Erlick wrote in the book in response to the current attack on trans people, particularly trans youth in the US and UK (which turned out to be a very strong theme of the conversation, surprise, surprise). He chose the stories according to how useful they would be in providing counterpoints to arguments presented by the gender critical movement. So, not at all cynical then.
‘How do we win our rights?’
Podcast broadcast by Queer AF, held at Clifford Chance The blurby bit A live panel recording on “How do we win our rights?” with three
Trans people in Russia
Seminar on the state of things for ‘trans’ people in Russia, held at London Metropolitan University in February 2024. Legislation of 24 July 2023 Unlike
Review of play: Looking Cis
The first fatal mistake was to have the character deride the format of reality TV shows. There were many such incongruent moments, so it’s not like we could believe for a moment that Ella was vulnerable enough to succumb to the whims of exploitative TV execs and suitably enough we learnt nothing about the recruitment process or the story leading up to such a doomed decision. So, no inciting moment then. The end plot twist revealed that she wasn’t really conducting an exit interview with Big Brother, but voicing her own thoughts to us, which could have been funny, if it hadn’t been quite so chronic.
‘Cancel culture’ and politics of vulnerability in queer/trans online spaces
This is the second of the IOE’s ‘Trans-inclusivity Seminar Series’ that we have attended, the other being ‘I Was a Queer Child and So Were You,’ which was exactly like it sounds. This talk, given by Dr Kata Kyrola (they/them), was far less batshit than Stockton Dean’s. Professor Martin Oliver, who told us he uses ‘he/him pronouns’, introduced the gender activist, sorry, academic, and described the seminar series as ‘just lovely’ with ‘such exciting ideas’. We’ll be the judges of that, thank you.
WHY NOT CHOP THEM OFF: an exhibition on ‘having trans-masc tits’
The exhibition
Balloons, torn paper and plastic bags in a display case. Lettered balloons on the wall which spelt out ‘squeeze me’. Some pubes in a plastic- bra and knickers hanging from a coat hanger. Photographs of the dummy Kars was to occasionally lie on during performance. Several dozen photos of the artiste topless or about to lift up her jumper (oo-er). Or sometimes taped.
Art which made us think; even we could do that.
“I Was a Queer Child and So Were You: Toward Social and Cultural Transformation”
Stockton went off on her ‘reading is like a kiss’ vein again, sometimes reading is like kissing your uncle. You can also penetrate someone with words. Were such thoughts offensive to asex(ual) people though? When I say ‘cat’ to you, your mind has to ‘birth’ the idea of a cat, what is left over is mystical. Roland Barthes eat your heart out.
The feminism of fools
To prove that some women and some feminists are actually indeed horrible, Lewis put up a slide which included two photos of Posie Parker (aka Kellie Jay Keen), including the time she and Julia Long confronted the HRC spokesman, Sarah McBride, in Washington DC, incorrectly stating that their trip was funded by the Heritage Foundation. (That someone could still be harping on about this very minor episode five years later is really rather petty, even Kathleen ‘they turned back feminism 20 years’ Stock stopped two years ago.) Lewis had been commissioned to write a piece about trans exclusionary radical feminists at that time, in January 2019, as Americans did not know anything about terfs, and Lewis, having lived in the UK and in the US for several years, was perfectly placed to explain to the yanks that ‘no nonsense anti-utopianism prevailed on terf island’, though ‘anti-trans feminism wasn’t universal,’ she consoled the assembled pro-trans students and academics.
Review: Bat Night Market
Fun but not educational. Contains spoilers. The blurby bit In the face of global food shortages, humans need to re-examine our food sources. One presenting itself as
Addressing ‘gender-based’ violence the abolitionist way
I listened into this webinar just out of interest, the ‘abolition movement’ isn’t strictly my niche, however I was disturbed enough by what they had to say to feel it worth posting about. If you didn’t know, abolitionists want to destroy all policing services and remove punishments for criminals, though for some time they have been scratching their heads how to square this aim with their adjacent cosily-named ‘gender-based violence’ schtick. As we all know, the crimes of rape, sexual abuse and domestic violence, are overwhelmingly committed by men, with women largely the victims. To solve some of the problems around this issue, the UK prison abolitionist squad has developed a booklet to shove at people when anyone might question them about why they felt someone like Wayne Couzens should escape the criminal justice system.
Review of film: Anhell69
The Chronic Youth Film Festival is curated by the Barbican Young Film Programmers, whose intake apparently changes on a yearly basis. I suppose that avoids anyone getting -gasp- old. The two young women who presented the screening looked as if they were early-twenties, so not that young. Not proper Village of the Damned anyway. A young man with a camera crouched nearby, snapping away, as they gave their introductory speech, stood stiffly together, no doubt having flashbacks to prefecture and assemblies.
Executive Briefing: Allies Coming out for Trans+
The day before it started there was a faux pas; a demand for proof of identity on entry because ‘duty of care is paramount in this toxic environment’, with a lame assurance that if the name we booked in didn’t match our legal record, we would be treated discreetly, without clarifying what this actually meant. ‘Not really trans allyship, is it?,’ I thought, and it seems an assortment of pink- and blue-hairs concurred, as 24-hours later, we had another email, more or less saying ‘we didn’t really mean it’. Of course, the fear was that some angry terfs were going to gate crash and liven things up but alas this happens only once in a blue moon. It’s really only our events which get disrupted.
Who’s afraid of gender?
On the issue of ‘lexical capture’, they need to steal the language back that gender crits had stolen, the word ‘harmful’ for example, as in ‘puberty blockers are harmful’. Interestingly Judy had a little Freudian slip when she described them as ‘gay affirmative healthcare’, before quickly correcting herself.
Review of memoir: README.txt by Chelsea Manning
Chelsea Manning claims that ‘copying data is the most natural thing in the world’, so he won’t mind then, the abridged version of his memoir
Glen or Glenda? and the History of Trans Healthcare
I would have said it had Virginia Prince’s fingerprints all over of it, except the film predates Prince’s Transvestia magazine by several years. Nevertheless, Wood clearly spent time speaking to such men (probably Prince) and the psychiatrists who treated the same, as the description and depiction of transvestism is all too familiar to those who know it. A reminder also that gender identity ideology was already fully formed before most of us were even born.
Review of film: Desire Lines
Before we watched the film, Rosskam wanted to contextualise where things were right now for trans people, in the US there were ‘522 anti-trans bills’ and the UK had just banned puberty blockers for children. These were dangerous times. There was also ‘genocide’ in Gaza and we were watching governments ‘essentially decide who gets to be human and who gets to live’. Although the two issues may not seem related, they were, it was to do with the way governments ‘restricted bodies’.
Non-Binary in Higher Education report launch and panel discussion
The survey was run for six weeks starting in April 2019, thus it has taken more than four years to analyse the results and publish this report. FOUR YEARS! A worldwide pandemic has come and gone in between, which we’re pretty sure saw most hackademics sunning themselves in their gardens for about 18 months, but I digress.
Review of documentary: Life of Kai
The documentary is piss poor in every sense, lack of direction, lack of interest in its subject. Absolutely no nuance. Cloying animated interlinking segments. It’s like the whole thing was put together by people wearing boxing gloves. Not to mention the unforgivable pun in the film’s title. But for all that it is still incredibly revealing. There’s no hiding the grooming, nor My Genderation’s intimate involvement in pushing Kai, and others like her, along the path of an irreversible transition.
Review of book: ‘Transsexual Apostate’ by Debbie Hayton
Mother would throw her laddered tights in the bin and little Dobbie would retrieve them, covered in potato peelings, ‘or worse’ (Loc 142) and wear them. He was aged five. There is no additional information about how a pair of tights stretched out to an adult woman’s dimensions fitted a five year old boy and I would suggest that would be because it never happened.
Active Bystander training c/o Transport for London
Protection Approaches is a registered charity with four supposed programme areas: communities, schools, training and atrocity prevention. Yep, you read that correctly. Atrocity prevention. Thankfully they define ‘atrocity’ as genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and war crimes, rather than microaggressions like misgendering. However, it is not explained why they, a lowly DEI training provider, would have any influence in international politics.
Review of Grayson Perry’s: A Show All About You
The show promised to explore identity and that it would literally make us ‘reassess who you really are’. Perry alternately explained to us that identity was extremely important, whilst also claiming it wasn’t a replacement for personality. One idea that he clearly wanted the audience to take away though, was that our identity requires the buy in and support of other people.
Film review of ‘Orlando, My Political Biography’ with Paul B. Preciado
It was packed in the Barbican’s biggest screen, filled with lots of trans-identified females of all ages (but mostly younger) eager to see, who I guess must be a hero to them, Paul B. Preciado. Preciado is now 53 years of age but is blessed with youthful looks and an even more youthful mind (some might say adolescent, but I’ll get onto that). According to the Wikipedia entry, Paul was previously Beatriz and transitioned in 2014, i.e. aged forty-four years. An internet search for Beatriz bought up this article from 2013, from when she was on the brink of her ‘transition’, being interviewed for the book she is most famous for – Testo Junkie : Sex, Drugs and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era.
‘Empowering conversations’ with ensemble activist cast
Willoughby, Webberley and Whittle! The blurby bit Translucent.Org.UK are a trans-led advocacy organisation for the transgender, non-binary and gender-diverse community, winner of the LGBT Organisation of
The Split
Suddenly the skies opened and torrential rain bucketed down. Long neglected gulleys flooded over, my shoes filling. Nevertheless I dutifully squelched across the way to
Review of Jordan Gray’s – ‘Is it a bird?’
I have wanted to slate this show since Little Jordan got his Little Penis out to play the piano on C4 whilst screaming the immortal words “Imma better [woman] than you!” because he can do anal and squirt.
In conversation with Freddy McConnell, Charlotte Proudman and Robin White
The blurby bit British gender laws and self identification: Where are we now, and what do we hope for the future of Britain’s laws? Join
Hannah Gadsby’s presents The Gender Agenda
Hannah Gadsby curates a show of the ‘best queer talent’ she could find. Introduction When I booked, it looked to me that I had the
Review of comedy show: Zoë Coombs Marr -The Opener
‘Hey, what’s up cunts?!’ is how Zoe Coombs Marr opened her show. ‘Cervix is the answer to that question, not always, let’s not be reductive, or transphobic. Yip, that’s my opener.’
That was Zoe being Zoe, a progressive woke comedian, not Zoe being Dave, the white ‘cis’ heterosexual xenophobic male parody character she’s created (though I do use that term loosely) and despises.
Backroom politics
There was an acknowledgement in the group that the public at large was not very keen on the idea of ‘queerness’. (I note it was impossible for them to discuss quite why that would be.) It was also made harder by individual politicians pushing back (again no names were mentioned for fear of addressing specific issues, i.e. any discussion of MPs either criticising or approving of rapists being put in female prisons).
Greta Thunberg returns to the Southbank with friends
Last year the Southbank hosted Greta Thunberg for the launch of her book The Climate Book, covered by me in this blog. The then CEO committed to make environmentalism core to the Southbank’s values. Then it was reported that the Southbank was going to plant 390 trees outside the gallery in a pocket forest, which hasn’t happened yet, and I don’t think it will, given there is no space for such a huge numbers of trees.
Review of memoir: ‘Page Boy’ by Elliott Page
Another day, another trans memoir. Contains spoilers. Introduction Probably the cleverest thing about Page Boy is its title. Otherwise it is a fairly short (but
In conversation with Dawn Butler
Announced just four days prior to the event taking place, Dawn Butler, most famous for saying (in terf society at least) that babies are born without sex, was to be platformed by the British Politics Centre at Birkbeck. As a long time subscriber to their newsletter, the normal lead up is several weeks in advance, especially if it’s a biggish name. Therefore I suspect the approach was made by Butler herself.
Review of play: My Dad Wears a Dress
A wasted opportunity … The blurby bit A comedic, one-woman show written and performed by Maria Telnikoff based on her own experience of growing up
Prison abolition panel discussion, featuring Bents Bars and Neil Bartlett
Wynter began by telling us that the whole conversation was going to be held around the ideology of abolition. This basically means one is anti-prison, anti-state and pro-anarchy. Much prettier words were used obviously, but this is the bones of it. Wynter believes in the revolution and that post-revolution black-, trans- and working class people would finally be centred. Needless to say Wynter herself is white, trans – only in the sense that anyone is -, and massively massively middle class, even if she did try her best to drop her aitches. The door to Oscar Wilde’s cell at Reading Gaol was on display in the museum, supposedly a timely reminder of today’s ‘totalitarian government disguised as a liberal one’ (you know, the one who just paid us all during the pandemic to sit around doing fuck all for months on end, that government). There was also the ‘rising threat of terf ideology’ to contend with.
Queer and Now at Tate Britain
The session was called WHAT DOES A GENDERQUEER MUSEUM LOOK LIKE? and part of a day-long festival called Queer and Now held at the Tate Britain. For the very full programme see here. You will note that themes of transness and intersex dominate and the acronym honoured is LGBTQIA+. ‘Tate members of staff wearing Vibe Checker lanyards will be on hand to help you enjoy the day,’ we are told.
The T in LGBT: Tea with Jamie Raines
Jamie Raines aka Jammidodger has over a million subscribers on YouTube. At the time of writing her latest post, uploaded three days ago, had already received 77 thousand views. It’s normal for her to get over one hundred thousand hits, or even millions of hits, for her posts.
Her current pinned post is ‘Bad Women’s Anatomy is Getting WORSE’. In it, she’s ‘natural’ and chatty on camera, including clips of herself tripping up over the phrase ‘trans inclusive’, which could easily be edited out, but clearly kept in to add to the aesthetic of her don’t care/affable persona. In the video she makes simplistic links between women’s bodies and misogyny. So this is a ‘man’ who wants to lecture her teen girl audience about how awful men are, showcasing her ability to empathise with women, which is all too understandable when she is one. This is who her audience is then, girls who are unsure about their changing bodies.
Review of play: Transpose BURN: Pit Party
CN Lester’s annual ‘pit party’ returns to the Barbican for its ?5th year. Last year the theme was ‘joy’, this year it’s ‘burn’. The blurby
A Trans Man Walks into a Gay Bar: Book Launch
Written by ‘Harry’ Nicholas, the book is exactly what the title suggests it to be, a woman’s experience of cos-playing as gay in the world of the sauna and Grindr. As per the usual, a roll call of trans activists provide the endorsements. There’s an overwrought endorsement from fellow heterosexual trans activist Fox Fisher, damning with faint praise from Christine Burns, but Daniel Harding, author of the book Gay Man Talking, gives it a thumbs-up. Nicholas also writes for Pink News and is just 26 years old (according to her Twitter bio).
Profile of trans activist Sarah Jane Baker
Introduction Sarah Jane Baker, formerly Alan Baker, is a trans-identified male who has spent 30 years in prison for two violent offences. This is a
Trans healthcare conference
Yet again, the activists do a sterling job of ignoring health issues and detransitioners … Introduction Let’s face it, these are trying times for the
In conversation: Roxane Gay at WOW
Introducing Roxane Gay onto stage was one of the organisers of the Women of the World festival, who praised Gay’s great contribution to a ‘fully intersectional just world’ which would ultimately ‘help our LGBT kids’. Gay was to be interviewed by fellow race card holder Afua Hirsch, who, when she interviewed Patrisse Cullors for the WOW festival the previous year, asked precisely not one incisive question.
I have to say, unlike most of the people I have covered for this blog, Gay was naturally funny, often deflecting Hirsch’s asinine and fake observations (Hirsch: ‘Your range is actually extraordinary-‘, interrupting, Gay quipped ‘-I do have the range’). Hirsch went onto list her many projects, which included fiction writing, TV and film projects, writing the World of Wakanda for Marvel and a podcast. And, of course, her cultural criticism.
Review of documentary: The Stroll
Prior to the viewing of the film we were treated to an excruciating presentation from the BFI Flare programmers. Diverse bunch they were too, the women all being being very young, black and ‘queer’ (if we were to go with our spidey senses alone) and the men being older, white and gay (again, spidey senses).
The outgoing director told us that the festival began 37 years ago and was called (?) Gay Zone Pictures and only nine films were screened, presumably just about gay men. For years it then became a Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, then LGB, then LGBT, until finally now it is an ‘LGBTQIA+’ festival. It is a core part of the BFI’s calendar. She thanked the sponsors, who included Campari, American Airlines (also provides the flights), Mischon de Reya (corporate law firm, I believe they also represent the Southbank in actions), PGIM (investment bank), Interbank LGBT+ Forum (financial staff network group), and special thanks went to FACTSET (data analytics corporate) for being the Festival’s ‘accessibility partner’. Just gives you that warm fuzzy feeling, dunnit?
LGBT+ History Month Event at Birkbeck on the Beaumont Society
About forty people attended this free lecture, held to celebrate LGBT+ History Month, with a number of men who were over sixty held by Birkbeck College, part of the University of London. Of course, we were warned right at the start that the event that it was not an opportunity to discuss any of current issues about trans-identities, nor were people to ask any improper questions. The lecture would last just 20 minutes with Q&A twice that.
Death Becomes Him: Munroe Bergdorf in conversation
The announcement of Bergdorf’s book came with much fanfare in July 2020. At that point it was described as part political tract, part memoir and part history. Bergdorf had apparently written eighty-thousand words (that’s about 260 pages) though I think I also recall seeing claims of the more modest effort of just forty-thousand. Anyway, despite apparently writing the whole thing upfront (final version is 224 pages) the publication date was beset by a number of delays. Ordering an advance copy from Amazon I was kept abreast of the ever vanishing release date as it went from 2021, to at least two dates in 2022, a promise of January 2023, until finally March 2023, which was suddenly bought forward to February. (I personally wonder if this was to get in first before any attention was given to Hannah Barnes’s expose of the Tavistock Time to Think, whose publication was announced on the same day of this event.)
Review of play: Sound of the Underground by Travis Alabanza
Travis has yet to best Burgers. The blurby bit “Ladies, Gentlemen, and then all the legends that have realised gender is a trap – introducing
Abolition event held at Law School. Yes, *really*.
Let’s bear in mind throughout please that this was a discussion about ‘abolition’ held in a university law school. In essence abolitionists seek the destruction of the police, prison and all forms of organised justice in favour of anarchy. The conference started proper by closing our eyes and looking into darkness of our minds to supposedly create a moment of visualisation we could return to later. This was suggested by the moderator of the event, Natasha Mutch-Vidal, a complete numbskull, who behaved throughout with unparalleled precocity. Her role at City University is as ‘Senior Equality Diversity Inclusion Officer (Race Equality)’, which is really just a way of saying she does nothing all day long and gets paid for it.
The Archives of Bishopsgate Institute
Lies attended Franko B’s Archive launch … Content warning: Discussion of fetish and upsetting imagery The blurby bit Join us to celebrate the donation of
Book launch of ‘Non-binary Gender Identities – The Language of Becoming’
Learn all about the exciting academic work being done in the area of non-binary gender identities. Also learn what cars are and why assemblage is
Part 1: Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan
I read this book following my attendance of an event held with the authors of the book – Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan – when they were (sort of) interviewed by Juno Dawson, which I will write about separately and link here when done.
In the past I have been a big fan of Jodi Picoult, having read pretty much everything she has ever written. However, I stopped a few years ago. I can’t remember the name of the book now but do remember finishing it feeling uneasy and disappointed about the glib manner in which a very serious sexual abuse storyline had been used and the conclusion the author had appeared arrived at.
Review of: The Enby Show
The show was part of a series at the Rich Mix called ‘Rehearsing Utopia’. According to the Rich Mix, utopia involves networking parties for BAME people, discussing systemic racism with a panel of black women no one has ever heard of, a DJ set/club night for LGBTQIA+ people (quiet room included) and this show I’m talking about here, the Enby Show, a sub-par cabaret act. That’s utopia. Not solving world hunger, promoting world peace or even engaging deprived local families in community activities. Times have changed.
Meet the artist who documented her bilateral mastectomy
Garrod interjected to state that even though Top is essentially an information display, it didn’t feel cold, the artist didn’t feel absent, that you did feel the emotions and that Bowler had imbued inanimate body parts with meaning, i.e. about as arse-about-face as he could’ve got. Bowler responded that archives weren’t dead spaces, they were full of people! Why, every time she goes to Bishopsgate she’s always bumping into people!
Review: Transpose Pit Party – Subverse
This is the most grown up Transpose Pit Party yet. The last one, held in 2023, was so dire as the curator and director, Dani Dinger, looked and acted not unlike the love child of Sid Snot and Thumbelina and I swore never to go again. So, now Transpose is back after a two year break and all the better for it.
More history revision with a trans activist …
‘I like to think of myself as a historian and I don’t feel like I’m doing history,’ Brandy told us, which turned out to be the truest thing she said. What she meant though, was that history of was repeating itself, ergo the West was repeating what happened in Germany in the 1930s all over again. Transgender issues were not new, they stretched all the way back in time. She wanted to tell a narrative story with this book and is also a fiction writer.
Review: Little M
A story for our age; a non-binary mermaid. Held during annual *Genderfluid Visibility Week. *Not a joke. The blurby bit About the creator Background Typically
Film Review: Afterlives
Normally I only write about the transgender issue, but in the case of Afterlives I’ve had to make an exception, because, although it might have its heart in the right place, its head in so many wrong places, it’s mind blowing.
On a positive note, director Kevin B. Lee, chose an interesting aesthetic for the film, using his desktop to interact with film clips and his chosen talking heads, which works. What doesn’t work, however, is his piss-poor analysis of why violence indoctrinates. He starts in the right place, looking at the example of ISIS’s ‘blockbuster’ recruitment video – Flames of War – analysing it frame by frame, creating entries in a spreadsheet.
Little Rose
Darren, who I knew a tiny bit from the pub, was always neat, wearing crisp white shirts, tucked into creaseless jeans, hair short back and sides. One day, while saying goodbye, he casually asked if I fancied going out with him. I must have screwed my face up, as he quickly added: “Please, I really really fancy you and I’d really like to get know you better.” Really? My god! So, of course, I agreed, feeling ashamed of my reflexive aloofness.
The Lies They Tell 
You must be logged in to post a comment.