Denton's Screen(shot) Awards 2022

My most memorable screen scenes from last year (and a bit)

What can I say? What can anyone say? When words don’t penetrate, images can hit with far more force. I won’t apologise for posting any of this - my dirty dozen, my Top 12 of last year.

I’m not putting these up here because I “like” them, or because they are somehow “favourites”, of mine. They deliver a very visceral hit for me, some of it is repulsive, and yet I still feel the need to confront it, feel its power, to remind myself that I’m fighting for my daughter, and all the other young people taken in by this madness. If you know me and my story, you’ll understand why none of this is gratuitous. This is the kind of stuff we need to be open about, to be free to talk about, to think about, and to feel its power collectively.

The new blackshirts of the internet era - *actual fascists of the progressive left, not rainbow warriors for freedom at all. In the UK we call them The Black Pampers

Child abuse in the name of trans rights

This one’s a little older than one year old, but I found this incredible image recycled and uploaded more times than any other last year. I’ve never seen a more powerful religious image than this. It captures the delusional delirium of the worshiping of a man deposing women within women’s sport, of gender supplanting sex, and the beatific smiles of the acolytes around him. @moleatthedoor worked his photoshop magic and made a superb artwork out of this, although I think it stands alone as a piece of religious iconography in its own right.

TRA V J K Rowling in a perfect double-page spread

OK. Sorry, cheated here, leveraging in 3 portrait format pix in place of 1 landscape format slot. The first speaks for itself, a very oppressed trans-identified male. The middle image? Just before the close of the year there were TRA’s proclaiming Jesus was trans because the spear wounds look like vulvas…. I know. The last image I feel most accurately summarises recent Scottish political history by simultaneously exposing the indifference & ignorance of the political class, with the truth and reality of sex-based oppression.

Sometimes a simple graphic makes a point with clarity, directness, and economy. Sometimes also, we have to do a double-take to decide whether what we’re looking at is intentionally false or misleading, sarcastic, humorous, or is deliberately designed to confuse or obfuscate. As a professional image-maker, I quite enjoy this tension, but the danger is always there, that some may take it too literally, and not “get” irony or a well-intentioned piss-take. And speaking of which:

I laughed out loud at Dr Bleaching’s depiction of this little religious display of trans veneration. Was this the very nadir of trans activism in the UK?

A poster idea for schools everywhere

Sick-making; the glorification and commercialisation of the youth transition cult

The manufacture of a performative non-performing hairy flesh tube for confused, deluded, autistic, lesbian, troubled or traumatised young women - in the name of trans rights of course.

Some of the most dangerous gender cult influencers and leaders exert undue influence in the White House and champion many of the professional medical associations that occupy middle tier positions of power and influence in this pyramid-shaped cult.

Stop selling kids the nightmare. This is child abuse.

Just to close with 2 also-rans:

Top: A High Priest in his Cloak of Office, surrounded by the signs and symbols of status, power, & protected privilege. Not oppressed at all. Or marginalised.

Above: Trans Rights Activists at the New York Let Women Speak event, November 2022 hurling abuse at women.