Tagged “trans life”
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Institutional transphobia deepens in the UK – EHRC again
The United Kingdom’s descent into rabid transphobia continues apace with the announcement on 20 May 2025 of a consultation on updating the (so-called) Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)’s…
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Kishwer and pals try to flush trans people out of toilets
I dust down my long-neglected blog to release some of my pent-up rage over recent events, in particular the UK Supreme Court’s ruling last week (PDF document) in favour of anti-trans group For Women…
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Schrödinger’s legal sex
The political environment for trans people in the UK in 2023 is profoundly unsettling. It has been fraught for quite a few years now, but things seem to be getting still worse, as an ever more…
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MTG’s trans genocide plan
The opening section of MTG’s despicable bill On Saturday, I published a blog post containing the text of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill for a ‘Protect Children’s Innocence Act’, whose chief stated…
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MTG’s ‘Protect Children’s Innocence Act’
While the rights of women and LGBT+ people, especially trans people, are under attack at state level across the US following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade earlier this year,…
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Sunday Times publishes transphobic article
Ok, that was a clickbaity headline. Sorry! Of course the Sunday Times has published a transphobic article: it does so every Sunday, and has done for a long time. (If you can find exceptions to this in…
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Transmisogynistic framing in BBC interview with Lorna Slater
Following the announcement of a draft power-sharing deal between the Scottish Green Party and the Scottish Government, Lorna Slater was interviewed by Justin Webb for BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on…
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Five years of Pride
Today, 8 August 2021, is the culmination of the week of the first Neuro Pride Ireland, fittingly ending on 8/8, which with a little imagination can be read as ∞/∞, the infinity sign being a symbol of…
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Two years of shiny new hormones: a brief update
It was 6 October 2017 when I stuck my first Evorel patch on my thigh and estradiol began seeping into my system. Patches, which irritated my skin, gave way to tiny foil sachets of Sandrena gel, and…
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A GRS quandary
Note that this post contains discussion of trans-related surgery and sexual activity. A little digression on terminology to start with. Three abbreviations are commonly used to refer to operations…
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Remembering the beautiful people
All of us are broken in some way. Many of the beautiful people were more broken than most of us, even before their lives came to an abrupt end. And though they may not all have been beautiful in the…
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Scottish Green Party reaffirms trans positivity
I’ve been a member of the Scottish Green Party since early 2014; for various reasons I hadn’t felt it important enough to nail my political colours to the mast before then. One thing I love about the…
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Emergency post: extended GRA consultation deadline
This weekend the Scottish Green Party holds its annual autumn conference, and I was looking forward to going along as a (mostly inactive) member to participate in its democratic decision-making…
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I would go out tonight …
Confidence … but I haven’t got a stitch to wear! So croons Morrissey in The Smiths’ song ‘This charming man’, released in 1984. It was in that year, my first year at university, that I was…
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Chinks of darkness
This was very nearly an ‘unpost’, but I think I have given it just a little too much thought for it to fall into that category. I’ve had a lot of issues surrounding a wedding I was at this…
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Shame and shamefulness
In June 2001, a friend (now a Church of Scotland minister) forwarded me an email from the Evangelical Alliance (EA) advertising the appearance of Joel Edwards (who was at the time their General…
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Image, mirror, selfie
Time for a proper blog post drawn from my cabinet of writing ideas. This one seems apt, since – according to Twitter – today is #NationalSelfieDay. Unhelpfully, the hashtag doesn’t tell us which of…
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Close reading: Hinsliff on gender
It’s been three weeks since my last blog post. (I’m sorry if that’s inconvenienced anyone who’s come to rely on at least one post a week from me!) Although I have plenty of blog-posts-in-waiting, I…
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My first Anna-versary
Edinburgh in the spring (at last) On 20 April last year, I made my way to court, accompanied by a friend. There, in a tiny side room, in the presence of a lawyer, I completed and signed a…
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Half a year of new hormones
An estradiol molecule – full of oestrogenic goodness It’s been more or less exactly half a year since I switched from testosterone to estradiol as my sex hormone of choice. Thanks to seven…
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How was Mother’s Day for you?
Mother’s Day daffodils Yesterday was Mothering Sunday, being the fourth Sunday in Lent, and historically a religious holiday. It’s now the day that we in the UK celebrate ‘Mother’s Day’, our…
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Dè na riochdairean a th’ ort?
Boireannach tar-ghnèitheach ag ath-chruthachadh sealladh bhon fhilm 5.3 (aig 3m20d) Ma leughas tu na puist eile air a’ bhlog seo – gach fear dhiubh sa Bheurla thuige seo – chì thu gu bheil ùidh…
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Confessions of a serial impostor
Early attempts A cat peeking out through the stained glass – or is it? Although I didn’t know the term ‘impostor syndrome’ back then, I think one of my earliest memories of feeling that I didn’t…
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From a place of fear: responding to Leya
Subversion of the Aristotelian chain of being (source: Metropolitan Museum of Art; public domain) In Bella Caledonia’s promised six-part series on ‘the debate around trans issues, identity,…
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GRA reform in Scotland – the rest in one go
This post addresses Parts 4, 5 and 7 of the Scottish government’s consultation document on reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004. It is the fourth and last in a series of posts on the…
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Throwing off the shackles of masculinity
Corporate rainbow-washing in a local bank window A sudden sense of liberation. I was just walking along the street on my way back from buying bread in a local deli when I became aware of it. I…
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Our Tribe: coming out
This afternoon – 11 February 2018 – I had the pleasure of taking part in the relaunch of the monthly LGBT gathering Our Tribe at Augustine United Church in Edinburgh. Held during LGBT History Month,…
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Whistling for dogs (transphobic ones)
Trans rights now! Vociferous transphobia has become endemic to parts of the UK media in recent months. (I’d love to know why, but I won’t speculate about that here.) Some of the articles that…
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GRA reform in Scotland – 3: the need for change
This post addresses Part 3 of the Scottish government’s consultation document on reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004. It is the third in a series of posts on the consultation. I am not a…
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Another month on HRT (a whole third of a year!)
So many things I should be doing. Stuff just seems to keep coming at me – even though I’m not working at the moment. Since I ought to have tons of free time, I thought it would be easy to write a…
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GRA reform in Scotland – 2: the 2004 Act
This post addresses Part 2 of the Scottish government’s consultation document on reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004. It is the second in a series of posts on the consultation. I am not a…
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GRA reform in Scotland – overview
The UK’s Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA) was introduced in response to a 2002 European Court of Human Rights ruling against the UK (Christine Goodwin v. the United Kingdom). It legislated against…
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Hoarse and hair
In The longest journey, I bemoaned the nine-month wait between my first gender identity clinic (GIC) appointment and starting hormone replacement therapy (HRT). I didn’t mention the other NHS-funded…
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Anna was a girl once, she says
Anna aged about nine I was sorting through some old photos recently and found one of me as a girl, when I must have been about nine years old, I think. I look quite happy in the photograph, but…
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Then was not the time
— Why on earth am I doing this at this age? — Because you’ve been on earth while it’s gone round the sun that many times. — Um, no, that’s not quite what I meant. — Oh, I see. You mean you think that…
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Three months on HRT
Do a quick search on the web using your favourite search engine, and you’ll find lots of trans women (and trans men and non-binary people too) sharing their experiences of hormone replacement therapy…
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The longest journey
I’ve taken a long time to get to where I am, and I’m still not where I want to be. I suppose that’s what makes life worth living: if any of us had got to where we wanted to be (really and truly), what…
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Sticks and stones may break my bones …
Let me begin by recounting a couple of incidents from the past week. Firstly, on Tuesday, I was walking through a crowded shopping centre and came across a young man who is involved in customer…
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