Category: LGBTQ+

  • “Every day in public is risky”

    It’s been interesting to compare the US and UK press reaction to JK Rowling’s blog post about trans people: in the US it’s been met with widespread revulsion, with many opinion pieces by cisgender women outraged by her claims to speak on their behalf. It’s also led many publishers to commission trans women to talk…

  • “Britain is the epicenter of a strange, savage, and specific cultural backlash”

    I know I’ve posted a lot of long pieces about trans-related issues lately, but if you only read one of them then perhaps it should be this one by Laurie Penny: TERF Wars: Why Transphobia Has no Place in Feminism. It’s an attempt to explain why the UK is unusually intolerant of trans people right now,…

  • “Harry Potter and the scales of justice”

    I was looking forward to Jenny Boylan’s take on the US Supreme Court ruling, and here it is. “I used to think people like you should be, you know, exterminated,” the nice young man said to me. “But after listening to you speak, I’ve really changed my mind!” This was after a lecture I’d given…

  • Trans people are planning to escape the UK

    Jane Fae in the Independent: I spoke to a few trans folk: ordinary people trying to go about their daily routines as well as community leaders advocating on their behalf. The result was unanimous and shocking, and not just for the general level of abuse reported back. For this, in the end, is not so…

  • How the UK press came to target trans people

    There’s a lengthy, well-informed and balanced piece in Vice about how anti-trans attitudes came to dominate the UK press. Often writers centre experiences such as abuse or rape and then set these up as distinct and separate from the experiences of trans people. As Alison Phipps writes in her book Me, Not You: The Problem…

  • Anti-LGBT+ discrimination is sex discrimination

    A surprising, very welcome and very important decision by the US Supreme Court says that anti-LGBT+ discrimination is sex discrimination and therefore LGBT+ people are protected in employment law. Some states already include LGBT+ people in their anti-discrimination protections, but this brings such protection to the states that do not. As justice Neil Gorsuch, a…

  • Reaping, sowing

    Apologies for the language, but there is an internet meme that’s become popular: Me sowing: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!! Me reaping: well this fucking sucks. What the fuck. And another: Well, well, well. If it isn’t the consequences of my own actions. I was reminded of them yesterday when a British anti-trans group blogged about…

  • “Affirming a child is beneficial to their mental health”

    There’s a good piece by Katelyn Burns in The Guardian (presumably commissioned by the US edition, which is more enlightened than the UK one) about a project that helps parents of trans and gender non-conforming kids. On one side of the debate are people who think Seph’s gender dysphoria will fade by adulthood. On the…

  • Most people aren’t awful

    Nancy Kelly of Stonewall brings data to the human rights party. …younger people, non-religious people and people with higher level educational qualifications are all more likely to have positive views of trans people. Oh, and women.  Yes, women are more likely to have positive views of trans people… The current narrative of ‘women feel threatened by…

  • The nasty party has taken its mask off

    As predicted, the UK government has abandoned its plans for gender recognition reform. Not only that, but instead of making life marginally better for trans people it has decided to make life much, much worse. GRA reform isn’t the story here, although it’s worth noting in passing that, as in Scotland, around 70% of respondents…