Eli Cugini
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elia cugini | media & culture writer, prettyboy | contributor @_VashtiMedia | writing @thebafflermag @dazed &c | autofiction phd student @UoMSALC | he/him
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Articles by Eli Cugini
Shon Faye: ‘I worry about the threat of far-right politics in the UK’
Five years since the publication of The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice, the bestselling author reflects on the state of trans liberation in the UK In the midst of the pandemic, a slew of anti-trans books came out within months of each other: polemics about shadowy cabals propagating ‘transgender ideology’ or the ‘transgender craze seducing our daughters’.
INTIMACY by eliacugini
Someone stole my suitcase and took things that didn't belong to them. INTIMACY A game / story / fragment about transness, sex, and how we access each other. This is a short Twine interactive fiction game. It is text-only and has no set ending - you can explore the story loop however you choose.
7 things to watch from trans film festival TITE
Dublin’s TITE Festival (Trans Image/Trans Experience) is a relatively new addition to the film festival calendar, having debuted in 2025. While various festivals across Ireland and the UK focus on LGBTQ+ film, TITE has a rare, specific focus on trans-led film (Brighton’s International Trans Film Festival is exclusive to shorts, while TITE showcases both shorts and features).
It’s Time To Grow Up
3 hours ago HBO has shared a behind-the-scenes glimpse at their upcoming Harry Potter TV series. The first season - will be released at Christmas 2026. It is the first of seven series which will adapt each of JK Rowling’s seven iconic books. A new standalone special, Finding Harry: The Craft Behind the Magic, sheds light into the creation of the magical wizarding world ahead of the upcoming series, with lots of production footage as well as insight into the casting process.
It’s Time To Grow Up
HBO’s new Harry Potter TV series is premiering this Christmas Day. Under current plans, it will last at least a decade. The trailer looks like the original films were run through an AI generator, but quality isn't the point. The show is a transparent attempt to induct a new generation—and market—into the lucrative fantasy world while massaging the nostalgia of existing fans. The announcement of the show has triggered another repetition of the same cycle that has repeated, ad nauseam, since J. K.
Love Junkie: The must-read cult novel about the 80s New York gay scene
To mark the book’s reissue with Penguin Modern Classics, we speak to author Robert Plunket about gender fluidity, the Aids crisis, and the connection between sex and hustle culture Robert Plunket – or Bob, in company – always suspected that he was going to get rediscovered, but he’s a little surprised, at 80, that he’s alive to see it. “I thought it would be after I was dead,” he tells me from his home in Florida; “it’d make a better story if I was dead. But as it is, I’m still alive.
Fanfiction’s Total Cultural Victory
In 2012, a self-published author of erotic Twilight fanfiction, whose books had gained a large fan base online, was offered a seven-figure contract by a major American publisher. E.L. James's Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy would become the three bestselling titles of the 2010s in the U.S. (even Fifty Shades Freed, the now mostly forgotten end to the trilogy, outsold The Hunger Games). They would also sell over 150 million copies worldwide across 52 languages.
Getting to the bottom of the Heated Rivalry discourse
December is a strange time for big new things to happen. Media is no exception: most journalists get their ‘best of 2025’ lists out by December 10, ready to log out of their email and spend the remainder of the year half-watching The Muppet Christmas Carol. But in December 2025, some of the year’s most defining films and shows snuck in under the wire, like Josh Safdie’s dazzling Oscars favourite Marty Supreme.
The hunger strikers are in mortal danger. But the conditions they’re being kept in are already critical.
Last week, I was approached by a friend asking me for help. They are working to oppose the media’s deliberate silence about the ongoing prison hunger strike; their friend, Amu Gib, is one of the strikers. They asked if I could write about it. I relayed a few questions to Amu through my friend, while researching and talking to people within the small but dedicated UK pro-Palestine media ecosystem.
London’s newest gender clinic: what to expect
TransPlus, “the first integrated Gender, Sexual Health and HIV service commissioned by NHS England”, operates out of the 56 Dean Street clinic in Soho. This gender dysphoria service originally came out of on-the-ground clinic work, since trans patients self-medicating hormones would regularly ask Dean Street for hormonal bloods monitoring; accordingly, it has a different feel to most gender clinics, with a sunnier atmosphere and more visibly queer staff.
Where is all the good transmasculine representation?
While a smattering of transmasc characters have appeared in films and TV shows in recent years, much of this representation feels tokenistic and shallow Last month, I watched Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, a psychological drama about a sexual assault at Yale. It’s a conversation piece film, one that wants to poke at contemporary political anxieties: MeToo and its backlash, identity politics versus class politics, the idea of meritocracy, student activism and trigger warnings.
Grace Byron’s debut novel is an eerie horror set in an all-trans commune
Grace Byron occupies a curious position in New York culture: she is a rising star in a collapsing industry. A journalist and cultural critic for an array of the US’s most eminent magazines, she has built an impressive reputation in a relatively short time.
Onyx Cornish (2007-2025) was a queer & trans teenager, allegedly murdered by their adoptive father.
Last week, a trans teenager was shot to death in their bedroom in Caldwell, Idaho; their father has allegedly confessed. The case has been widely reported on, but, as is common when trans and nonbinary people are killed, journalists have attempted to render them cisgender through a mixture of ignorance and deliberate excision.
Andrea Long Chu: ‘Being trans can teach you about the stakes of argument’
The Pulitzer-winning critic speaks to Eli Cugini to mark the UK publication of her latest essay collection, Authority: Essays on Being Right Andrea Long Chu is one of the US’s foremost critics, and one of its most fearsome. Witty, rigorous, and rarely afraid of a challenge, Chu has meticulously dissected the work of many of contemporary literature’s luminaries: Zadie Smith, Maggie Nelson, Ottessa Moshfegh, Rachel Cusk. The list goes on.
Mattie Lubchansky’s ‘Simplicity’ interrogates queer communism
I am a little obsessed with communes. For years I’ve been constantly travelling, because job and rental markets have spread my network thin; I’m split across at least three cities, constantly struggling to be communal. I often wonder what it would be like to live in a small, intentional community, connected to others and to the earth, and loosened from alienation and from guilt.
The era of internet age verification is here - so what now?
Last week, millions of UK users opened platforms like Reddit, Discord and Bluesky and were greeted with a new requirement: age verification. If you don’t submit a picture of a government ID, or have one of your selfies algorithmically verified as belonging to an adult, then 18+ content on many platforms will become inaccessible.
The problem with ‘positive masculinity’
TextEli CuginiTextIlya Maude In recent years, positive male role models have been touted as a means of saving young boys from the clutches of misogynistic influencers. But can ‘good men’ really fix misogyny? TextEli CuginiTextIlya Maude Masculinity is always in crisis, and the crisis is always new. In 1100, chronicler Oderic Vitalis railed against pointy shoes, for initiating young men into lives of effeminacy and sexual deviance.
How the Oxford Literary Festival became a haven for the right
In December 2024, the Oxford Literary Festival (OLF) announced one of the flagship events of their 2025 programme: a talk between Helen Joyce and Julie Bindel titled “Trans: Gender Identity & the New Battle for Women’s Rights”. The talk, held on 2 April in front of a sold-out audience, was one of 37 events hosted this year in the Sheldonian Theatre – the festival’s largest and most prestigious venue.
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Challenging representation and centring trans community and craft at TITE 2025
About Little White Lies Little White Lies was established in 2005 as a bi-monthly print magazine committed to championing great movies and the talented people who make them. Combining cutting-edge design, illustration and journalism, we’ve been described as being “at the vanguard of the independent publishing movement.” Our reviews feature a unique tripartite ranking system that captures the different aspects of the movie-going experience. We believe in Truth & Movies.
TERFs, SWERFs and girlbosses: What do we do with ‘bad’ feminists?
Sophie Lewis’s latest book Enemy Feminisms faces up to the ugly offshoots of the feminist movement The 2010s and 2020s have proven a vital, scary, and embattled period for feminism, full of both hard-fought gains and terrifying backlashes. They have also included a lot of useful criticism about what feminism should look like: criticisms of white feminism, middle-class feminism, feminisms against trans people and sex workers, corporate and consumerist feminism, and ‘girlboss’ culture.
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For a queer text to be narratively useful to queer people—to be indulgent, excessive, leaky—perhaps it needs to be discarded by someone else first. Popular dating shows are brutal factories of narrative, designed to make their contestants narratively useful through a mixture of incentive, isolation, coercion and selective editing.
Elisa Rae Shupe appears to have died by suicide.
Eli Cugini · Follow 5 min read · -- Substack user and queer veteran zerodoesntsleep has reported that an unnamed suicide victim, whose body was discovered at the Syracuse VA Medical Center on January 27, has been privately identified as Elisa Rae Shupe by an anonymous recipient of Shupe’s suicide note. The deceased had reportedly wrapped herself in a trans flag.
Why is Emilia Pérez so polarising?
The film has earned the most Academy Award nominations of any non-English-language film in history – but it has drawn intense criticism from both Mexican and trans critics 6 Images This Oscars season the film on everybody’s lips is Netflix’s musical crime drama Emilia Pérez – for both good and bad reasons.
Bonnie Blue, Lily Phillips and the tabloidification of sex work
Last month, British OnlyFans performer Lily Phillips went viral for sleeping with 100 men in a day; this month, British OnlyFans performer Bonnie Blue has one-upped Phillips, claiming to have slept with 1,000 men ‘in 12 hours’.
How trans sportspeople became a political football in the US
The culture war against trans people is perhaps most clearly, and spectacularly, manifested within sport.
The best NSFW queer sex games to delve into now
Gaming Writer Eli Cugini tracks the shared pasts of adult content and video games, and what this means for X-rated queer representation in gaming. WRITER ELI CUGINI What do you think of when you think of ‘sex games’? Maybe strip poker. Maybe some of those gimmicky erotic dice couples get each other as stocking fillers. ‘TOUCH’ ‘FEET.’ But what about video games? Probably not that much comes to mind; maybe a hilariously low-res ‘meet ‘n’ fuck’ Flash game, or a pornographic visual novel.
PHOTOS: Momin Faiz documents genocide in north Gaza
Palestine-Israel — 5 min read “This is not just my job. This is my duty as a Palestinian.” In his 20 years as a photojournalist in Gaza, Momin Faiz has documented countless Israeli attacks on his home. Like many Palestinian journalists, he has been targeted, and lost both legs in an Israeli strike on Gaza City in 2008.
The Ballad of Lulu and Amina
The following story is an excerpt from Daybreak in Gaza, a collection of personal stories, essays and accounts of life and death in the Strip before and after 7 October. Edited by Mahmoud Muna and Matthew Teller, and completed over just three months, the collection was pieced together against the backdrop of relentless, continued bombardment. Published this month by Saqi books, the book's proceeds will go to the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians.
Close to You: The story behind Elliot Page’s improvised trans film
Page and director Dominic Savage discuss their improvised film, which follows a trans man in his late 30s returning home for the first time in years for his father’s birthday Elliot Page, who first appeared on screen at age ten, has arguably never not been busy. Even coming out as trans in 2020 – known to reduce work offers at the best of times – has hardly slowed him down.
Olympics 2024: Misogyny in sports hasn’t gone, it’s just changed shape
The Olympics is supposed to be a celebration of human diversity, but – as we’ve seen with athletes like Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting – women who slip the narrow bounds of femininity are being punished For the first time in history, the Olympic Games is gender-balanced. Paris 2024’s competitors are 50 per cent women, up from 48 per cent in Tokyo, and more than 50 per cent of events are now open to women.
This new novel exposes the horror of conversion therapy
Cuckoo follows a group of queer teenagers as they try to survive the conversion camp from hell.
Search Party's Charles Rogers finally meets his idol, John Waters
Culture In a decades-long pursuit of his #1 role model, the comedy auteur finally sits down with the Pope of Trash for an introspective profile.
UK's private gender clinics; a guide to getting on hormones
If you wish to start on hormones through one of the UK’s private gender clinics, there are a range of online and in-person options available. Some services are currently experiencing functioning issues or extended wait times for care, while others have higher price points. This is a rundown of the main services in the UK, some notable things to know about their practice, their prices, and an estimate of their wait time for initial assessment.
Brontez Purnell on the cult of masculinity, trimming weed and the ‘McDonaldisation’ of identity
Culture To mark the release of his poetic memoir Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt, the writer reflects on twenty years of writing and living queer life in candid conversation with Eli Cugini WORDS BY ELI CUGINI HEADER DESIGN BY YOSEF PHELAN Anyone who thinks that polymaths don’t exist anymore probably hasn’t met Brontez Purnell.
The Cass Review, autism, and reinventing Blanchard
In the recently published Cass Review (2024), there is consistent mention of the prevalence of autism in the ‘trans and gender-diverse’ population, which is ‘three to six times higher’ than in the cis population ‘according to some studies’, such as Warrier et al., 2020 (Cass 5.41). The report cites concern in de Vries et al. (2011b) about whether autistic trans adolescents are experiencing “a general feeling of being just “different”” or a ““core” cross-gender identity”.
Brianna Ghey’s legacy must be liberation—not further harm | Xtra Magazine
In February, two 16-year-olds were sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison for the brutal murder of British trans teen Brianna Ghey, an act Judge Amanda Yip described as partly motivated by “hostility […] because of her transgender identity.” Six days after the sentencing, U.K. prime minister Rishi Sunak made a transphobic joke in the Houses of Parliament while Brianna’s mother, Esther Ghey, was present.
LGBT Gaming News - GAY TIMES
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'How books illuminated my journey of queer self-discovery'
Some of my earliest book memories are family trips heading to WHSmith with our World Book Day book vouchers. We would be given our vouchers at school, and I would hold on tight to that ticket, wanting to keep it crease-free. Our parents would then be very patient with me and my siblings as the three of us ran to the stand of books, before spending an age making our choices. We would also have enormous fun scavenging the house for book character costumes to go to school in.
A very gay chat with Mary & George star Julianne Moore
Originals From her love of gay bars to her rainbow-hued filmography, including her new historical psychodrama Mary & George, Julianne Moore is embracing her status as a “mother”.
Thirsty Suitors revels in the mess of queer breakups
Overloop Games’ debut, Thirsty Suitors, is so fresh, fun and smart that its writing feels like it’s skipped an evolutionary stage: how did we go from barely having any queer game protagonists a decade ago to this? It’s one of the most exciting queer releases in years, from the mostly-fulfilled ambition of its premise – a queer South Asian take on a Scott Pilgrim story, featuring skateboarding gameplay and a bear-based cult – to its bouncy animations, bright colours, and top-notch writing.
Thirsty Suitors revels in the mess of queer breakups
Gaming ‘Thirsty Suitors’ is a queer South Asian take on a Scott Pilgrim story, featuring skateboarding gameplay and a bear-based cult WORDS BY ELI CUGINI HEADER BY YOSEF PHELAN Overloop Games’ debut, Thirsty Suitors, is so fresh, fun and smart that its writing feels like it’s skipped an evolutionary stage: how did we go from barely having any queer game protagonists a decade ago to this?
Gaming Archives - GAY TIMES
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Is porn addiction real?
Is porn addiction real? Less so than claimed, argues Lisa Hagen in a bombshell report for NPR. In this article, the journalist explores the ‘masturbation abstinence’ and anti-porn addiction movement in the US, finding a landscape filled with pseudoscience, reactionary rhetoric, and shame. “In one study,” Hagen notes, “among people who self-identify as ‘pornography addicts’, the average frequency of porn use was less than ten times a year”.
Dean Street Express: How the clinic redefined LGBTQ+ sexual health in just 10 years
Originals As the Dean Street Express LGBTQIA+ sexual health clinic celebrates its 10th anniversary, GAY TIMES revisits some of its biggest successes. WORDS BY CONOR CLARK PHOTOGRAPHY BY YOSEF PHELAN “The service isn’t just an NHS clinic, it’s like a community centre in the heart of Soho that serves and represents the needs of the community,” says Jon Clark, Clinic Manager of Dean Street Express, the LGBTQIA+ sexual health clinic he has worked at for the last decade.
Explaining Link’s gender in Breath of the Wild
Culture GAY TIMES gaming columnist Eli Cugini explores what makes The Legend of Zelda’s Link unique gender appeal to LGBTQIA+ players. WORDS BY ELI CUGINI HEADER DESIGN BY YOSEF PHELAN Link, the protagonist of the Zelda games, is designed to officially be a boy, but a strange kind of boy: a boy who’s supposed to make you question his gender.
Gay guys: here’s your expert-led advice to getting off the apps
Dating apps like Grindr, HER, Scruff, Hinge – the list goes on – have all helped to revolutionise queer dating. In a world where gay men once had to use colour-coded handkerchiefs to highlight their sexual interests, the digital dating landscape has meant you can find a fuck, a fisting or a forever at the mere click of a button. Despite their prolonged success, relentless swiping and dead-end conversations have started to wear thin, and there’s a distinct rise in dating app fatigue.
Why it's time to get behind queer grassroots football
Originals While the gender binary is still central to professional sports, we can already find true and full queer inclusion within community clubs. Trans-focussed TRUK United FC is just one example, and it’s already made history (twice). WORDS BY JAMIE WINDUST PHOTOGRAPHY BY LUCY COPSEY DESIGN BY YOSEF PHELAN There was something so exciting about putting on my football kit as a kid.
Sapphic sex benches to eyeball licking: the most iconic queer paparazzi shots
Julia Fox has single-handedly salvaged the remains of paparazzi culture: after all, any time the actress-model-author-muse steps outside, she’s serving. The streets of NYC, filled with a chorus of snap-happy paparazzi, have proved to be the perfect arena for the star’s deadpan humour and fierce garb, turning her into a contemporary pop culture icon.
DoxyPEP: What is it, can it prevent STIs and are there any side effects?
Originals DoxyPEP could play a pivotal role in stopping the recent surge in STIs, but what is it and who could it be useful for? WORDS BY CONOR CLARK HEADER IMAGE BY ANISA CLEAVER SPECIAL THANKS TO THE LOVE TANK As sexually transmitted infections (STIs) continue to be diagnosed at record levels, sexual health experts are continuously looking for new ways to stop the spread.
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