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Ian Betteridge writes about COVID-19: Never has a culture been less prepared for a pandemic, and never has a virus had a better chance to become endemic in a population. COVID almost seems tailor made to capitalise on every single weakness in our culture, from expert denial and anti-vaccine madness to our lack of experience… [more]
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When I was at school, I was excellent. I didn’t find anything particularly difficult, and I breezed through exams without having to study for them. I assumed that when I left school, the world of work would be much the same and I would be hugely rewarded for doing sod-all. Spoiler: nope. One of the… [more]
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There’s a blistering editorial in the New York Times about Amy Cooper, the white woman who was asked by a black birdwatcher to put her dog on a lead in the park. She responded by threatening to call the police and tell them that an African-American man was threatening her life – a potentially lethal… [more]
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A sad but sadly unsurprising study is yet more evidence that not only are LGBT+ young people more at risk of depression and suicide than straight kids, but that the risk is even higher for trans youth. PinkNews: compared to their cisgender LGB+ peers in the Trevor Project survey, young people who identify as trans… [more]
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The LGB Alliance, on the actual anniversary of Section 28: “We never demanded society change its laws” isn’t just shockingly ignorant, although of course it is. It’s also a grossly offensive insult to the thousands of gay, bisexual and lesbian people (and of course trans people, but the LGBA doesn’t even pretend to care about… [more]
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This is an extraordinary story. One day in December 2016 a 37-year-old British artist named Sam Winston equipped himself with a step-ladder, a pair of scissors, several rolls of black-out cloth and a huge supply of duct tape, and set about a project he had been considering for some time. …No screens. No sun. No… [more]
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Laura Bassett, writing for GQ.com, explains how the US Christian Right moved from being largely pro-abortion (in some cases because they were racist and believed abortion would limit the number of black children) to becoming militantly against it. The short version: strategists used abortion as a wedge issue to rally the faithful and grow the… [more]
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There’s an interesting interview in PinkNews with Alison Phipps, author of Me Not You: The Trouble With Mainstream Feminism. The book is very critical of the often very privileged white women whose feminism excludes women of colour, poor women, incarcerated women, sex workers, trans women and disabled women. This bit is short and to the… [more]
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David Paisley took a look at the Twitter feed for the LGB Alliance on the international day against homophobia, biphobia and transphobia (#IDAHOBIT); you’d expect a group that says it’s standing up for lesbian, gay and bisexual people to have something to say about ignorance and bigotry. He made this image. On the left, all… [more]
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Many [press reports say “thousands” of] cisgender women have signed an open letter to women and equalities minister Liz Truss expressing their concern at her apparent plans for the gender recognition act. Trans equality was not widely seen as an issue until the Transgender Equality Inquiry of 2015 triggered a concerted campaign in the media… [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.
