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Like you I have many thoughts about the UK election results. But my main thought is this. Don’t fall into the trap of belittling and berating the people who didn’t vote the way you did. Don’t let yourself believe that “they” are racist, hateful or stupid. Don’t assume that because the politicians they voted for… [more]
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I’ve been living full time as me for two years now. I’ve been undergoing hormonal transition throughout that period; I’ve changed my passport, my driving licence, my NHS gender marker (at my GP surgery’s request) and changed my name with every organisation imaginable. The world knows me as female. But there are still some exceptions.… [more]
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This, by the ever wonderful Jennifer Finney Boylan, made me cry. It’s ostensibly about a kids’ Christmas movie, but it’s about so much more. I don’t want to spoil it for you so I won’t quote any of it here. [more]
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As expected, the launch of the SNP’s LGBT+ manifesto has upset the worst kind of people. Among them is the anti-trans pressure group Women Make Glasgow, which is followed by a who’s who of anti-trans people in Scotland including many prominent names from the pro-independence movement and mainstream journalism. The group copied in SNP politicians… [more]
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To mark Human Rights Day, the SNP has published a manifesto for LGBT+ equality. It’s not so much what it says as the fact that it says it at all, especially now: it’s going to make some high-profile bigots extremely angry, which is a bold move in the days before an election. The details are… [more]
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If you haven’t already seen it, this photograph is a PR nightmare for the Conservatives. It shows a 4-year-old boy with suspected pneumonia forced to sleep on a Leeds hospital floor because of a bed shortage. It’s an image that’ll resonate with any parent, but it’s particularly heart-breaking for anyone who’s taken their child to… [more]
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Conspiracy theories aren’t just the preserve of cranks. The Sunday Times ran a long campaign claiming that AIDS was the invention of a “gay lobby”; as recently as 2009 The Spectator’s Fraser Nelson claimed that the link between HIV and AIDS was contentious and that “debate” on the subject was being silenced by a “strong… [more]
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Hundreds of thousands of women in the UK have been affected by the ongoing shortage of many HRT products. The products aren’t made in the UK but the shortage is very much a UK thing. Emma Hartley discovers why. The short version: the UK government messed up. The slightly longer version: supply problems have been… [more]
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When I was a kid, I used to devour apocalyptic fiction: give me a shattered society trying to survive in a nuclear winter and I’d be all over it. One of the most frightening ones I read was Nevile Shute’s On The Beach, which truly terrified me. Â It’s set in Australia in the aftermath of… [more]
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The Guardian: Almost 800 libraries have closed since the Conservative government implemented austerity in 2010, new figures reveal. That’s nearly a fifth of the UK’s libraries gone in a decade. One of the awful things about this, and there are many awful things about this, is that savage cuts to library services reduce the number… [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.
