The Proclaimers have spent decades writing about love, politics, working people and Scottish identity. This week, Craig Reid and Charlie Reid used attention around their new album to enter the argument over trans rights, with Craig describing trans-rights activists as “truth-phobic” and reducing trans women to the familiar image of males putting on dresses and make-up.
That deserves a response, but it does not deserve to become the whole article. Trans people are not a debating exercise, and TuneFountain has no interest in spending thousands of words treating their existence as something that needs to be argued into legitimacy.
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Our position is straightforward. Trans people deserve dignity, respect and the freedom to get on with their lives. Trans women are women, trans men are men, non-binary people deserve the same courtesy as anyone else, and none of them should have to answer for every criminal case, political row or hypothetical somebody decides to attach to them.
Craig and Charlie are free to say what they think. Everyone else is free to tell them they are wrong. That is not censorship, and it does not require us to pretend that reducing somebody’s identity to clothes and make-up becomes profound because the person saying it calls themselves a defender of truth.
There are legal and policy arguments around sex and gender, and those arguments will continue elsewhere. TuneFountain is a music site. So rather than let The Proclaimers become the centre of the story, we would rather use the attention to point towards five Scottish acts whose work gives us something better to talk about.
Hen Hoose Collective
There could hardly be a more appropriate place to start than Hen Hoose Collective. The Glasgow-based collective brings together women and non-binary songwriters, musicians and producers, and its wider community includes trans people as part of the scene rather than treating them as an argument taking place somewhere outside it.
That inclusivity is not a marketing line bolted onto the music. Hen Hoose exists to create opportunities, collaboration and support in an industry where those opportunities have not always been shared equally.
Their 2026 album The Twelve came from twelve artists spending six days together at Black Bay Studio on the Isle of Lewis. Susan Bear, Inge Thomson, SHEARS, Carla J Easton, Frances McKee, AMUNDA, Djana Gabrielle, Emma Pollock, Jill Lorean, Cariss Crosbie, Ray Aggs and MALKA brought different voices into the same space without asking any of them to disappear into a single identity.
That is part of what makes the record work. It moves across pop, folk, electronic music and R&B while keeping the individual character of the people making it intact.
There is an obvious contrast here. Hen Hoose does not spend its time worrying that somebody else’s identity will somehow diminish everyone around them. It makes room, lets people create and trusts that difference can produce something worthwhile.
The result is not cultural collapse. It is a strong album.
Corin
Scottish songwriter Corin has spent 2026 becoming one of TuneFountain’s favourite emerging voices. Growing up beneath the Ochil Hills, she writes songs built around small details, soft vocals and the moments where somebody starts to understand themselves a little better.
‘Found’ carried the tenderness of a personal healing song, while ‘Apple Cider’ brought more rhythm, flirtation and confidence into her writing. There is warmth to both, but also an understanding that self-assurance is something people often grow into rather than something handed to them fully formed.
That is one of the reasons her music belongs here. Corin writes about people becoming more comfortable with themselves without demanding that somebody else first decides whether that version of them is acceptable.
She observes rather than judges. There is room for uncertainty, attraction, awkwardness and growth, and nobody is reduced to a slogan before the song can begin.
Rianne Downey
Bellshill-born Rianne Downey approaches things from a country and folk direction, building songs around relationships, loss, self-worth and the consequences of trying to fit somebody else’s expectations.
Her debut album The Consequence of Love rarely needs to raise its voice. Rianne puts the writing and performance at the centre, letting acoustic arrangements carry songs about grief, reflection and the uncomfortable parts of growing into yourself.
‘Angel’ is particularly effective because it deals with the pressure women can feel to reshape themselves into somebody else’s idea of enough. Rianne’s answer is not to offer another rigid set of instructions about what a person is allowed to be.
Instead, the song sits with the damage that expectation can do. There is confidence in that approach because it does not need somebody else to become smaller first.
Quiet Houses
Edinburgh-raised duo Quiet Houses released their debut album we’re all in love in 2026, turning romance, friendship, community and modern dating into bright indie-pop without pretending any of those things are particularly neat.
Jamie Stewart and Hannah Elliott write about people as people. Their songs allow for bad communication, affection, awkwardness, desire and the strange ways relationships change when real life gets involved.
‘made for love’ finds humour in dating apps and the promise of endless romantic choice while still recognising the loneliness that can sit underneath it. The album is strongest when it lets contradictory feelings coexist rather than forcing them into one clean answer.
That instinct feels worth hanging onto. People are messy. Love is messy. Identity can be messy. Music gets considerably more interesting when nobody insists that human beings must become easier to classify before they are worth writing about.
Idiogram
If this has left you wanting something louder, Scottish post-prog quartet Idiogram are happy to provide it. ‘Hyperaccumulator’ pulls guitars, electronics, piano and heavy unison riffs into music that seems perfectly content with several different things happening at once.
That mixture is part of the appeal. Quieter passages sit beside denser ones, electronic textures rub against rock instrumentation and the song gains character from refusing to flatten everything into a single shape.
There is probably an easy metaphor available there, but Idiogram deserve better than being reduced to a teaching aid in somebody else’s political argument. They are here because they are a Scottish band making music worth hearing.
That should be enough.
Scotland has better voices for this moment
There will be people who hear Craig and Charlie’s comments and decide they still love ‘Sunshine on Leith’. Fine. Songs do not rewrite themselves because the people who made them say something disappointing years later.
Other listeners will find the relationship changes. That is fine too. Nobody is owed permanent affection from an audience, particularly after choosing to use a public platform to comment on a minority group’s identity.
TuneFountain’s interest is not in pretending The Proclaimers suddenly made no good music. It is in refusing to accept the idea that cruelty becomes bravery when somebody labels it truth.
Trans people deserve better than being continually turned into the country’s favourite argument. They deserve the boring freedoms everyone else expects: making music, going to gigs, having relationships, changing jobs, buying records, complaining about the weather and getting through an ordinary Tuesday without becoming somebody else’s evidence in a debate.
Hen Hoose Collective, Corin, Rianne Downey, Quiet Houses and Idiogram all give us better reasons to talk about Scottish music. They sound nothing alike, come from different corners of the scene and approach songwriting from completely different directions.
Good. Scotland’s music scene should be bigger than one approved way of being Scottish, one approved way of making music or one approved way of being a person.
The Proclaimers can continue saying what they think. We can continue disagreeing with them. And if TuneFountain has to choose where to put its attention next, we would walk considerably more than 500 miles for Hen Hoose Collective, Corin, Rianne Downey, Quiet Houses or Idiogram before spending another five minutes listening to trans women being reduced to dresses and make-up.
Read TuneFountain’s coverage of Hen Hoose Collective, Corin, Rianne Downey, Quiet Houses and Idiogram.
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