transponderings

  • Schrödinger’s legal sex

    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 authoritarian and brazenly corrupt Tory government panders to ever more emboldened transphobes. Trans and non-binary people in the UK… Read more

  • Betwixt solstice and perihelion

    Betwixt solstice and perihelion

    Funny how so many of us mark a (Gregorian) New Year as if it were something more than just its own anniversary! This year it fell just a little over 11 days after the solstice (21 December 2022 at 21:47), and just over three and a half days before the perihelion (4 January 2023 at… Read more

  • An unpost about a day when things went wrong

    Early this morning (before sleep) I published my last blog post (but set the wrong featured image). (It has had hardly any views – please read it!) Since I was up so late, I had very little sleep before my alarm. I then accidentally slept again until 12:30, which meant I wouldn’t be able to… Read more

  • MTG’s trans genocide plan

    MTG’s trans genocide plan

    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 purpose is ‘to prohibit gender affirming care on minors’. MTG is known for her far-right Christian-nationalist views, but these have some traction in US politics right now, so it’s worth looking… Read more

  • MTG’s ‘Protect Children’s Innocence Act’

    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, far-right Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (a.k.a. MTG) is introducing a House of Representatives bill which she proposes to call the ‘Protect Children’s… Read more

  • Sunday Times publishes transphobic article

    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 the last couple of years, that would make for an interesting blog post in itself: what on earth… Read more

  • In a liminal state of mind

    In a liminal state of mind

    Vianne Rocher, in Joanne Harris’s magical-realist novel Chocolat, is fated never to settle for long in one place, always moving on with her daughter (and her mother’s ashes) when the North Wind tells her it’s time to go. That seemingly inevitable pull of a new beginning is something I can relate to all too easily. Read more

  • Eight Mastodon apps for iPhone

    Eight Mastodon apps for iPhone

    In a complete departure from my usual meanderings, I’m going to present an in-depth comparative review of eight iOS Mastodon/Fediverse apps. Given that I’m not alone in moving to Mastodon from Twitter at the moment (whether tentatively or bridge-burningly), I’ll also draw comparisons with the official iOS Twitter app, noting points of comfort and familiarity… Read more

  • Live (almost) from Behind the Mask: Scottish Autism conference 2022

    Earlier today, I live-tooted from Scottish Autism’s 2022 conference, Behind the Mask, the first conference the charity has held since 2019. Read more