Category: LGBTQ+

  • “How discriminatory do you have to be before you’re called out?”

    Helen Belcher of Trans Media Watch explains why UK trans people are really scared right now. For some time trans people have understood the current media debate in the UK isn’t actually about the Gender Recognition Act. Instead, it is about our basic rights to live and move as full members of our society. …Most…

  • Hormone treatment for Covid-19

    I’ve mentioned before that coronavirus appears to be deadlier to men than to women, and that because of that difference some anti-trans bigots have been deliberately hounding trans people with the virus and wishing them dead. The trans women may get the last laugh, because it’s possible that the hormones they take are helping them…

  • Never trust a Tory

    The UK government’s new equality minister, Liz Truss, has set out her priorities for the coming months. It isn’t good news for trans people. This isn’t a surprise. In 2019 Andrew Gilligan, the journalist who spearheaded The Sunday Times’ scaremongering about trans people, was appointed as a key advisor for No. 10. The conservatives have…

  • Pink shoes for boys

    There’s a nice piece in Huffington Post by Kat Rossi. When my son was 3, I made a mistake. We were at a shoe store in New York City, picking out new sneakers for his rapidly growing tiny feet. He was insistent: The next pair of shoes he was going to wear had to be…

  • Nature, nurture, hormones and brains

    There’s an interesting article in The Scientist, the magazine for life science professionals, that includes a good round-up of the current research into trans people’s brains. There are lots of fascinating questions: for people who transition to identifying as a binary gender different from that assigned at birth, “we still also don’t know whether male-to-female…

  • “However far we slip into the pits of disaster, armies of queer-botherers persevere”

    Eleanor Penny, for Novara Media, on “bathroom bills” and anti-trans scaremongering: It seems to matter little that all this has been repeatedly debunked as statistical nonsense or swivel-eyed conspiracism. They aren’t really propositions to be proved true or false – they are ways of telegraphing disgust. Of signalling to those who fall outside normative conceptions…

  • More important things to worry about

    In my post about transgender day of visibility, I mentioned that some people criticise such awareness days, especially now. Haven’t we got more important things to worry about? And we have, but the problem is that politicians use those bigger things as cover to attack us. An admittedly extreme example of that has just happened…

  • We aren’t going anywhere

    It’s international Transgender Day of Visibility today. It’s a day meant to raise awareness of the discrimination trans people face, and to celebrate their contributions to society. Some people react to days like this with scorn, especially now: don’t we have more important things to worry about? And that’s exactly why days like this exist.…

  • Please take part in the Scottish consultation, which closes at midnight today

    I know, I know. I’m sick of it too and there are plenty of other things to worry about. But the Scottish consultation on gender recognition reform closes tonight and you can be certain that the worst people have made their voices heard. I know of lots of people who’ve been meaning to do this…

  • Some people genuinely want us dead

    One of the most incredible things I’ve seen in recent days is transphobes gleefully predicting that coronavirus will kill lots of trans women. They’re responding to Chinese stats that indicate a higher fatality rate among infected men than women; this, apparently, means those of us assigned male at birth will get our just desserts for…