Mick Hartley

Politics and Culture

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  • Could not access trans-friendly underwear

    The tragic tale of a trans man – a woman – forced to endure a nightmare of personal agony and humiliation because she couldn't get the appropriate male underwear for when she was having a period. Told, at great length, in between stifled sobs, by the BBC:

    A trans man said he locked himself away every month when he menstruated because he could not access trans-friendly underwear.

    Jay-Harley Rees, 28, from Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, said there were not enough spaces where trans and non-binary people felt safe in small towns and rural areas.

    He said he had to put on a "fake deeper voice and pretend to be a lad just to go to the shop"

    What's that got to do with his underwear? Surely she's just saying that she found the whole act of pretending to be a man exhausting. So why do it? She's not a man – and of course she can be as butch and "unfeminine" as she wants as a woman. That's what people (used to) do. But…hey, trans…so the Beeb is all sympathy and tears. The only trans in the village.

    Rhi Kemp-Davies, a non-binary therapist, said changing your appearance as a trans person to "pass" was often done to avoid violence.

    Another sudden side-step. What? It's not even clear what's being said. The changing of appearance, surely, is what draws attention – though I'd take the threat of violence with more than a pinch of salt here, given the whole tone of the article. Has this person ever been attacked or suffered violence? I think we can take it that the answer is no, otherwise we'd be hearing about it – at great length.

    Jay-Harley said he "would cry" and "lock myself away" every month when he menstruated because he had to wear female underwear to use sanitary products.

    "I couldn't look at myself in the mirror, even though I would be wearing my suits – I knew what I had on underneath," he said.

    "Every day was a battle to carry on."

    He said his mental health and confidence would have been "so much better" if he had had guidance, support and underwear made for trans men.

    I'm sorry, but….what??

    After taking testosterone, he said: "I'm very lucky my periods have stopped, but they could come back, I won't know or have any warnings."

    The sympathy: it has run out, disappeared, evaporated. 

  • On Al Jazeera

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    Full text:

    While everyone is focusing right now on the return of the hostages, the next stage of the deal and the uncertain future of Gaza, things must be said about the body that produced HAMAS's "theater of horror" and is responsible for framing of the conflict and other news for a huge part of the Arab speaking Middle East.

    I remember well how in 2006 when Arabic Al Jazeera's entire senior leadership, including GM Wadah Khanfar, arrived in Gaza to oversee the coverage of elections in Palestinian Autonomy. These elections were won by the HAMAS. Their presence wasn't coincidental – Qatar, Al Jazeera's owner, was hosting HAMAS's spiritual guide Sheikh Yusuf al- Qaradawi, who had his own religious show "Al-Sharia wa al Haya" on the network. During the second intifada it did everything possible to increase the hate and inject its poison into millions of households in the Middle East.

    Fast forward to today: the evidence that pours from HAMAS despicable "ceremonies" of hostages release indicates that Al Jazeera was involved in production of these grotesque spectacles where captives were forced to smile, wave, and sign papers.

    Why? Because as the most watched Arab media outlet, it carefully shapes the narrative and the framing of the conflict for millions: HAMAS "won," Gaza's destruction was "justified," the hostages are "prisoners", political Islam is "triumphant." Meanwhile, Gazans criticizing HAMAS? Their voices are cut off air. I watched Arabic Al Jazeera every day this week. Gazans who wanted to honestly speak about their anger with HAMAS that started a war without consulting anyone and sacrificed their property and lives, were taken off the air. Channel's motto once was "An opinion and a different opinion". What a joke.

    Qatar poses as "neutral mediator" while its media arm glorifies terrorism, omits HAMAS's brutality against both Israelis & Palestinians, and incites against Arab states seeking peace & development. Why many people in the Arab world do not know about the atrocities of 10/07 and doubt they ever happened? They watch Al-Jazeera.

    This isn't journalism. This is a state-backed operation more dangerous than Russian propaganda networks (banned in the EU and the US). Al Jazeera doesn't just distort reality – it manufactures it.

    Time to recognize: Al Jazeera isn't media. It's a weapon in Qatar's arsenal, aimed at regional stability and truth itself. The West shouldn't tolerate this hypocrisy any longer. It's time for a full stop.

    A big friend of Ken Livingstone, Qaradawi, as I recall. 

  • Smoke on the water

    Another Detroit panorama, this time from 1908. "Detroit, Michigan — general view to the west along Jefferson Boulevard and Fort Street." Looking over the Detroit River to Windsor, Ontario. 

    image from www.shorpy.com
    [Photo: Shorpy/Detroit Publishing Company]

    A composite of two 8×10 inch glass negatives, constituting one-sixth of a 12-exposure mega-panorama. As ever, click to see full size.

  • The visiting fellow

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    Read all about her at the King's College site:

    Starting her career as a model and advocate for diversity in the fashion industry, Yasmin was described as the “unlikely face of asexuality” by Cosmopolitan Magazine after publicly coming out as asexual in 2017. She started the #ThisIsWhatAsexualLooksLike movement for diverse representation and visibility, co-founded International Asexuality Day (April 6), and is a board member of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network.

    In 2022, she launched Stonewall x Yasmin Benoit Ace Project – the UK’s first asexual rights initiative with Stonewall – and won ‘Campaigner/Influencer of the Year’ at the Rainbow Honours. The following year, they released the ‘Ace in the UK’ report into asexual experiences and discrimination, which is being used to inform workplace, healthcare and public policy. Yasmin was the first asexual person to open NYC Pride and to lead Pride in London in 2023 and 2024 respectively. She has also taken her activism to Serbia, Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Germany, Belgium and the Czech Republic.

    Prior to her work in activism and modelling, she earned a BSc Sociology degree from St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, and an MSc Crime Science degree from University College London.

    "Publicly coming out as asexual"? How brave!

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  • Banglatown 1991

    A look at the East End Bangladeshi community round Brick Lane and Whitechapel, with photographer Wayne Tippetts at Café Royal Books:

    In 1991, this vibrant neighbourhood, shaped by migration and resilience, was alive with the sounds of daily life—children playing in the streets, bustling markets, mosques, and the emerging youth culture. The children of Bangladeshi migrants, often referred to as the “second generation,” we’re navigating a dual identity. Unlike their parents, who maintained strong ties to their homeland, they were forging a new identity as British Bangladeshis. They balanced their heritage—rooted in the Bengali language, customs, and Islam—with the multicultural influences of fashion, music, and youth subcultures flourishing in London at the time.

    The photos I took in 1991 capture a pivotal moment in Bangla Town’s history—a time when the community was asserting its place in London while grappling with the challenges of urban life. Despite its vibrancy and strong cultural identity, the area also faced significant struggles, from economic hardship to racism. By this point, however, the Bangladeshi community had firmly established itself in Brick Lane and its surrounding area. Most families had their roots in Sylhet, a region in northeastern Bangladesh. Many had arrived in the UK during the 1970s, fleeing the devastation of the Bangladesh Liberation War and seeking better opportunities. For these families, Brick Lane became a hub for new arrivals, offering affordable housing and a growing support network.

    Since the early 90s, the area has undergone profound changes. Gentrification has transformed Brick Lane and its environs, replacing sari shops and halal stores with artisan coffee shops, and Bengali video rental shops with boutique vintage stores and gambling slots now sit alongside Bangladeshi restaurants in Whitechapel. Along with the expansionist aims of major property developers in the area like the Truman Brewery, property prices have been driven up, forcing some families to move to other parts of London. Yet, Bangla Town’s cultural legacy endures, with the younger generation continuing to carry forward traditions of resilience and creativity.

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    [Photos © Cafe Royal Books/Wayne Tippetts]

  • Unnearthing an apartheid of materiality as distinct geospatial forms

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    Here's the Amazon synopsis:

    In Geologic Life, Kathryn Yusoff theorizes the processes by which race and racialization emerged geologically. Examining both the history of geology as a discipline and ongoing mineral and resource extraction, Yusoff locates forms of imperial geology embedded in Western and Enlightenment thought and highlights how it creates anti-Black, anti-Indigenous, and anti-Brown environmental and racial injustices. Throughout, she outlines how the disciplines of geology and geography—and their conventions: surveying, identifying, classifying, valuing, and extracting—established and perpetuated colonial practices that ordered the world and people along a racial axis. Examining the conceptualization of the inhuman as political, geophysical, and paleontological, Yusoff unearths an apartheid of materiality as distinct geospatial forms. This colonial practice of geology organized and underpinned racialized accounts of space and time in ways that materially made Anthropocene Earth. At the same time, Yusoff turns to Caribbean, Indigenous, and Black thought to chart a parallel geologic epistemology of the "earth-bound" that challenges what and who the humanities have chosen to overlook in its stories of the earth. By reconsidering the material epistemologies of the earth as an on-going geotrauma in colonial afterlives, Yusoff demonstrates that race is as much a geological formation as a biological one.

    I've posted on this before, but it's always worth reminding ourselves of the exciting new intellectual frontiers being explored by our academic elite.

    Kathryn Yusoff is Professor of Inhuman Geography at Queen Mary University of London:

    I am a transdisciplinary geographer focused on inhuman geographies. I understand the inhuman as a place from which to think about earthly relations and inhumane histories. Theoretically, I engage historical, geophilosophical and black feminist methods to speak to issues of environmental change, empires of geologic practices and the politics of planetary states.

  • Hostage release

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    And it's in English. Aimed at all their lovely supporters in the West. They know how much the Hamasniks love that Nazi Zionism link. 

    The Hamas rituals accompanying the hostage releases have been grotesque exercises in ultra-male fascist ceremonial – but so many still claim they're the victims, they're the heroes. Because….well, because Israel; because Jews.

  • Brought shame to the family

    From the NYT (via) – After being lured to Pakistan, Hira Anwar was fatally shot by her father and an uncle over online posts that her parents believed were immodest, the police said:

    Hira Anwar, 14, lived in two contrasting worlds in New York, where she was born and raised. Outside her home, she was a typical American teenager, laughing with friends, posting videos on TikTok and dreaming of a boundless future.

    Inside the home, her reality was very different. Her parents, Pakistani immigrants who had settled in the United States over two decades ago, expected her to adhere to their cultural and religious values, which demanded modesty from women.

    She didn't adhere to their values, so they killed her.

    Hira was fatally shot by her father and an uncle on Monday night, several days after arriving in Pakistan on what she had been told was a family vacation, the police said. The authorities called her death an “honor killing.”

    In a chilling confession in Quetta, the capital of the southwestern province of Balochistan, Hira’s father, Anwar ul-Haq, said she had brought shame to the family by posting what he called inappropriate videos online, the police said.

  • Detroit panorama

    July 1913. "The heart of Detroit." Including, from the left, Fort Street, the twin towers of the Dime Savings Bank, City Hall, the Majestic Building at the corner of Michigan and Woodward Avenues, the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, and the Detroit Opera House.

    image from www.shorpy.com
    [Photo: Shorpy/Detroit Photographic Co.]

  • At Leicester’s Holocaust Memorial Day event

    More on the desecration of Holocaust Memorial Day, from the JC:

    The grandson of Holocaust survivors says he was “forced out” of Leicester’s Holocaust Memorial Day event after a speaker accused Israel of “genocide”.

    Approximately ten Jews, including a local rabbi, walked out of the HMD commemoration after a speaker claimed Israel was committing a "genocide in Gaza."

    During the city’s memorial event on Monday evening, titled “The Student Experience” and hosted by De Montfort University, a panel of high school students who had visited Auschwitz addressed the crowd.

    One student delivered a speech addressing the Holocaust and the Bosnian genocide, and then brought up the war in Gaza.

    Victor Kaufman, a grandson of Holocaust survivors, said the comments about Gaza were "deeply offensive" and has lodged a complaint with the local council, the event’s sponsors.

    "She said that Israel is committing a genocide," Kaufman, an NHS accountant, said. "It was disturbing that she drew parallels between the Holocaust and what is happening in Gaza."

    Some audience members reacted by heckling, shouting "rubbish" and "stop," before around ten people, including Kaufman and Rabbi Pink, walked out.

    When the speech ended, the student received applause from those who remained, with at least one person giving a standing ovation, according to Kaufman.

    Is this just a blip? – with the Gaza war and the general mis-reporting and the endless Free Palestine marches skewing the debate. Or is this a sign that we just can't do this any more? – that people would sooner forget, and return to those happy old days when they could just hate the Jews without having to feel guilty about it.