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Trans people and allies have been warning about the links between anti-trans activism and the far right for several years now, and this weekend has delivered a frightening example. The whole story is detailed here, but here’s the executive summary (updated a day later with additional details): An evangelical Christian blogger produced a video claiming [more]
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Over the weekend, Allison Bailey from the so-called LGB Alliance proved how divorced anti-trans activists are from the reality-based community. On discovering a Wispa bar and a lemon in her garden, she immediately came to the obvious conclusion: trans activists were trying to kill her dog. Nobody, least of all trans activists, was trying to [more]
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Please take a few minutes to watch this short speech by MP Mhairi Black. It’s a superb summary of the current moral panic and the people fuelling it, and it ends with this message to the trans community: This is an ugly and shameful time for all of us, but that shame is not yours [more]
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Remember when The Telegraph used to be a serious paper? Now it’s reduced to this. The story is based on claims by one anonymous woman who claims that the children’s channel CBBC somehow turned her child trans. The age of this child? 19. [more]
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The National Trust did no such thing. It merely told its volunteers that if they wanted to wear face paint or glitter to mark Pride month, they wouldn’t get into trouble for doing it. See also: Stonewall supposedly banning the word “mother” or any of the other anti-trans culture war stories infesting both right- and [more]
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Over the next few days you’re going to hear a lot about Maya Forstater, the contractor who took her former employer to a tribunal after they didn’t renew her contract. Forstater is vocally anti-trans and claims that she was discriminated against because of this. The tribunal found that Forstater’s views, which she claimed were a [more]
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Stonewall is Europe’s leading LGBT+ charity, and for the last few weeks it’s been under sustained attack by The Observer, The Sunday Times, The Daily Mail, Spiked and The Spectator, as well as the UK government’s Equalities Office. The allegations against it are demonstrably false, but that hasn’t stopped gallons of ink being spilt. Stephen [more]
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Former Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger gave an interview to The New Statesman in which he happily claimed that kids today are easily triggered snowflakes who can’t handle robust debate. If you’re thinking that’s the kind of crap you’d expect from a columnist in the right-wing press, you’re not the only one: journalist Mic Wright thinks [more]
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Bo Burnham’s latest Netflix special, Inside, is extraordinary. I laughed like a drain and then cried my eyes out. [more]
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One of the many irritating things about the endless torrents of anti-trans bullshit is the false distinction between trans people and LGB people, as if trans people aren’t also lesbian, gay, bisexual or any other part of the rainbow. Fewer than 10% of us are straight. This is something that comes up again and again [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.
