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I’ll be joining the line-up of this excellent online music, spoken word and visual arts event on Sunday. I don’t know all the other performers but the ones I do know are brilliant. This Sunday… @LGBTHealthy and @SomewhereEDI present Queer Fringe – Supporting and celebrating LGBTQ+ artists in Scotland in 2020 and beyond. 15 featured… [more]
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This, by Zoe Williams interviewing author Laura Bates, is terrifying: the toxic world of online misogyny. I think many people appreciate that the internet is a toxic swamp, but I don’t think many people appreciate the scale or the danger of it. “I started hearing boys at school who already felt that they’d been poisoned against… [more]
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There’s been a lot of discussion about conversion therapy, the often-illegal and usually deeply damaging attempts to force people to change their sexual orientation or gender identity. That’s horrific, of course. But you don’t have to give people electro-shock therapy or send them off to prayer camp to try and talk them out of being… [more]
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Much of the media – and much of the government, including a Prime Minister who didn’t appear to give a shit about the exams catastrophe or anything else that’s actually important – is huffing and puffing about the Wokerati Thought Police Black Lives Matter Political Correctness Cancel Culture Gone Mad “ban” on singing Land of… [more]
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Jessica Valenti writes about the Aaron Coleman saga in the US. The short version: Coleman, a Democratic candidate, “committed serious harassment and sexual misconduct when he was a teenager: Between the ages of 12 and 14, he bullied one girl so badly that she attempted suicide; extorted another classmate with a nude photo which he… [more]
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I volunteer with SWIM, a charity dedicated to equality in music, and their latest wheeze is called Swimspire: members are asked to share any key lessons they’ve learnt, and I’m one of the members they asked. My four aren’t specifically for music, as I think they apply to work generally: The smartest, most talented people… [more]
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If you don’t want to make yourself thoroughly miserable about the state of the world, don’t read the Reddit group r/QAnonCasualties. It’s a forum for people who’ve lost or are losing friends and family to conspiracy theories. Mum, stepdad and brother have been well down the rabbit hole since about 2013-2014. Started with flat earth,… [more]
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Gemma Stone, writing on Medium: Recently, an anti-trans activist was spoken to by police over a suspected hate crime. Suzy Ireson has been quite prolific in posting anti-trans propaganda around public places, with a direct intention of drumming up hate for trans people and making trans people feel intimidated. She even gleefully admits to doing… [more]
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Sometimes columnists accidentally reveal more about themselves than they perhaps intended. Iain MacWhirter in The Herald: Doing any of those things without consent is sexual harassment, and the Herald’s self-appointed Defender of Women should know that. Emma Rich of Engender Scotland: Sexual harassment is sex discrimination & a human rights violation. For decades, unwanted hair… [more]
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The rather dull headline undersells this sensitive, fascinating and terribly sad piece about the death of Angela Martinez last month in LA: Death of an Indigenous essential worker sparks debate over gender identity. Martinez died of COVID-19, but the manager at the Burger King where she worked claimed she died from a “hormone overdose”. It… [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.
