” of penalizing uncertain responses can only be addressed through a socio-technical
mitigation: modifying the scoring of existing benchmarks that are misaligned but dominate
leaderboards, rather than introducing additional hallucination evaluations. This change may
steer the field toward more trustworthy AI systems.

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Kit Colliver @presentlyincorrect.bsky.social · Aug 28

For my brother’s kids, I am Pibl Kit (their parent’s sibling) and they are my niblings.

Kit Colliver @presentlyincorrect.bsky.social · Aug 28

How much did this failed experiment in social cleansing cost, we wonder? God forbid they engage in meaningful consultation before titting about like this.

# Benches which were removed from the
Kirkgate at the foot of Leith Walk this month are set to return on Monday next week following backlash from locals. - Neil
Johnstone, Evening News.

Kit Colliver @presentlyincorrect.bsky.social · Aug 26

It’s an important and exciting project and the contract duration and scope for independence are rarely seen in the world of fixed term research positions.

I don’t know the PI personally but my partner speaks very highly of her.

Kit Colliver @presentlyincorrect.bsky.social · Aug 26

This looks rather wonderful!

The Love Tank CIC @thelovetankcic.bsky.social · Aug 25

Exciting new post-doc fellow post just announced at University of Edinburgh - working alongside The Love Tank on the new Medicine Without Doctors collaboration.

Closing date 02 Oct 2025.

elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Postdoctoral Fellow LGBTQ

The Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society at the Usher Institute within The University of Edinburgh is looking for a 5-year postdoctoral Fellow to work on the Wellcome funded Discovery Award Medici...

elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com

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Kit Colliver @presentlyincorrect.bsky.social · Aug 4

You’re brilliant, Ruth. So well-deserved.

Kit Colliver @presentlyincorrect.bsky.social · Jul 10

Reading this back and boy am I excited about Ruth’s zines and sexual health.

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Kit Colliver @presentlyincorrect.bsky.social · Jul 10

It’s here!

ruthpearce.net/2025/05/26/p...

Also the folks at that drop-in are lovely. Get tested! In person! All the ones you actually need! No appointments!

ruthpearce.net

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Kit Colliver @presentlyincorrect.bsky.social · Jul 10

Lolilol I’ll omilil milk lmikmll I’ll il I’ll lm lam zzi

Kit Colliver @presentlyincorrect.bsky.social · Jul 3

📌 thank you

Kit Colliver @presentlyincorrect.bsky.social · Jul 1

Gratifying to see a legal view line up with my own instinctive interpretation. @reactiveashley.bsky.social is arguing that the Supreme Court ruling is consistent with implementing a ‘bigots toilet’ and retaining trans-inclusive single-sex facilities.

Ashleeee 🎃🪭 @reactiveashley.bsky.social · Jul 1

7/ “We are providing a limited set of “statutory single-sex services” to some cis women because we need to provide a generally available set of “extra-statutory trans-inclusive single-sex service” to all women.”

If this is not objectively justifiable, then the law is inconsistent with Article 8.

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Kit Colliver @presentlyincorrect.bsky.social · Jul 1

In the time it’s taken me to write up my research on the impact of voter ID on trans people, the UK has managed to slide from a position of impinging on trans citizenship rights to setting off alarm bells at anti-genocide organisations.

Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention
Red Flag Alert on Anti-trans and intersex Rights in the UK
Released on 30th of June 2025

All of the actions described above fit neatly into the 9th Pattern of Genocide: "Denial and/or Prevention of Identity." As we have repeatedly stated over the years, genocide does not only manifest in the killing of an entire group. In the case of trans and intersex people, genocide is often perpetrated by making it impossible for individuals to exist as their true selves. The erasure of a group from public life is a step towards an attempt to erase that group's existence, which is the very definition of genocide. The UKSC's decision puts trans and intersex people at peril by forcing them to either out themselves or break the law, both of which run the risk of violent backlash. To explicitly confirm this, gratitude was extended in the UKSC ruling Ben Cooper KC, acting on behalf of Sex Matters. The latter is an explicitly anti-trans lobbying group that has since written to the NHS claiming that transitioning "becomes a major, permanent social problem for those (transgender) young people" — a claim that flies in the face of all serious research on transgender youth.

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Reposted by Kit Colliver

Caroline Russell @carolinerussell.bsky.social · Jun 30

My overall impression is that the EHRC guidance does not make it clear how to deliver trans inclusive services.

It is effectively advice on how organisations can exclude trans and gender diverse people from services, which is an unusual approach for a human rights organisation to take.

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Kit Colliver @presentlyincorrect.bsky.social · Jun 30

Spent the entire evening writing up the EHRC response for @rtie.org

And that’s with members’ feedback already collated.

That guidance and the consultation are trash - lengthy, confusing, mired in bigotry - and I feel like my eyes are bleeding.

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Reposted by Kit Colliver

Scottish Trans @scottishtrans.bsky.social · Jun 30

Its the final day to complete the EHRC's consultation on their draft code of practice. If you want to fill it in and share your voice in support of trans inclusion, today’s your last chance!

We've created a full guide w/ Mermaids & TransActual, on our website - www.scottishtrans.org/supreme-cour...

Graphic with a purple background. In a bright green text box at the top it says "The EHRC's Consultation on their draft Code of Practice closes today!". Underneath are three drawings of placards, they say "Trans people belong", "Inclusion not Exclusion" and "No segregation! Trans Liberation". The Scottish Trans and Equality Network logos are at the bottom.

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Reposted by Kit Colliver

Ruth Pearce @notrightruth.bsky.social · Jun 28

I've added FOUR new peer-reviewed academic articles to my round-up post, "What's wrong with the Cass Review?" Together, these highlight serious ethical issues with the Cass Review's design, recommendations, and implementations. It's important to keep this story live! ruthpearce.net/2024/04/16/w...

Meme image of Bernie Sanders, with text that reads, I am once again updating my mega post about how awful the Cass Review is.

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Kit Colliver @presentlyincorrect.bsky.social · Jun 13

I feel validated.

Kit Colliver @presentlyincorrect.bsky.social · Jun 12

For Pride month, @ashstokoe.bsky.social and I have a blog in Transforming Society, 'From bathrooms to the ballot box: UK trends undermining trans* citizenship'.

We're looking at the Supreme Court's 'sex' ruling in light of our voter ID research. www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2025/06/11/f...

From bathrooms to the ballot box: UK trends undermining trans* citizenship - Transforming Society

Ash Stokoe and Kit Colliver argue that, amid intensifying anti-trans rhetoric and legal rollbacks, trans* people in the UK are increasingly excluded from public life, with voter ID laws and a recent S...

www.transformingsociety.co.uk

Kit Colliver @presentlyincorrect.bsky.social · Jun 11

Some kind of crafting - I knit - and audiobooks! People suggested podcasts to me when I had the Big Concussion, but I didn’t have enough exec function to make choices. Shout if you’d like recommendations!

Reposted by Kit Colliver

Resisting Transphobia in Edinburgh @rtie.org · Jun 6

Big Trans Picnic @ Porty Pride 07 June 1-3pm!
Bring blankets, food, water and sunscreen to share or just for yourself, well behaved children and badly behaved pets. This is an outdoor event.
If the rain gets bad we will use our contingency venue @ Porty Town Hall - look out for our stories!

Porty Pride and Resisting Transphobia in Edinburgh logos above a beach background.
Text:
RTiE Big Trans Picnic
Join us on the beach for a relaxed gathering of trans people and their allies. We're here to find new friends, reconnect with familiar faces and build community together.
All welcome.
Saturday 7th of June
13:00-15:00
Cake Stand on The Beach
49 Promenade, EH15 2BA

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Kit Colliver @presentlyincorrect.bsky.social · Jun 5

The Queer Data showcase is fantastic. Lots of excellent funny, thought-provoking presentations and my highlight so far has been
@katherinewyers.bsky.social with improv sax accompanying her story of the emotional toll of queer fieldwork.

A tall white woman in a floral short playing saxophone in front of a PowerPoint presentation. Black text on a white background reads: The data was hard to gather, but it tells a story about wh… it’s… trans people whose gender is recategorised… there… a way to tell those stories.

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Kit Colliver @presentlyincorrect.bsky.social · Jun 2

A single sociologist. Not a medic. Not even an expert in gender and sexuality. A guy whose academic contribution and teaching is on social movements and protest actions, gone entirely off-piste for the sake of bigotry.

Cal Horton (they/them) @fiercemum.bsky.social · Jun 2

Worth noting that bone health was not the key reason for the ban on blockers backed by the Commission on Human Medicine.

It was the even less evidenced (=totally fabricated) "impact on gender and sexual development", with an article by Michael Biggs as sole citation.

Lee Hurley @hleehurley.com · Jun 2

Just gonna leave this here and ask you to think about the (unfounded) reasons they used emergency legislation to ban puberty blockers

Kit Colliver @presentlyincorrect.bsky.social · Jun 2

Thanks for all the work on it. Unfortunately the link you’ve posted isn’t working?

Kit Colliver @presentlyincorrect.bsky.social · Jun 2

📌