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The right-wing press wasted no time in starting 2024’s Tory-fuelled attacks on trans people: on New Year’s Day both the Mail and the Telegraph ran scaremongering articles supporting Kemi Badenoch’s desire to roll back trans people’s rights by several decades. This time the target is our passports, which the Telegraph claims have a “loophole” that… [more]
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A new report by Policy Exchange, the right-wing think tank whose job is to give the Telegraph and Daily Mail some scary headlines and rubber-stamp whatever hateful policies the Tories want to bring in, is a great demonstration of what I’ve seen described as “rectal research”: the report’s supposed facts have clearly been pulled out… [more]
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Most of my tech writing these days is news reporting, but from time to time I get to write something a little more reflective. Here’s a piece on how streaming services have persuaded me to get back into buying music I can touch. I think streaming is like a fast food drive-through, serving up cheeseburgers… [more]
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Due to a calendar quirk, here in the UK the winter solstice is a day later than usual. But now it’s here, so today is the shortest, darkest day of the year and the beginning of the road back to summer sunshine. I’m writing this at 8am and it’s still pitch black outside; it’ll be… [more]
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Since around 2017, it’s been very clear that if you hate trans people you can make up any old shite and have it printed or broadcast without anybody fact-checking it before, during or afterwards – and as a result, many anti-trans activists have taken full advantage of that to spread absolute bullshit with impunity. So… [more]
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Two teenagers were found guilty of the murder of teenage girl Brianna Ghey today, after what the Crown Prosecution Service described as “one of the most distressing cases the Crown Prosecution Service has had to deal with. The planning, the violence and the age of the killers is beyond belief.” I had to stop following… [more]
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There’s a wonderful new documentary on BBC iPlayer (and on PBS in the US) called Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution. It traces disco from its origins in the basement bars and warehouses of 1970s New York to its eventual world domination, and it’s a fantastic programme with a celestial soundtrack. While the music is of… [more]
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In the same week that we heard closing arguments in the trial of Brianna Ghey’s killers, two teenagers who brutally murdered the young girl in part because she was transgender, the Tory government has finally published its draft guidelines regarding trans and non-binary kids in schools. As expected it’s a bigoted shitshow. The Department of… [more]
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One of the not-too-hidden secrets of the anti-trans movement is that their goal is the total elimination of trans people. As with the forced birth movement, activists are very careful to disguise their goals, to self-censor and say only what they know they can get away with when they talk to the media. Hence “pro-life”… [more]
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The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, has produced a new report detailing the 60-plus organisations set up by the Christian Right to spread mis- and disinformation about LGBTQ+ people, and about trans people in particular. It’s a damning report, as you’d expect, and it also features a lot of organisations that will… [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.
