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One of the more odious groups of people to crawl out of the internet are the pick-up artists (PUAs), who treat women as commodities and whose tactics are thoroughly awful. There has been plenty of (rightful) condemnation of these clowns, most recently over the BBC Social investigation of repellent Scots PUA A-Game, although it’s worth… [more]
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This is the latest version of the Genderbread Person, an attempt to clear up the differences between gender identity, sexual/romantic attraction and anatomical sex – differences that many self-appointed experts seem unwilling or unable to understand. The reason there are multiple versions is because it’s under constant review to make it as clear and understandable… [more]
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Harris Brewis just did something amazing. Brewis is a gamer, known online as hbomberguy, and he decided to annoy Graham Linehan. Linehan is famous for co-writing Father Ted and Black Books a couple of decades ago, but in the last few years he’s done little of note beyond spending pretty much all of his time… [more]
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Women are being warned not to put herbs in their vaginas after a Marie Claire article suggested that they should use parsley to “kick-start” their periods. It’s easy to laugh, but it’s actually quite a serious problem: time and again magazines and online magazines aimed at women print deluded and sometimes actively dangerous health advice… [more]
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As ever, the Daily Mash does a great job of skewering a news story: this time, the ridiculous outrage over a Gillette ad. A RAZOR blade company has expressed surprise that its latest advert has pissed off a lot of dickheads. In a stunning development, the company’s latest campaign – which calls on the #MeToo… [more]
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Wouldn’t it be great if, instead of the thinky thoughts of anti-trans columnists, we had some actual research into children, gender dysphoria and gender identity? Look what The Atlantic found! Since 2013, Kristina Olson, a psychologist at the University of Washington, has been running a large, long-term study to track the health and well-being of… [more]
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Helen Taylor is the author of The Backstreets of Purgatory, which is ace. She’s a hell of a writer, a genuinely lovely person and the writer of this heartbreaking piece about being sectioned. We were supposed to have one-to-one sessions where I told him what I was feeling. It was meant to help, to give… [more]
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A new study from Oxford University has been making waves today: it apparently demonstrates that despite much publicity over the dangers of screen use for children, screens are no more dangerous than eating potatoes. Inevitably, that’s not what the study actually says. In one of the few sensible reports, Techcrunch explains: the study does not… [more]
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The world is full of snowflakes, we’re told. Thin-skinned, easily triggered and constantly seeking innocuous things to be outraged about, they’re the enemies of intelligent discourse. “Don’t like that thing because it’s baaaaaad!” they bleat, immediately leaping to the worst possible take on whatever it is they’re manufacturing outrage about today. No, not millennials. Middle-aged… [more]
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Stonewall Scotland has published a worrying report: half of LGBT people have experienced depression in the last year, rising to 72% among trans people. More than half of trans people have thought about taking their life in the last 12 months. Here’s the thing, though. LGBT people are not more prone to depression or suicidal… [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.
