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Abigail Thorn, actor and writer of Philosophy Tube, posted a video two years ago about her (awful) experiences of the NHS. The short version: she demonstrated how the NHS is institutionally discriminatory towards trans people. So I imagine she was quite surprised when a very senior NHS figure approached her about being the face of… [more]
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There’s a superb piece in Dazed by Sasha Baker, who explains how a vocal minority of religious and social conservatives has managed to dismantle trans healthcare and human rights in the UK without a single law being passed or revoked. The British gender critical movement purports to represent a silent majority, but knows it does… [more]
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We know that more than a dozen trans teens have taken their lives since the puberty blocker ban was introduced in the UK, despite the government’s best efforts to cover that up: its small inquiry into trans suicides discounted documented trans suicides. So it’s particularly disgusting to see Hilary Cass, the author of the politically… [more]
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Yesterday, Wes Streeting made the UK ban on puberty blockers for trans kids permanent. The ban does not apply to cisgender children; puberty blockers are apparently magic medicine that are uniquely dangerous to trans and gender non-conforming kids. The decision was subject to a consultation, which – at the Government’s invitation – featured significant input… [more]
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Infamous arsehole Matt Walsh has been saying the quiet bit out loud: speaking outside the US Supreme Court yesterday, the far-right clown vowed that “we are not gonna rest… until transgender ideology is entirely erased from the Earth.” He’s not the first to say that; last year Michael Knowles told the US Conservative Political Action… [more]
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The writer Julia Serano has organised an online protest today: LGBTQ+ People Are Not Going Back. It’s a US protest but has worldwide support: the message to the Democrats, and to supposedly left-of-centre political parties elsewhere, is that human rights, healthcare and safety for LGBTQ+ folks are not and should never be negotiable. Serano has… [more]
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I meant to post this a while back: a piece I wrote for Gutter magazine about the “content industry” and what it means for artists. Of course there has always been business around art. The music business, the art market, the publishing industry, the comedy circuit, the comic book trade and others have all seen… [more]
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The UK isn’t the only country where there have been reviews into the effectiveness and safety of puberty blockers. And it’s interesting to see what such reviews conclude when they’re not created to deliver, and staffed by people promised a peerage if they deliver, a pre-determined conclusion to support a political goal. The latest such… [more]
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This, by Girl on the Net, is very good. Love doesn’t hurt you on purpose. Love does not repeatedly make selfish choices that will damage you physically or emotionally. It doesn’t yell at you, or lie to you, or gaslight you or tell you you’re worthless. Love doesn’t vote for someone who doesn’t believe you’re… [more]
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I was honoured to lend my voice to The Missing, an episode of The Quilt, the LGBTQ+ audio exhibition and podcast in association with the Queer Britain museum. It’s an oral history of queer lives in the UK; this episode, the third in a series of eight, focuses on Scotland from the Highland Clearances to… [more]
Read me in books
My debut memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was a Scotsman book of the year and Damian Barr’s Literary Salon book of the week, and it was shortlisted for the 2023 British Book Awards book of the year in the Discover category.
My latest book, Small Town Joy, is a celebration of queer influences on and queer artists in Scots music and is out now.
I’m also a contributor to the excellent anthology Fierce Salvage, which is also out now.
