I’m in the new issue of the excellent Books from Scotland magazine, which you can read online for free.
…we Scots are brilliant at mining comedy from pretty dark seams sometimes, and we’ll tell the most horrendously embarrassing stories to make our friends laugh. I’ve done that all my life, so it was natural to do it in the book too.
I’m absolutely delighted to be doing my Glasgow book launch event in Category Is, one of my favourite places. Tickets are free but very limited so I don’t think they’ll be available for long. The event is on 8 December at 7pm and everything you need to know is at the end of this link.
Pre-orders of Carrie Kills A Man started arriving in readers’ homes this morning, and I received my author copies too. I had a bit of a moment when I opened the box and saw the pristine copies, because of course books are more than just paper and ink. They’re magical things.
I’ve had many books published, but not a book like this. It’s a very strange feeling to publish something so personal. Good strange, but strange nevertheless.
I’m absolutely delighted to be featured on Damian Barr’s Literary Salon podcast as his book of the week, and I’m particularly pleased that Damian found lots of joy in the book.
You can listen to me reading an extract on Damian’s Soundcloud, which I’ve included below.
Carrie Kills A Man will be book of the week on Damian Barr’s Literary Salon podcast on Wednesday, and that means I also got the opportunity to recommend some books that I think are well worth your time.
Scotland’s parliament will begin debating the gender reform bill this week, so I wrote to my MSPs asking for their support. I suspect my email is unusual, because I know what the law is and what a GRC does. As I’ve been shown again and again, most anti-trans voices either don’t, or pretend not to.
I’ve had four responses, three of which – from the SNP, from the Scottish Greens and from Scottish Labour – were unequivocally supportive of reform. The fourth, from Conservative MSP Annie Wells, is extracted here:
However, I should add that I am aware there have been concerns raised regarding safeguards for children and young people in the Gender Recognition Reform Bill. This is a very sensitive area, however the welfare of children and young people must come first. That means balancing the need to help those who are suffering from gender dysphoria with the need to protect vulnerable children and young people who are unsure of their identity and risk embarking on gender hormone treatment prematurely. We will not support any reforms that put the welfare of children and young people at risk.
Gender recognition has nothing whatsoever to do with the welfare of children or any medical treatment. Nothing. This isn’t so much a dog whistle as an entire pet shop display of the damn things.
I don’t know what magic my publisher pulled to get Patton Oswalt to read and recommend my book, but as my best pal says, they have clearly sacrificed something.
Apple TV’s The Problem With Jon Stewart began its new season last night with an episode about the “gender wars”. It struck me that it couldn’t be made in the UK: it featured parents of trans children and experts in trans medicine, but not an audience of bigots shouting “penis!” and “groomer!” at them.
Instead, Jon Stewart let the Attorney General of Arkansas slowly hoist herself on her own petard by asking something really simple: what’s the evidence behind your anti-trans legislation? The answer, inevitably, turned out to be: there isn’t any.
This is a masterclass in interviewing.
It’s interesting to compare this with the last few days’ coverage of JK Rowling, who donned an anti-Nicola Sturgeon t-shirt designed by a far-right goon to protest against the Scottish Government’s plans for gender recognition reform and ended up on the covers of all the major newspapers. There hasn’t been any attempt whatsoever to ascertain whether Rowling’s anti-reform beliefs are right (spoiler: they’re not; the evidence, or lack of, is here: “when asked about evidence of abuse and concerns, no witness was able to provide concrete examples.”). Too much of our media has no interest in establishing the truth when there’s a culture war to push.
In the 30 days from 27th June this year, the UK press published 1,142 articles about trans people, mostly trans-hostile with claims of hate groups taken as fact. That’s 33 anti-trans articles a day. Between them, the Times, Telegraph and Daily Mail publish up to 27 trans articles a week, most of them hostile. On just one day, those papers published 26 articles about trans people; the Telegraph alone published 11.
There’s a saying I like: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. As Stewart so deftly demonstrates, the anti-trans mob don’t have any evidence to back up their assertions; they are at odds with the entire medical establishment, because ultimately their “reasonable concerns” boil down to a belief that trans people are icky weirdos.
If our journalists were doing their job, the current anti-trans moral panic wouldn’t exist and hate crimes against LGBT people wouldn’t be up 42% year on year, with anti-trans hate crimes up 56%. Culture wars may be a game in newsrooms, but they’re terrifyingly real for the people they demonise.
I did my first ever literary event last night at the University of Glasgow as part of Publishing Scotland’s Creative Conversations series.
To say I was terrified would be an understatement. I barely slept in the days before, and during the day itself I managed to break two glasses and prang one of my neighbours’ cars because I was so preoccupied.
I posted about my fear to Twitter and got lots of reassuring replies, including one from Rebecca Lawther: “You got this! Book people are good people.”
She was right on both counts.
I had a blast and really enjoyed the readings from my fellow panelists Chitra Ramaswamy (an old friend from radio and a brilliant writer), Cynthia Rogerson (hilarious), Malachy Tallack (inspiring), Trishna Singh OBE (just gorgeous writing) and Mark Woolhouse OBE (fascinating). Despite being the only person on my panel without an OBE I think I did okay, and I loved chatting with other writers, publishing people and bookworms afterwards.
It’s a real honour to be invited to events like these, and I’m not just saying that because they fed us. I’m still not entirely comfortable – my impostor syndrome was through the roof – but book people are good people and they went out of their way to make me feel welcome and valued, for which I’m very grateful.
Hopefully my next book events won’t involve me damaging anybody’s cars.
