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The Sky News / Tommy Robinson fiasco is a good example of something that’s all too common in media: smart people being really, really stupid. There’s an idea, oft expressed, that sunlight is the best disinfectant; that exposing terrible ideas to the harsh glare of publicity will make those terrible ideas wither and die. Unfortunately… [more]
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Sky News was very proud of its exclusive last night: an interview with former EDL leader and Nazi poster boy Tommy Robinson. Don’t do it, they were urged. All you’re doing is giving fascists the oxygen of publicity they so crave, and helping create the impression that they’re a legitimate group with legitimate concerns. He’ll… [more]
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Marks & Spencer has launched a new “easy dressing” range for children. The clothes are largely identical to the rest of the retailer’s children’s clothing (there’s a school uniform section too), but there are some crucial differences. Some have been tailored to make extra room for leg or arm casts, or have pockets with concealed… [more]
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Yesterday the Scottish Government published the initial results of its consultation on gender recognition reform. The public, including women’s groups dealing with the most vulnerable women in society, was overwhelmingly in favour of making life a little bit easier and a little more dignified for trans and non-binary people. It’s an interesting contrast to England,… [more]
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I got a taxi home last night. I think it’s safe to assume that there aren’t many openly trans people getting taxis from that Glasgow suburb: when the driver clocked that my appearance was rather different from my voice he had a lot of questions, all of them deeply personal and inappropriate. I could have… [more]
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There’s a thing some trans people do on social media to mark “Cake Day”, the anniversary of them starting transition: it’s usually (but not always) the anniversary of them starting HRT. It’s my first Cake Day today. Cake Day is often celebrated by posting before and after photos, usually showing a really miserable person in… [more]
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One of the more depressing things about the internet is the way that some publications have embraced hate clicks. Hate clicks are when you publish something terrible and then lots of people share it, not because they agree with it but because they’re shocked by how awful it is. The statistics show that lots of… [more]
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I was reading a lot of blogs over the weekend, and one comment in particular really stood out for me: We don’t choose to be LGBTQ, but we choose whether to be part of the LGBTQ community. I think that’s very true. I didn’t choose to be trans, but I can choose whether to see… [more]
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I got a letter from the NHS yesterday. I’ve been waiting for it for a long time. I’ve been waiting a long time because while it was dictated on the 9th of July, it wasn’t typed until the 2nd of August and didn’t get here until the 14th of September. It had been sent by… [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.
