Life of Liam

In November 2018, the Scottish Government made the monumental move of making LGBTQ+ inclusive education compulsory in the Scottish education system. This is a move that will likely save many lives and make young LGBTQ+ individuals feel safe and included with their peers. LGBTQ+ inclusive education is an essential in 2019, and it is a fact that school curriculums must come to terms with. We teach young people to be respectful and considerate at school, yet bullying against LGBTQ+ people is still prevalent. Looking back on my own experience of being a young LGBTQ+ individual, I now realise that it was isolating and lonely in some ways. Despite never feeling overtly uncomfortable with being gay, and despite having a good support network of friends and family, I feel that I was quite reserved and, in some ways, felt that I couldn't fully express who I was until I was in my final year of high school. Perhaps if LGBTQ+ inclusive education was part of the curriculum from a young age ...

The title of this post is a question that I have been asked many times, usually after I have said I was born and grew up in Livingston (a town in Scotland). It is a question that could be rephrased to "what is your ethnic background?" or "where are your parents from?" - though the need for this type of question to be asked at all is questionable in itself, unless it is the topic of conversation already. What I take from this question is "you can't be from Scotland, you're not white" and so I must divulge into the long spiel about my family background to appease their curious mind, after which they seem to switch off. I am mixed race. My mother was born in Singapore and my father was born in Scotland. It is a mix I am proud of, and one which has enabled me to experience so much more in life than many others may not be able to. However, living in a country where you do not exactly look like everyone else will of course lead to these types of que...

Note from Liam: an edited version of this post has been included on The Glasgow Guardian's (University of Glasgow student newspaper) website as part of their LGBT History Month 2018 coverage. You can see that post here . 2017 marks 50 years since homosexuality was decriminalised in the United Kingdom (which applied only to England and Wales). Scotland would not legalise homosexuality for another 14 years until 1981. Photo Credit - DrRandomFactor (Wikimedia Commons) 50 years. It really is not a long time at all. 50 years is within my parents' generation, which means that those older than 50 were alive in a time where homosexuals could be legally reprimanded for being themselves. For Scotland, it is only 36 years which is even less time and may include some people of my generation. Although a lot of change and progress has occurred in the past 50 years, I think it would be ludicrous to try and ignore the fact that homophobia still exists in some form in Scotland and need...

It is very disheartening to think that, in 2017, white supremacy still exists. In recent days, there was a white supremacist march in Charlottesville (VA, America) which was met with counter protests. Violence broke out and three people have died in total with more injured. It is 2017 and people are still dying because of racism. This is one event which has made the news but there are likely many more white supremacist campaigns going on all the time and we are not aware of it. Some people will argue that they are exercising their right to free speech but, I believe, there is a line. As mentioned in one of my previous posts , free speech is fine until it becomes hate speech and starts inciting violent, offensive, or discriminatory values. The saddest part is that this hatred is arising over something people cannot control - skin colour, the amount of pigment in someone's skin. This hatred is based on ignorant stereotypes and years of oppression on the "other" which have...

I have been thinking a lot about social media recently, whilst looking at those around me, and I just cannot ignore how false it all is. I have written about social media before, and will be writing about this topic for my upcoming university dissertation, because it is impossible to ignore. We are living in a real life “Black Mirror” episode. We have become that dystopian society that is described in fictional stories as a warning to us so we do not become mindless robots consumed by technology. We are living our life for social media, for others to see, for the likes and validation. I am guilty of this myself and it is beginning to take its toll on me. This is a topic I feel very strongly about because I see so many around me suffering from different issues and I believe that social media and constant connection to the internet is playing a massive role in these issues. I want to find answers. I want to find explanations. The way people act online compared to real life is very dish...

A few days ago, the BBC  revealed  who the new Doctor would be in  Doctor Who . It was announced that Jodie Whittaker would be taking  on the role,  from Peter Capaldi ,  which received a mixture of reviews.  Whittaker’s Doctor will be a very important one as she will be the first woman to play the role. This is a tremendous step for gender equality in the media but left many people wondering why there is a need for the Doctor to be played by a woman when the actor has been male for the show’s history. I can respect this point of view, however, the main point of criticism here would be that the Doctor is an alien who regenerates into a completely new person, so why could that person not be a woman? I am not going to preach on about feminism or woman’s rights because, as a male, I do not feel I can comment or ar gue my poi nt on behalf of women as I can never understand what it feels like to be misrepresented due to being a woman .  As a...