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I have lots of thoughts about the ‘sacking’ of SNP MP Joanna Cherry, but for now I’ll just post some tweets by Tristan Gray of the Green Party. What happened: The SNP leadership silence as transphobia swallowed their party crossed a line, triggering dozens of resignations by young activists and office-holders. Sturgeon issued a statement… [more]
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Rupert Murdoch’s media empire is one of the most malign forces in the world today, and it specialises in fuelling division. Media Matters has identified a good example of that in the way Fox News has covered President Biden’s anti-discrimination order. Despite the order’s myriad protections, over the following week, Fox News aired 19 segments… [more]
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In the nineteenth century, scientists were very interested in the differences between men and women. Not because they wanted to know more, but because they wanted to justify oppressing women. So they came up with ever more inventive ways to define who was superior and who was inferior. As historian Susan Sleeth Mosedale writes in… [more]
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Rowan Moore is the architecture critic for The Observer and is also the father of a trans man. I very much doubt that the editor would have published this measured, thoughtful and important piece about having a trans child if Moore weren’t connected to the newspaper, but I’m glad they did. The court’s logic led… [more]
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Regular readers will know that I often state the bleeding obvious: people who are bigoted against one group are usually bigoted against other groups too. Over the weekend, the anti-trans faction of the independence movement turned its attention to disabled people. Stop me if you’ve heard this before: by allowing disabled people to say they’re… [more]
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Abigail Thorn of popular video blog PhilosophyTube has come out as trans, and it’s lovely to see her so happy. She’s posted a video statement that explains how she got here and some of the challenges we face, and it’s well worth a few minutes of your time. [more]
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I’ve written before about the glaringly obvious similarities between QAnon, the deranged conspiracy theory that Donald Trump is fighting a secret cabal of paedophiles, and UK anti-trans faux-feminism, which is basically the same thing with Prosecco. But I haven’t seen it illustrated quite so dramatically as I have today. In a Twitter thread, a number… [more]
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Glaswegian musician and producer SOPHIE has died. She was an extraordinary talent and this is a very sad loss. Munroe Bergdorf: Our community has lost an icon, a pioneer and a visionary bright light. Heartbroken. SOPHIE you will be missed. “Thank you for sharing your talent with us. I hope we get to meet again… [more]
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The horrific new anti-women legislation in Poland, a near-total ban on abortion, is already harming women. The country already had some of the strongest anti-abortion legislation in Europe, and it has now removed the exception for foetal abnormalities. According to the New York Times, 1,074 of the 1,100 abortions performed in Poland last year were… [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.
