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There are some fascinating reports in the latest edition of the Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies, including a piece about the LGB Alliance’s Role in the UK Media’s Anti-Trans Moral Panic and this in-depth analysis of radicalisation on sites such as Mumsnet. It describes how posters attempt to reframe themselves as victims rather than victimisers, [more]
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The BBC has been captured by the sinister trans lobby, a new report being pushed by the right-wing press claims. The report, by Michael Prescott, provides no convincing evidence of that – because of course it isn’t true. The BBC is one of the main vectors of anti-trans propaganda, taking its cue (and many of [more]
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Various newspapers report that Glasgow councillor Chris Cunningham has disputed the terrifying 200-years-plus predicted waiting times for Glasgow’s Sandyford clinic, claiming that the waiting time is six to seven years. And that means he’s either ignorant or deliberately misleading people, and so are the newspapers – because the evidence shows that if you’re referred to [more]
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There’s a good piece by Doc Impossible on Stained Glass Woman about the other kind of surgical recovery: your mental recovery, and how to try and help yourself handle the aftermath of what is a very big deal. Surgical recovery isn’t just physically difficult and debilitating; it’s very tough on your mental resources too, and [more]
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I came out as trans nine years ago this week, and I think it’s interesting to look at the transition – not mine, but the transition in the Scots press’s reporting on LGBTQ+ issues and trans people during that time. Here’s a fairly typical piece from The Herald in the summer of 2016, which covers [more]
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There’s a nice piece in Glamour featuring nine “ground-breaking” trans women from the worlds of fashion, music, publishing and activism as part of their Women of the Year special. I think the photography may be as important as the article, as it helps disperse the pervasive myth that trans women are “hulking” and highly masculine [more]
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Today’s “completely manufactured anti-trans bullshit” takes us to Dundee, where an anti-trans activist has taken great exception to a Hobbycraft shop assistant’s “no TERFs, no Tories” badge to create predictable media outrage. It’s yet another example of DARVO – the abuser’s creed of “deny, attack, reverse victim and offender”, where members of a movement that [more]
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A good piece in Salon noting the parallels between the “Satanic panic” of the 80s and the trans panic today: The trans panic currently gripping the Christian right is an extension of the Satanic panic that took hold in the 1980s — a worldview that owes little to reality or to the teachings of Jesus. [more]
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A new YouGov survey reports that 84% of trans people in the UK feel unsafe. I’m surprised the figure is so low. 24% of respondents said they’d experienced physical abuse in public; 65% have experienced verbal abuse in public. Here’s just one example from this weekend in Glasgow: friends of my eldest, teenagers, having a [more]
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UK newspapers are sounding the alarm: a US-based evangelical lobby group with deep pockets is trying to influence UK politics and take away marginalised people’s human rights. The group is the Alliance Defending Freedom; the marginalised group are women. The ADF wants to see the UK ban abortion, even though the UK is overwhelmingly against [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.
