Category: LGBTQ+
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Nothing’s shocking
A US school district has cancelled classes after parents made multiple violent threats against a 12-year-old trans girl. The only thing I find shocking about this is that it’s made headlines. There are plenty of examples of parents bullying young trans people online. This case began with a mum stirring up hatred. If you think […]
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“It is never too late to live your life”
Jenny Boylan, novelist, columnist and author of the excellent memoir She’s Not There, posted a really worthwhile thread on Twitter today. I’ll give you a flavour: People often ask late-transitioners, Why now? After all this time? What kind of woman do you think you can be, after missing your girlhood and your adolescence? But those […]
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The Times: transphobia is bad (except when we do it)
The Times has carried out an investigation into Twitter. References to child sex abuse, taunting of rape victims, disturbing messages from stalkers, homophobia and transphobia all stayed on the site after Twitter reviewed the content and decided that none of it breached its terms. Examples of the hate speech include attempts to link LGBT people […]
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You can’t pray the gay away
Chitra Ramaswamy has a powerful piece in The Guardian about the horrors of LGBT conversion therapy. Conversion therapy – sometimes referred to as “cure†therapy, reparative therapy, ex-gay therapy or sexual-orientation change efforts – refers to any treatment aiming to change a person’s sexual orientation or suppress their gender identity. It is a nebulous term, […]
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Next-level trolling
There’s trolling, and then there’s this. An eight-year-old trans girl, Avery Jackson, has raised enough money to open a “transgender house” – directly across the road from infamous hatemongers the Westboro Baptist Church. It’s next to the rainbow-painted Equality House that’s been annoying them since 2013. If you’re not familiar with the WBC, they’re the […]
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It’s a start
Facebook has taken down much of Alex “Infowars” Jones’ content, as have Apple and Spotify. (Update, 7/8/18: Apple was the first to move. The others were clearly waiting for somebody else to lead.) Reuters: The company [Facebook] said it removed the pages “for glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanizing language […]
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A five point plan to hate and hurt people
A poster on Twitter reminded me of this 2016 story about the evangelical Family Research Council. It’s about the FRC’s five-point plan describing how to demonise trans people and make it impossible for them to live their lives. This isn’t a conspiracy theory. It’s on the FRC website, with the usual widely debunked nonsense. The […]
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Pride in my country
The festival may have been a shambles, but to see your country’s First Minister leading the Pride parade is really something. This image was tweeted from the FM’s official account. Update: I realise I didn’t explain why it was really something. I grew up in the era of Section 28/Clause 2A, when the UK government […]
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Street hassle
On Thursday, I was verbally abused in the street for being trans. I wonder, what kind of person do you imagine doing that, and where? Are you thinking lower working class, poorly educated, teenage, rolling down Sauchiehall Street after a night of promotional jaegerbombs? Or maybe a shaven-headed neanderthal, drunk, in a pub I should […]
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Brace yourself for the backlash
The UK government publishes its new LGBT strategy today. Part of the strategy includes publishing the findings of a survey that show – surprise! – life is often really shit for LGBT people. The plans include improved hate crime protection, a ban on dangerous quackery such as conversion therapy (aka “pray the gay away” cures […]