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This is powerful and wonderful. It’s from BBC’s The Social, the bit where Auntie Beeb gives a platform to voices you don’t necessarily hear very often on the main channels’ output. Its comedy output is consistently hilarious, but it’s in the serious stuff where it really shines. This one’s about something simple: being in love.… [more]
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Cornell University has studied all the peer-reviewed English articles about gender transition from 1991 to 2017 and found overwhelming evidence that social and/or medical transition is a positive thing. Among the positive outcomes of gender transition and related medical treatments for transgender individuals are improved quality of life, greater relationship satisfaction, higher self-esteem and confidence,… [more]
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I’ve written a few times here about toxic masculinity, the idea that certain beliefs and expectations are bad for men as well as women. This, by Tim Winton, puts it really well. Boys and young men are so routinely expected to betray their better natures, to smother their consciences, to renounce the best of themselves… [more]
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I know, I know. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in the various evils of the world that I forget that I’m the greatest songwriter who ever lived*. So let’s talk about that. I’ve been promising new music for quite a long time now but I’m actually nearly ready to deliver it. I’m in the… [more]
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The Caledonian Sleeper train is in the news after the latest concerted “pile-on” (their words) by anti-trans activists who organise on Mumsnet: they don’t want trans people on sleeper trains. (It’s interesting to see people with hateful views, many of whom advocate violence against minorities, hiding behind the label “mumsnet user” and abusing the stereotype… [more]
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The leading trend on UK Twitter today is #PunishAMuslimDay. The Guido Fawkes political blog’s comments section is full of staggering, blatant anti-semitism. Social media has become a cesspool of racism and every other form of bigotry and stupidity imaginable. The world appears to be getting considerably dumber by the day. For many years I… [more]
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Today is international trans day of visibility, and the excellent Overtake asked me to write a piece about what it’s like to go out in public as yourself for the first time. I hope you find it as funny as I did writing it. [more]
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Profits! This is disturbing, to say the least. As the Cambridge Analytica scandal rumbles on, here’s Adam Ramsay’s view of “what happens when you privatise military propaganda”: If you privatise war, don’t be surprised if military firms start using the tools of war on ‘their own’ side. When Eisenhower warned of the Military Industrial Complex, he… [more]
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This photo made me cry. It’s #Project84 from the Campaign Against Living Miserably, which aims to reduce the number of men who kill themselves. 84 is the number of men in the UK who kill themselves every week, and there are 84 of these sculptures on the London skyline. It’s stark and beautiful in a… [more]
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Here’s a happy story: Jake and Hannah got married this week. Jake’s an actor, Hannah’s an army officer and the photos show a clearly delighted couple in love. I don’t know Hannah but I’m connected to Jake on Facebook and he strikes me as a thoroughly excellent human being, so it’s really lovely to see… [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.
