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This week, various outlets gave yet more publicity to the LGB Alliance, a single-issue anti-trans hate group that purports to be about LGB people’s rights but has no policies about, er, LGB people’s rights. This hasn’t stopped Scotland’s press and BBC Radio Scotland giving them uncritical coverage and endless opportunities to scaremonger about trans people. [more]
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I’ve just finished One Of Us by Ã…sne Seierstad. It’s very similar to Dave Cullen’s Columbine in that it’s an incredibly powerful piece of non-fiction about a massacre largely inspired by white supremacist rhetoric. In this case, the massacre is the 2011 bombing and subsequent gun massacre by Anders Brevik, who slaughtered 77 people. It’s [more]
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After a lot of delays, I’ve finally received the psychologist’s report I need in order to apply for my Gender Recognition Certificate. Unfortunately I can’t actually afford the application fee for said certificate because why should anything be easy – I’ve also had to halt my weekly electrolysis sessions because paying the equivalent of some [more]
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An important new survey from the US has investigated the effectiveness and risks of puberty blockers in trans teens. The short version: they’re safe, reversible and life-saving. The study is significant not just because of what it found, but how it found it. Mostly when you read about puberty blocking in the press it’s based [more]
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Novelist and journalist Huw Lemmey asks why the UK media is so obsessed with demonising the “woke”. The English media is in the middle of a full-throated culture war, from bendy bananas to woke snowflakes, Stormzy to burqas, trans rights to free speech on campus. It seems like over the past decade the intensification of [more]
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This week, the BBC introduced people to the “tradwife” movement – “a growing movement of women who promote ultra-traditional gender roles”. The tone of the piece is warm and fluffy, and says that people who claim “tradwives” are connected with the far right are mistaken. The BBC is very wrong on this. “Tradwife” is yet [more]
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Jennifer Finney Boylan writes in the New York Times about her 20th anniversary of coming out as trans. So much has changed since then. In some ways, this country has become safer, as more and more of us step forward to proclaim our realness. In other ways, we’re more threatened than ever. When I came [more]
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I’ve made a conscious effort to stay off Twitter outside of working hours, partly because it’s full of terrible people and primarily because it’s a waste of time I could be putting to much better use by making music and reading books. Here are a few things I’ve read in the last few weeks that [more]
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Three years ago today, I came out to most of my friends and colleagues. I don’t know what I expected, but I definitely didn’t expect the outpouring of love and support – both of which are still very much evident now. I know some people who read this blog are in the place I was [more]
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Interesting news from Northern Ireland, where Ava Moore (pictured) has reached a £9,000 settlement with Debenhams over its refusal to hire her because she is transgender. I’ve written before about how Gender Recognition Certificates, which enable trans people to change the gender marker on their birth certificates, are designed to protect trans people from [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.
