A Fat Lady’s Guide to Summer
Summer brings with it so many delights: mangoes, festivals, my birthday, mangoes and long evenings of slow sunsets. But the rising mercury heralds a minefield of distress for many a larger lass. Trips to the beach can yield anxiety and judgment, summer fashions don’t always come above a 14, Christmas brings tactless relatives asking if […]
That Gayby Baby furore
In August, on the eve of Gayby Baby’s release, with schools around the country preparing to screen the film for Wear it Purple Day, the Daily Telegraph saw fit to cover its front page with homophobic attacks on the schools, the families in the film and the filmmakers. #GaybyBaby trended for days as thousands came out […]
Women’s Soccer Changed My Life
Belatedly posting this here considering the FIFA Women’s World Cup is over, but I wrote for Daily Life about my experiences with community women’s sport. I wanted to write personally about how valuable I had found joining a women’s soccer team, despite having no interest in being a sports spectator (or audience as I often […]
Don’t ask me if I’ve lost weight; I haven’t.
I wrote an article for Daily Life about why I don’t consider ‘Have you lost weight?’ to be a compliment (even when it’s meant as such) and it seems to have hit a nerve with lots of people because it’s been shared more than anything I’ve ever written. You can read it by clicking above […]
Happy Birthday to one of my Mums
Today is my mother, Teresa’s 60th birthday. She’s an excellent parent, friend and mentor, and her party on Saturday night was so good people left the gig upstairs to crash our shindig and boogie to my brother Rowan’s excellent playlist. The party theme was Mods vs Rockers and Teresa rapped her thank you speech (complete with backing track) […]
Drop dead Fred, my family is worth 1000 of you
Last week I was in the audience for the Q&A special that aired following the documentary about Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Between a Frock and a Hard Place. I asked a question but it went very much unanswered by the entire panel, especially notorious homophobe, Fred Nile. My question was meant to be one of […]
Who ever thought I’d write about wedding fashion?
Assumptions about gender and clothing are always frustrating, especially for those who break away from expected norms. I wrote about how ideas about gendered clothing play out when two women get hitched for Daily Life. I also got to put lovely pictures of my friends in! But who decides how men and women should dress […]
On Misandry, Misogyny, Friendship and Social Media
I wrote an article for Daily Life provocatively titled ‘How I learned to stop hating men.’ It was meant to be a play on the stereotype of the ‘man-hating feminist’ but it was really about my legitimate distrust of men after experiencing misogyny throughout my youth, and about how I only became friends with men after […]
Cate Blanchett isn’t bisexual… *weeps*
To be honest, I started writing an article last week about Cate Blanchett. Remember last week? That glorious time when we thought she’d had ladylovers “many times.” Yeah, those were some good times. I abandoned that article because reason and argument kept giving way to ridiculous lesbian fan fiction. Don’t get me wrong, Andrew Upton […]
How to behave when you’ve invited gay friends to your wedding
I knew people – gay and straight – might react badly when I called a Daily Life article I wrote ‘How to behave when you’ve invited gay friends to your wedding’, but I had a point to make, so I went with the clickbaity headline and forged on. The wedding industry is huge and the same […]