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This, by Julia Carrie Wong, was written in 2017. Facebook groups – like any social capital – can just as easily be used for ill as good. And social capital is not an unalloyed good. A 2013 study by New York University political scientist Shanker Satyanath, Bowling for Fascism, found that dense networks of social [more]
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There’s a superb piece in BBC Future about a growing problem in trans healthcare: because systems largely class people on gender rather than assigned sex at birth, trans and non-binary people can encounter significant barriers in getting adequate testing and treatment. Most healthcare has evolved with a straightforward dichotomy of gender in mind. Though there [more]
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The Independent: The British far right is becoming more openly racist in the wake of a backlash against international Black Lives Matter protests, experts have warned. A report by Hope Not Hate, seen exclusively by The Independent before its release, said that years of dominance by Tommy Robinson and other figures focused on Muslims was [more]
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If you’ve read this blog for a while you’ll know I’m fascinated by Internet Facts, things that everybody believes but that aren’t true – such as the story claiming singer Mariah Carey, when asked about famine, said “I’d like to be that thin, but without all the flies and death and stuff”. Another good example [more]
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I’ve just finished reading Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women by Kate Manne. In nine chapters, Manne elaborates on the many spheres in which male entitlement hurts women and girls. The entitlement to admiration that some men demand, for example, has led to the phenomenon of “involuntary celibates†(or “incelsâ€) targeting women in violent acts. [more]
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Last night I read a post by a trans woman that made me sad. It was intended to be supportive – it was written as a kind of open letter to trans women who compare their appearance to other women and find themselves lacking – which is why I didn’t give it a kicking in [more]
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NHS England: The maximum waiting time for non-urgent, consultant-led treatments is 18 weeks PinkNews: Trans and non-binary patients in the UK’s south west are waiting more than 193 weeks to see an NHS specialist – more than 10 times the NHS legal guideline of 18 weeks. Waiting times vary across the UK but they’re years-long [more]
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You’ve probably heard of gender dysphoria, which is when someone’s gender identity doesn’t match the sex they were assigned at birth. But you may not be aware of the converse, gender euphoria. Where dysphoria is the feeling that something is terribly wrong, euphoria is the feeling that something is very right. There’s a lot of [more]
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The UK now has two world-beating achievements to boast of: the highest excess death rate in Europe and the worst drop in GDP of any G7 nation. We’re in the deepest recession since records began. As journalist David Osland put it on Twitter: It’s lucky that asylum seekers, trans people and Dawn Butler are to [more]
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Or at least, it’s highly likely that you aren’t. That’s according to the latest survey of UK people’s attitudes to trans people. While there’s clear evidence that three years of anti-trans scaremongering have had an effect, there’s also clear evidence that the scaremongers do not reflect wider public opinion. Stonewall: When the public is asked [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.
