-
I’d like to introduce you to my friends Laura, Amy and Steven. I don’t understand why Laura loves incredibly derivative and often idiotic punk rock, and she thinks that my beloved REM are one of the worst bands in human history. Other than that, we get on brilliantly. I don’t share Amy’s veganism, and she… [more]
-
It’s very hard to write about the grifters, bigots and assorted arseholes waging war on trans people and make it entertaining, let alone funny, but Liz Crash manages it with great aplomb in her piece about the supposed “erasure” of lesbian women by trans women, a claim beloved of far-right goons and their useful idiots.… [more]
-
The London Gender Identity Clinic has just updated its waiting list information: as of July 2023 it was making first appointments for people first referred in July/August 2018, five years ago. With 324 new referrals each month and 55 first appointments offered per month, it’s clear that that five year figure is only going to… [more]
-
If you’re looking for Carrie Kills A Man on Audible right now, you won’t find it. I’m tempted to pretend that it’s because I’ve been silenced and get myself a few weeks of national newspaper and broadcasting publicity, but I’m too honest to do that. It’s an admin thing and it’ll be back on the… [more]
-
In bad movies, villains like to explain in advance what they’re going to do. And in the bad movie we currently appear to be living in, the Christian Right does that too. Often, the most hateful plans and strategies are discussed openly at their conferences or published in their strategy documents. A good example of… [more]
-
Last year, trans people wryly joked that it was just a matter of time before some anti-trans dolt praised the Taliban because “at least they know what a woman is”. That dolt turned out to be Julia Hartley-Brewer, who tweeted on 29 August: “At least the Taliban know what a woman is” in response to… [more]
-
I joined the photo sharing site Flickr in the early 2000s and closed my account this week, nearly two decades later. I’d have closed it a couple of years ago but I’d forgotten all about it: the only reason I still had an account was to share photos with my mum, who at the time… [more]
-
In the last few weeks, two stories have stood out to me among the usual avalanche of anti-trans content. The first story is the introduction of a new open category in the swimming World Cup for “all sex and gender identities”. And the second is the story of a trans woman who was turned away… [more]
-
If you thought The Sun newspaper had changed its spots since the days of demonising AIDS sufferers and pissing on the Hillsborough dead, it would like to show you otherwise. Here’s its Sun Says column: Yes, it’s using dead babies as cannon fodder in its war on LGBTQ people. Those babies were not murdered by… [more]
-
Thank you so much to Alex Hyde, Kirsty Logan, Szilvia Molnar and everybody who helped make our chat at the Edinburgh International Book Festival so much fun. This was my first time at the festival and if you haven’t been, I’d really recommend you go next year. It’s a huge event featuring lots of amazing… [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.
