-
Labour have published their draft bill on banning conversion therapy, and as expected it does nothing to protect trans people: there’s a huge carve-out for healthcare providers that’s so wide it means any quack can call themselves a provider and continue to torture kids. The “ban” is also worded in such a way that it… [more]
-
On a hot day like today, what could be better than hiding from the sun in your local queer bookshop and picking up a copy of Queerphoria, which is out in paperback today? If you buy it online, I’d recommend Bookshop.org: it gives a cut to independent booksellers and you can nominate your preferred one. [more]
-
There’s a fascinating interview with Hilary Cass with the BBC that makes it very clear that her report, used to justify a ban on puberty blockers, was policy-based evidence making: she admits that “we genuinely don’t know if there are harms” from prescribing puberty blockers to trans kids. The medicine remains available to cisgender kids… [more]
-
I went to see The B-52’s last night, a band I’ve long loved but never seen live. They were huge fun, but the show was also very emotional for me. The band’s fifth album, 1989’s Cosmic Thing, was very important to me when I was a lot younger, and was the soundtrack to a long… [more]
-
My publisher, 404 Ink, will be closing their online shop on 30 June – and until then you can buy all their books for just £5. Naturally I’d recommend Carrie Kills A Man and Small Town Joy, but there are many more excellent books as well as the fantastic Inklings series. Fill your boots (with books)! [more]
-
Helen Belcher for Byline Times on the two lies being pushed by the EHRC: The position the UK now is in is driven by two big basic lies. The first is that the Equality Act was actually an act which excluded trans people from single-sex services and spaces aligned to their lived in gender but… [more]
-
I’m delighted to be one of the contributors to Queerphoria, a new anthology of queer writing from Verve Books. £1 from every copy sold goes to Switchboard LGBT+. The eBook is out worldwide from today and the UK print edition comes out on 25 June. It’s getting rave reviews from readers and from publications such… [more]
-
Brynn Tannehill on fiery form in Public Notice: One of the most popular and profitable grifts in the world of the religious right and MAGA is the production of propaganda to convince Christians that they are horribly discriminated against, or even oppressed, by the government and government funded entities. …This victimhood narrative is central to… [more]
-
QueerAF: Seventeen thousand articles were published about so-called ‘trans issues’ by just four British newspapers in five years, according to new research from Amnesty International UK. The four newspapers – The Sun, The Times, The Guardian and The Telegraph – mentioned JK Rowling 106 times in their coverage, with 202 mentions of a prime minister… [more]
-
Liberal Currents: “A very small group of very well connected people, funded by international fascism, have decided that trans identity is, at best, a delusion that has been tolerated for far too long. In the space of a few years they have been able to reorder our society and politics to effectively segregate them. …This… [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.
