The Hand Mirror

In the last week I have had cramps bad enough to require pain killers; I have lost enough blood to warrant taking a prescribed clotting a...

My third child is six weeks old today.  For almost all of that time he and I have been living in a kind of dim twilight world, half-lit and ...

Content note: discussions of transphobia and it's impacts, focussed on the recent political discussions about trans* healthcare. There...

For a bit of 2012 and most of 2013 I borrowed the Auckland Frocks on Bike bike to see if I could get around on two pedals.  I've written...

There's a lot of talk at the moment about mental illness, and particularly about assumptions made that really bad things (like mass shoo...

Sad news from Wellington Rape Crisis - they have had to cut their services down by a day a week due to funding shortages.  The above YouT...

The following is an edited version of a short talk I gave on disability and queer issues to a queer, mostly studenty, audience. It is limite...

Many thanks to Family Planning NZ for allowing me to publish the below from their e-newsletter: A report released in December 2011 b...

Great piece by Melbourne academic Jennifer Lee: A big fat fight: the case for fat activism   My left-wing, friendly and kind GP says, “Yo...

And now the government is considering penalising beneficiaries who don't immunise their children . Just as I believe access to free c...

i knew it : ... new research shows that it's possible kids can be too clean. You read that right. That's because all of the soap d...

Feel free to answer for yourself in comments, regardless of your intentions to stand for Parliament :-)  If elected to Parliament at this ...

By La Ranita, cross-posted at ALRANZ's blog The annual New Zealand abortion statistics were released on Friday. There are some in t...

ETA:   Here is the link to the actual 2010 stats , sorry I got a bit confused with the earlier version of this post. Here's ALRANZ'...

This post is explicit, and links to pages which feature explicit photographs. Feel free to look away. I admit to a passing interest in fas...

I was so sure it would be the Tuesday.  No particular reason, just a hunch.  Due date was the first or second of September; the midwife s...

I've been a bit poorly for the last few months, nothing major, just bits and pieces exacerbated by doing too much.  When I disappear fro...

Pretty momentous legal decision against Right to Life this week at the Court of Appeal [ PDF ], which I haven't had time to read, so her...

Gotta give the Sunday Star Times credit, at least they're trying to make their scare-stories about parents not having complete control o...