Category: LGBTQ+

  • Why we decline

    I’ve written many times about the asymmetry of trans coverage: of the hundreds of stories and items published and broadcast about trans people every week, hardly any of them feature trans people or allies and most platform anti-trans activists, often misleadingly presenting them as ordinary mums or feminists with “reasonable concerns”. So you’d think that […]

  • Rapid onset gender madeupia

    Julia Serano, one of the key academics writing about trans people, has updated her 2019 post about “social contagion” and “rapid onset gender dysphoria”, two supposed phenomena regularly mentioned by anti-trans activists, to add yet more evidence to prove that they’re entirely invented.

  • Race/hate

    The Daily Mail, which was once condemned by a coroner for hounding a trans woman to suicide, is actively targeting trans women again. Its latest story claims that a trans woman “smashed to smithereens” a cisgender woman’s record. Here’s the opener: A trans athlete who ‘smashed to smithereens’ a women’s Parkrun record is today revealed […]

  • Schofield

    Well, this is awkward. I make a passing reference to TV presenter Philip Schofield in my book, in a section written a couple of years ago: When married people come out as LGBT+, there’s often a negative reaction from the wider world and if they’re well known, the press too. The person (it’s usually a […]

  • “Rights for me, not for thee”

    This report into the Women’s Declaration International, previously the Women’s Human Rights Campaign, is a must-read if you want to understand anti-trans lobbying and press. The WDI is supported by most of the UK’s anti-trans groups and most of the UK’s anti-trans advocates, including politicians and pundits; you may remember them from claiming to the […]

  • Hiding hatred in plain sight

    Have you ever wondered why bigots all seem to recite the same talking points and use the same words? It’s because they’re working to scripts, either literally – many Christian Right groups offer step-by-step guides for you to print out that teach you how to sign up for Twitter, how to post a message and […]

  • Reversal

    There’s an acronym, DARVO, used to describe the behaviour of abusers: it stands for Deny, Accuse, Reverse Victim and Offender. And the press does it all the time with bigots, as two of today’s news stories demonstrate. The first story is that the head of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission is being investigated by […]

  • “They’re afraid of us”

    This, by Soleil Ho, is absolutely horrifying: I attended a secretive anti-trans dinner in San Francisco. And then I puked. During a Q&A session at the end of the event, the speakers gave the audience the moment they were waiting for. An attendee asked them, “Who are the powers of interest behind transgender indoctrination, and […]

  • LGBT+? Join a union

    Luna Spain, a trans woman, was fired from her job at Starbucks after a video of her losing her temper with a customer went viral; the right-wing press went out of its way to demonise her and send bigots to her door in coverage horribly reminiscent of the press campaign that ultimately made trans teacher […]

  • Not breaking news

    You’d think that the UN publishing a damning criticism of the UK government might make the news, but as expected yesterday’s statement about LGBT+ rights in the UK and the associated fall of the UK in the Rainbow Rankings has barely been covered at all: one short piece in the Metro and one (anti-trans, of […]