Category: LGBTQ+

  • If the Starbucks Mermaids advert was real

    Starbucks’ lovely and groundbreaking advert, which features a young trans man summoning up the courage to ask for his new name on his coffee cup, is important: as I’ve written before, representation matters. Seeing someone like you in mainstream media, in this case on a major TV channel, can help you feel that you’re not…

  • What doesn’t hit print

    I linked to a Roy Greenslade piece the other day about the way UK newspapers invented a so-called immigration crisis. In it he wrote: If you want to understand the populist media’s underlying agenda then you have to look not only at what gets published, but what doesn’t. Here’s a great example of that. Every…

  • Fun with official application forms

    I sent off my application for my Gender Recognition Certificate this week. So far it’s cost me £140 for the application, £48 to get a statutory declaration notarised, £30 for medical reports and £7.40 in postage; they’ve asked for additional evidence so that’s another trip to the Post Office today. It’s good to finally set…

  • This is the future bastards want

    And so it begins. South Dakota has made the first step towards making evidence-based medicine illegal. Doctors who try to help trans teenagers face a year in prison. Another seven US states are set to follow suit; anti-trans groups in the UK want similar bans here. As Christine Burns MBE put it: Can we all agree…

  • They are coming for your children

    Katelyn Burns reports on the coordinated assault on trans kids’ healthcare by right-wing US lawmakers. eight state legislatures — including Missouri, Florida, Illinois, Oklahoma, Colorado, South Carolina, Kentucky, and South Dakota — have already introduced bills this year that would criminally punish doctors who follow best practices for treating adolescents with gender dysphoria. In South Dakota,…

  • “If I don’t stand up for the rights of others, how can my own rights ever be defended?”

    There’s a really good interview in today’s Guardian with Michael Cashman, whose many achievements include founding the Stonewall charity. Remember the tabloid outrage about the first gay kiss in EastEnders? Cashman was the man they were demonising. The clipping above, incidentally, is by Piers Morgan. Morgan would also write article such as “the poofs of…

  • “Who is this all for?”

    Yomi Adegoke writes about the increasing use of polarised, gladiatorial “debates” to try and get social media attention. The BBC has said it will no longer have climate change deniers in debate with climate change activists, as it’s a “false balance”. Yet the topic of racism is handled in the same way a TV programme might…

  • What life is like for LGBT+ people in Scotland

    NHS Greater Glasgow and NHS Lothian have teamed up to research the experiences and health needs of LGBT+ people in Scotland. The full report is here. It’s part of a wider study that includes a literature review and that will help inform future planning. It’s a long and often very saddening report, with people sharing some…

  • LGB people: the LGB Alliance do not speak for us

    This week, various outlets gave yet more publicity to the LGB Alliance, a single-issue anti-trans hate group that purports to be about LGB people’s rights but has no policies about, er, LGB people’s rights. This hasn’t stopped Scotland’s press and BBC Radio Scotland giving them uncritical coverage and endless opportunities to scaremonger about trans people.…

  • My life story

    After a lot of delays, I’ve finally received the psychologist’s report I need in order to apply for my Gender Recognition Certificate. Unfortunately I can’t actually afford the application fee for said certificate because why should anything be easy – I’ve also had to halt my weekly electrolysis sessions because paying the equivalent of some…