LGBTQIA+

By Katy Swain, 18 January, 2026

[Part 72 in a continuing series titled "Katy is self-obsessed and oversharing again."]

I was bullied by a teenage boy yesterday. That hasn't happened for a while.

It was just a little en passant misgendering while I was waiting to cross the road. "Hello Mister," he called, in that unmistakably nasty tone, as he cycled by. And immediately I was cast back to the school playground.

I'm working on a theory that bullying is far more prevalent in socially, ethnically, and culturally homogenous communities. Bullying (as opposed to common or garden violence or provocation) becomes more absurdly futile as communities become more inclusive; you can't humiliate someone for failing to adhere to a comprehensive and universal set of social norms that doesn't exist.

By Katy Swain, 18 March, 2025

A while ago my online chum Miriam, whom I have officially dubbed The Sunniest Girl on the Internetâ„¢ (because she is), posted this:

my cohort of trans girls, the girls who transitioned about a year before or after i did, give or take, all seem to be looking, and i dont mean this disparagingly at all, so profoundly normal. just regular women. half of them look a lot like the women i grew up around, my mother's friends, church ladies, teachers. absolutely love to see it.

This is one of the least obvious and most true observations I've ever come across.