Author: Carrie

  • Snitches

    In Utah this week, the Republican administration introduced a snitch line, an online form for bigots to report any cases of trans or non-binary people using the single-sex facilities appropriate to their gender. It’s easy to point at this as an example of US right-wing bigotry, but for anyone thinking such vicious idiocy couldn’t happen…

  • Illegal and cruel

    I’ve been loath to post about the current cavalcade of cruelties the Tories are heaping on trans people right now, but I wanted to point out something about the proposed NHS guidance that would force trans women out of single-sex wards: it’s illegal under multiple laws, especially for trans women who have gender recognition certificates.…

  • Complicity

    The Guardian has published a thoughtful article by playwright Jonathan Cash about the 1999 bombing of the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho, which he was injured in. The bomb was planted by a far-right sympathiser, a man who believed that gay men should be put to death. If you’re going to read the whole piece,…

  • SLAPP happy

    One of the reasons that Jimmy Savile got away with his abuse for so long was the UK’s libel laws. Savile was highly litigious, and would send his very expensive lawyers after any publication that so much as considered reporting allegations about him. The fact that the allegations were true was irrelevant. Savile was rich,…

  • Snakes in the Cass

    The Cass review is a lengthy document and it’ll take time for detailed criticisms to emerge, but there’s already plenty of evidence to indicate that the worst fears of trans people and allies were correct. The review team included people vocally opposed to trans healthcare, applied different standards of evidence to trans-supportive and trans-antagonistic studies,…

  • The endgame

    In the US, the people who want to ban abortion will tell you that they don’t want to ban abortion; they just want to put some protections around some of it. This is a lie. Also in the US, the people who want to ban healthcare for all trans people – who, not coincidentally, are…

  • Monster trucks

    There’s a lovely piece by Jude Doyle in The Cut: What coming out as transgender taught me about parenting. I won’t spoil the main narrative but this bit really resonated with me. I came out as trans just before my daughter’s 3rd birthday. I did it because it was not possible for me to be…

  • No surprises

    You’ll see a lot in the papers about the Cass review of NHS care for gender-questioning kids today, as the report is finally released. What you won’t see are any suggestions that it’s a political project, not a medical one. Its job was to undermine healthcare for trans people, and that’s exactly what it’s delivered.…

  • What’s coming

    AR Moxon has published another incisive piece about one thing that’s actual about another thing: The Thing That’s Coming. Cargo ship Dali lost power and from there it was only a matter of time before it destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge. We hadn’t maintained the bridge for collisions of this type, we’re learning. You’d…

  • The wedge

    Today’s Observer reports: A rightwing Christian lobby group that wants abortion to be banned has forged ties with an adviser to the prime minister and is drawing up ­policy briefings for politicians. The UK branch of the US-based Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has more than doubled its spending since 2020 and been appointed a stakeholder…