Chris Pepin-Neff (they/them) 🏳️🌈
Associate Professor of Public Policy. Focus on the role of emotions in the policy process, including moral panic agenda-setting, LGBTQ+ politics, and human-shark interactions. Opinions are my own. linktr.ee/chris.pepin
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- For the #Patriots "easy schedule" people: 1.) Back-to-back 4-win seasons 2023 and 2024; 2.) First team to go 9-0 on the road; 3.) Allowed 26 total points in 3 games in playoffs; 4.) Beat the Bills, Texans, Broncos, Ravens, Steelers. #SuperBowl, #SuperBowlLX, #SBLX #NFL
- Cool research by Dr. Yi-Kai Tea!! Goblin Sharks! www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...
- Spoke to Sunrise this morning about going to the beach on this long-weekend. If you go in the water, please swim between the flags and listen to Surf Life Saving NSW! www.youtube.com/watch?v=mna1...
- If you haven't had enough of me talking about shark bites this week, here's my podcast interview with The Guardian: www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
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- 5 Ways to Avoid a Shark Attack -> from my podcast Shark Bites & Gay Rights. This is my first episode from 2023. omny.fm/shows/shark-...
- Reposted by Chris Pepin-Neff (they/them) 🏳️🌈I’ve criticized Ilan for not doing source criticism. Now, he’s endorsing the Trump Administration’s bad historical methods. Not only are they just throwing random people’s opinions at the wall— long after the ratification of the 14th Amendment— but they’re citing white supremicist segregationists!
- I have an op-ed in the Sydney Morning Herald today on the awful spate of shark bites over the past 48 hours: www.smh.com.au/national/nsw... "This cluster of shark bites in Sydney is a clear consequence of environmental conditions following the heavy storm."
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- 3 shark incidents in 2 days in Sydney Harbour means GET OUT of the water! 72 hours for the water to settle down. Conditions are too sharky right now. #nswpol #sydney #sharks
- Upsetting news from Sydney Harbour w a young boy in critical condition after a shark bite. Since the storm this weekend, I recommend everyone stay out of the Harbour for 48-72 hours. The Harbour is flush w sewage & this is an attractant. #nswpol #sharkattack #sydney www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...
- The next time anyone says Heated Rivalry is porn I'm going to send them this link sext from RFK Jr to Nuzzi: “Yr open mouth awaiting my harvest,” Kennedy is said to have written via text message. “Drink from me Love.” www.huffpost.com/entry/rfk-jr...
- Upsetting news from Sydney Harbour w a young boy in critical condition after a shark bite. Since the storm this weekend, I recommend everyone stay out of the Harbour for 48-72 hours. The Harbour is flush w sewage & this is an attractant. #nswpol #sharkattack #sydney www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...
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- Reposted by Chris Pepin-Neff (they/them) 🏳️🌈For those of you looking to follow some more queer scholar-activists in 2026, check out this starter pack with many fabulous folks. ✊🏾🌈at://did:plc:2nsrap435xzcgzjh443bngcw/app.bsky.graph.starterpack/3latgtj25j72h
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- I love trans people ❤️. Happy Friday!
- January 11, 2026.
- Reposted by Chris Pepin-Neff (they/them) 🏳️🌈I’m one of the ProPublica reporters who has been documenting the aggressive tactics federal agents are using against immigrants & U.S. citizens All eyes are on Minnesota right now, but I want to tell you about Arnoldo Bazan, a 16-YO citizen in Houston who was choked by immigration agents in October
- "I think the stroke was six months ago or more, earlier in 2025. There's video of him shuffling his feet, which is not what we'd seen him [doing], striding on the golf course … previously. We've seen him holding his right hand in his left, cradling." www.rawstory.com/trump-health...
- Reposted by Chris Pepin-Neff (they/them) 🏳️🌈For people elsewhere who have asked how to support Minnesota while we’re overrun with nazi thugs, here’s an excellent list of places that could use financial help. Lots of choices. Thank you so much! docs.google.com/document/d/1...
- The Moral Panic Agenda Setting book for this moment - and free: www.routledge.com/Tolerable-In... #moralpanic #inequality
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- Never. I have never seen a more disturbing news segment on the Trump White House than this one, today from @pbs.org from @elizlanders.bsky.social. www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXzz... It looks at the Govt adoption & recruitment of neo-Nazi language and people. With THREE more years to go - 2029.
- "Perhaps most profoundly, the decades-long research funding partnership that has powered the U.S. economy and bolstered national security is eroding, forcing universities to rethink scientific goals." www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...
- "Brazil’s Joao Lucas Reis Da Silva made history at Melbourne Park on Monday when he became the first openly gay man to compete at the Australian Open." www.smh.com.au/sport/tennis...
- Love this! "Under Mr. Mamdani’s plan, the city will commit $4 million to a request for proposals, which will seek bids for about 20 to 30 modular public toilets. Modular toilets can be installed above ground without connecting to sewer and water lines." www.nytimes.com/2026/01/10/n...
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- Reposted by Chris Pepin-Neff (they/them) 🏳️🌈New analysis: 0.25% of 2025 Bluesky posts contained citations to research...while only 0.000006% of X/Twitter posts did. In raw numbers, X still has 2x the research-based posts that Bluesky does (though they are harder to find): but it took Twitter 10 years to get there vs just 2 years for Bluesky
- THREAD The first full year of tracking research on @bsky.app Hi, we are Altmetric, and we track how research is communicated across the web. We now have one full calendar year of Bluesky research data and thought we'd have a looksie.
- Fentanyl - "A bodyguard for the family of Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has been arrested on charges of drug trafficking." www.cleveland.com/news/2026/01...
- Reposted by Chris Pepin-Neff (they/them) 🏳️🌈DHS Warns Any Action By Americans Will Be Treated As Domestic Terrorism theonion.com/dhs-warns-any-actio…
- Don't agree with Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah and her comments - but this de-platforming is unacceptable censorship. They could have held a discussion about tensions around social cohesion, rather than just cancelling. This is lazy by Adelaide Writers Festival. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
- "President Trump’s brazen attack on Venezuela has violated the most sacred rule of international law – the near-century old ban on use of military force against another country. It returns the Americas to an era of gunboat diplomacy by imperial warlords." www.smh.com.au/national/aus...
- "The pardons issue a message: If you break the law to protect me, you will be supported, and if you uphold the law to restrain me, you will be persecuted." www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/o...
- No, no, no. "Ten mosques and Islamic centres from across the country have reported harassment, vandalism, break-ins or threats of harm, amid warnings of a surge in Islamophobia since the Bondi terror attack." www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw...
- Really enjoying Claude - it got a great review by the Washington Post in the 2025 year-end, and I have been trying it out. Very user-friendly for synthesising research data. #Claude #AI
- In 2026, we need books 📚 now more than ever! #books
- "Studies have found that wolves in the Midwest and Canada not only keep deer populations in check, but they also alter deer behavior in ways that help prevent car crashes and save human lives." #wolves #conservation www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...
- "The Heritage Foundation is partnering with a constellation of European nationalist far-right movements to export its playbook for countering progressive policies." www.politico.eu/article/the-...
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- Heated Rivalry, episode 6. ❤️
- Sharkmas? 🦈🎅
- This week (Dec 21) also marks 37 years since the unsolved murder of Venus Xtravaganza during Christmas 1988. Venus was a star of the groundbreaking 1990 documentary Paris is Burning. #translivesmatter #LGBTQ
- This year marks 32 years since the Christmas Eve rape and the New Year's Eve murder of Brandon Teena in 1993 in Nebraska. This remains one of the darkest episodes -- in a much too long list of LGBTQ violence. #BrandonTeena #translivesmatter #LGBTQ
- Heated Rivalry is fantastic! Wonderful writing, acting & important story. AND the sexuality of the actors is irrelevant - bc (1) people's privacy is something queers respect, (2) sexuality is fluid anyway; & (3) it's just a TV SHOW!
- What a laughing stock. Especially since Trump has no class.
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- Going to the gym makes me laugh.
- @jennaprice.bsky.social "How on earth did its leadership allow a blatantly, joyously, Jewish celebration to be attended by two inexperienced police officers? This, just a month after Nazis were allowed to chant antisemitic slogans on the steps of NSW parliament." www.smh.com.au/national/our...
- Elise Stefanik is the Marjorie Taylor Greene of Nikki Haley’s.
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- The 2026 Congressional Campaign has begun! www.politico.com/news/2025/12...
- Want to feel a chill run down your spine? Watch this questioning by Republican Sen. Kennedy of a lifetime federal judicial nominee abt how women should obey their husbands, handicapped people should not marry, & sex outside marriage is a sin. Lifetime appointment. www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1PE...
- Takemura (2021): “Although decision-making broadly refers to the function of consciousness to make a decision, it can also be defined technically as the act of selecting an alternative from a group of alternatives (Takemura, 1996, 2020). ” In 'Behavioral Decision Theory.'
- The word ‘after’ is doing a lot of work in this sentence.
- The Govt's plan for "social cohesion" cannot be to tell Jewish people under threat to compromise w the ppl who tolerate the threat against them. Australia is a "complacent country" that has allowed hate to fester, offered no consequences to haters, and no safety to the vulnerable. #auspol #nswpol
- So many heroes at Bondi. www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...
- Trump said that Rob Reiner's murder was due to "massive, unyielding, & incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME." There is nothing about our lives that is not about Trump - our deepest tragedies are his fodder to dance on our sorrow. #Trumo #RobReiner
- In my 2025 book, I have a chapter that outlines the differences between Australia & the U.S. in addressing gun violence in the policy process. I looked at Port Arthur and Sandy Hook. I'm just putting this pdf and link below in case it is useful in this terrible moment: cyan-teirtza-17.tiiny.site
- I live in Sydney. If you're watching the #Bondi terrorist attack coverage and were interested in the amazing hero who tackled the terrorist and took his gun, here is a local clip from Sydney news. The hero was shot twice by another shooter after getting the gun away. www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUEc...
