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Chitra Ramaswamy has a powerful piece in The Guardian about the horrors of LGBT conversion therapy. Conversion therapy – sometimes referred to as “cure†therapy, reparative therapy, ex-gay therapy or sexual-orientation change efforts – refers to any treatment aiming to change a person’s sexual orientation or suppress their gender identity. It is a nebulous term,… [more]
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The Department of Work and Pensions is solving the problem of people being referred to food banks by, er, banning use of the word “referral” and ensuring Jobcentre staff don’t offer anybody food bank vouchers. Instead, they’re to be “signposted” and given “signposting slips” that can be, er, traded for food at food banks. The numbers… [more]
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There’s trolling, and then there’s this. An eight-year-old trans girl, Avery Jackson, has raised enough money to open a “transgender house” – directly across the road from infamous hatemongers the Westboro Baptist Church. It’s next to the rainbow-painted Equality House that’s been annoying them since 2013. If you’re not familiar with the WBC, they’re the… [more]
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Facebook has taken down much of Alex “Infowars” Jones’ content, as have Apple and Spotify. (Update, 7/8/18: Apple was the first to move. The others were clearly waiting for somebody else to lead.) Reuters: The company [Facebook] said it removed the pages “for glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanizing language… [more]
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Even by the Daily Mail’s low standards this is shocking, disgraceful stuff. Accuracy is important in any kind of journalism, of course, but it’s particularly important when you’re covering topics such as race relations and immigration. According to this furious Twitter thread by Marwan Muhammad, hardly anything in Malone’s article is true. It starts with… [more]
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This, by Nikhil Sonnad, is a superb analysis of what’s wrong with Facebook and why it’s sending the world to hell in a handcart. Much of it applies equally to Twitter. Sonnad begins with the story of Antonio Perkins, who was shot dead as he filmed a Facebook video. Although his death is tragic, the… [more]
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Two days ago, the Daily Mirror ran a horrifying story of video game addiction. “Fortnite Made Me A Suicidal Drug Addict”, the headline screamed. It was harrowing stuff describing “video game hell” that led to an abortive suicide attempt. Was it exaggerated? It certainly looks that way. Eurogamer is on the case. There’s no evidence to… [more]
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This New York Times story about the parents of Noah Pozner, who was murdered in the Sandy Hook massacre, is horrific. In the five years since Noah Pozner was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., death threats and online harassment have forced his parents, Veronique De La Rosa and Leonard Pozner, to… [more]
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Just when you thought mainstream media couldn’t get any more stupid… Sarah Cruddas is a science journalist. Today, she was asked to take part in a TV debate about whether or not we landed on the moon. As she put it on Twitter: “It is not okay to debate science fact.” There is no debate… [more]
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Yet more evidence of the malign influence of US money on UK media and politics. Hope Not Hate analysed social media support for neo-nazi poster child Tommy Robinson and – surprise! – discovered that it’s overwhelmingly from foreigners. Only 40 per cent of the tweets using those hashtags came from UK users while 35 per… [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.
