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As ever the people who need to read this won’t, but Mermaids has attempted to address the myth that parents are rushing their kids to the gender clinic* at the first sign of their boy with a Barbie: Are kids being identified as trans because of the toys they play with or the clothes they… [more]
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Something I’ve seen a few times now is people (including staunch trans allies) expressing their surprise when someone in a TV programme is revealed to be trans. It’s interesting to analyse that, because it says a great deal about how trans people, particularly trans women, are usually portrayed. I think for many people, the words… [more]
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I’m a great believer that almost anybody can sing: it’s more of a craft than an art and the more you do it, the better you get. I stumbled across this 2011 piece, which suggests I’m wrong about 5% of people. NBC News: Why some of us are terrible singers [A] study found that anywhere… [more]
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Billboard has published an interesting profile of Dolly Parton, who Wikipedia describes as “an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, actress, author, businesswoman, and humanitarian”. That’s selling her short. She’s an incredible talent, incredibly generous and quite clearly the smartest person in any room. NME profiled her in 2017: A ferocious talent who grew up in… [more]
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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]
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.
