Category: LGBTQ+

  • No, acceptance of LGBT+ people isn’t going backwards

    The Guardian, and pretty much every other newspaper, reports today that acceptance of LGBT+ people is in decline. As The Guardian put it in a social media headline: Acceptance of gay sex in decline in UK for first time since AIDS crisis That’s not what the social attitudes survey, which the headline refers to, says…

  • We rise

    [Content note: homophobia and transphobia] Last year, a group of anti-trans bigots delayed the London Pride march. This year, the march was led by trans-inclusive women. I’m quite sure the above image, from Picadilly Circus during the march, caused a few bigots’ mouths to froth. In the same week, a YouGov poll investigated people’s attitudes…

  • The scaremongering needs to stop

    It’s not a great day for news about trans people. In Antwerp, a teenage trans woman was gang raped by three men on her very first day presenting female. Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, no doubt upset some of her transphobic members by tweeting about it: Important to remember that – far from being responsible…

  • Trans is beautiful

    Let’s post this picture again. Everybody in this photo is trans, and it’s important that you see that. Because conventionally attractive trans women are the last thing the anti-trans bigots want you to see. One of the things the “reasonable debate” crowd really like to do is to scour the internet to find photos of…

  • These are the people you’re being told to hate

    The Scottish anti-trans group For Women is currently putting anti-trans leaflets through Glasgow doors, trying to whip up fear and hatred of trans women. Do you want MEN changing with your daughter? Do you want MEN in the same toilet? That kind of thing. The photo above is of people they want you to be…

  • Inciting hatred of trans women in the name of feminism is “despicable”

    There’s a great interview with the equally great Ruth Hunt, departing CEO of Stonewall, in Buzzfeed News. Ruth hasn’t just had a hard job. She’s had to deal with constant online abuse, some of it criminal, and has been the target of bigoted pundits in the media too. “Mainstream newspapers running consistently transphobic articles, day…

  • You’re being lied to about hate crimes

    As I mentioned yesterday, one of the most common reactions to the news of increasing hate crimes was denial: the crimes are just touchy snowflakes going to the cops about the slightest thing on the internet. To put it mildly, that’s a complete misunderstanding of what hate crime is, and what minority groups experience. Something…

  • Lies, damned lies about statistics

    Yesterday, the BBC reported a massive increase in hate crimes against trans people. The online response was utterly predictable: the anti-trans faux-feminists decided that Stonewall had managed to infiltrate every level of every police force in the UK in order to churn out fake statistics; in slightly less unhinged circles a very worrying number of…

  • We are not 81% touchier than we were last year

    BBC News: The number of transgender hate crimes recorded by police forces in England, Scotland and Wales has risen by 81%, latest figures suggest. Data obtained by the BBC showed there were 1,944 crimes across 36 forces in the last financial year compared with 1,073 in 2016-17. The figures here are based on freedom of…

  • The Times isn’t incompetent. It’s malicious

    I’ve written before about what appears to be a failure of basic journalism standards at The Times and Sunday Times under editor John Witherow. A new report suggests it’s even worse. The report has the rather unwieldy title Andrew Norfolk, The Times Newspaper and Anti-Muslim Reporting – A Case To Answer, and it makes some…