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Have you been wondering how the odious racist Tommy Robinson has managed to attract so much apparent support? The answer’s simple. He’s being bankrolled by US right-wingers. This is by no means unusual. US evangelicals are driving anti-trans groups over here and tried to derail the Irish campaign to repeal anti-abortion law. The Russians, as… [more]
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According to Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg, holocaust deniers don’t really mean it. “I don’t think that they’re intentionally getting it wrong”, he says, explaining why so much hate speech remains online on Facebook. The real reason, of course, is that hate speech makes money for Facebook. Hate platforms such as Infowars and articles about holocaust… [more]
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The festival may have been a shambles, but to see your country’s First Minister leading the Pride parade is really something. This image was tweeted from the FM’s official account. Update: I realise I didn’t explain why it was really something. I grew up in the era of Section 28/Clause 2A, when the UK government… [more]
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I don’t usually post links to my work because I do an awful lot of it, but it’s been a while since I’ve had the thrill of seeing my name on the cover of a book. Business Writing for Technical People is part of a series I’ve written for the British Computer Society, and I… [more]
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On Thursday, I was verbally abused in the street for being trans. I wonder, what kind of person do you imagine doing that, and where? Are you thinking lower working class, poorly educated, teenage, rolling down Sauchiehall Street after a night of promotional jaegerbombs? Or maybe a shaven-headed neanderthal, drunk, in a pub I should… [more]
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The UK government publishes its new LGBT strategy today. Part of the strategy includes publishing the findings of a survey that show – surprise! – life is often really shit for LGBT people. The plans include improved hate crime protection, a ban on dangerous quackery such as conversion therapy (aka “pray the gay away” cures… [more]
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I liked this photo: it shows members of the Scots parliament wearing rainbow-coloured ties to mark their support for the TIE campaign. The TIE Campaign only three years old but is doing great things in Scottish schools. It aims to reduce bullying and ignorance by encouraging LGBT-inclusive education in schools, and it works. The Sunday Herald:… [more]
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Morrissey has cancelled his UK and Ireland tour citing “logistical problems”. Various well-informed sources say those problems are of the “persuading people to buy tickets” variety. Â In one Scots venue with a capacity of 2,900, I’m told, he barely sold 400 tickets after weeks on sale. In the last six years, Morrissey has cancelled 134… [more]
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Another day, another mass killing in America by a man who – surprise! – has a history of troubling behaviour towards women. The target, the Capital Gazette newspaper, had previously reported the shooter’s online harassment of a woman; he tried and failed to sue them. So three years later, he picked up a gun instead.… [more]
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This is from the New York Times in 1934. There are quite a few of these things being shared on social media at the moment, including old articles urging black people to be civil to people who want to keep them segregated, and more recent articles urging LGBT people to be nice to howling bigots.… [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.
