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The above image, which has saved me a bit of typing because it pretty much describes my situation, is from the resources page of Still Here. I wasn’t aware of it before and it’s clearly a work in progress but it may be worth bookmarking. [more]
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Channel 4 has been uncovering some truly despicable behaviour by the Leave.EU campaign. First, there were the videos: The pro-Brexit campaign group, Leave.EU, faked a viral video and appear to have staged photos of “migrantsâ€, shortly before the EU referendum. An investigation by Channel 4 News found that images purporting to show “migrants†attacking young… [more]
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Am I missing something, or is this idea incredibly, dangerously bad? Labour’s LGBT+ advisor calls for UK-wide ‘safe spaces’ for transgender people Mr Watson wants Ministers to give Local Authorities the powers to outline special zones for transgender people so they can socialise safely with family, friends and the wider LGBT+ community. I’m hoping that… [more]
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Writing in The Nation, Eric Alterman isn’t pulling any punches. one family has been able to use the power of the press to subvert democratic norms, misinform citizens, undermine governments, and fill our national debates with lies, misogyny, racism, and ethnocentrism while calling it news. Nothing in the article is particularly new: Murdoch’s power over… [more]
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There are two pieces in the Guardian about a growing trend: people arguing that criticism is “silencing”. First up, Jack Bernhardt on comedy. we witnessed another great moment in comedy this week, when the BBC’s head of comedy asked the question we didn’t realise needed to be asked: is comedy dying because the internet is… [more]
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The FT asks, “can you be a mother and a senior law firm partner?” It’s not asking whether women are capable of the job, thankfully; it’s a piece about the assumptions made about women that aren’t made about men. The generally accepted issue is the choice many women face between partnership — on call 24/7 and… [more]
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MP David Lammy is being lambasted by the right-wing press for comparing the Brexit-pushing European Research Group to Nazis and suggesting that the Brexit debate has helped spread far-right hatred. You can probably write the articles yourself: leftie commie, traitor to Britain, etc. Except he’s right. And he’s not the only politician saying so. Here’s… [more]
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It’s just another week on the internet, with yet another bunch of women experiencing massive campaigns of online abuse for having the temerity to say they don’t think trans women are monstrous predators. Singer Lisa Moorish is currently under siege and receiving dire threats and abuse from the “protect women” crowd, while comedian Janey Godley… [more]
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There’s an interesting piece in NY Magazine about the corrosive effects of highly partisan news. I heard from more than a hundred people who felt like they could relate to what they all seemed to think of as a kind of ideological brain poisoning. They chose Fox News over their family, people told me. They… [more]
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Writing for the NYT, Jennifer Finney Boylan compares anti-trans rhetoric to anti-immigration rhetoric. When members of the present administration claim that people like me should be “erased,†are they not saying, in so many words, “Build that wall?†Are they not echoing the cries of every xenophobic bigot throughout history in furiously demanding that I Go… [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.
