A new piece on Graham Linehan in the Times could be another sign that the tide is turning on the trans debate.
It implies a partial return to sanity that a mainstream newspaper has published a largely sympathetic portrait of someone so allegedly controversial that a production company tried to take his name off his own musical.
One positive of the article – by Andrew Billen – is that it does not attempt to play down the extent that Linehan has suffered as a result of his views (a common tactic amongst the ‘cancel culture doesn’t exist’ crowd). Billen paints the picture in stark detail:
Although the trans wars have claimed many jobs, friendships, families and, some claim, lives, the damage it has inflicted on Linehan is huge. In television he was rightly regarded as a genius with three classic sitcoms to his name: Father Ted in 1995, set in priests’ lodgings on a backward Irish island; 2000’s Black Books, starring co-creator Dylan Moran and Bill Bailey as booksellers; and in 2006 The IT Crowd, about a corporation’s tech nerds. His work is absurdist, character driven and taboo teasing but ultimately generous about humanity — and hilarious. Yet now he has virtually no income, no television career and has lost his old media friends. What he regarded as his pension, a Father Ted musical, is unlikely ever to be performed, at least not in his lifetime. “I think,” he says, “they’re waiting for me to die.”
The cancelling began, he calculates, after a cancer operation when he woozily tweeted about transgender people. He cannot remember what he wrote, but it was probably in line with the thousands he has written since, tweets that have ensured he is too toxic to work in today’s “liberal” media and showbusiness. Even if he does turn out to be on the wrong side of history, as the hostile clairvoyants forecast, to lose so much seems a disproportionate punishment. And many, probably including most of his 555,000 Twitter followers, think he will emerge on history’s winning side. It is argued that real cancellation in our supposed cancel culture is rare: commentators from Jeremy Clarkson to Ricky Gervais make good money from saying the allegedly unsayable. Linehan’s cancellation, however, looks real to me.
The article also clarifies Linehan’s views on the trans issue, which of course are far more moderate than the activists would have us believe.
He takes issue with me when I suggest that he does not like trans people. “Trans is so loosely defined. It seems to cover both Eddie Izzard and a 16-year-old girl who’s got dysphoria,” he says. “There’s got to be an understanding of the difference between a transsexual who has been through something immense in their lives and someone who’s putting on black fingernail polish and trying to get into the ladies’.”
So does he object to an adult man calling himself a woman?
“No, not at all. As we keep pointing out, we are only talking about places where conflict arises. My point has never changed. It’s about women in prison, women in rape crisis centres, women in changing rooms. It’s about children. It’s about homophobia. It’s about an incredible new form of sexism that I think is the worst ever. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve never seen this kind of hate and aggression towards women.”
One of the most infuriating revelations is the way Linehan was treated by Hat Trick Productions, particularly managing director Jimmy Mulville. I already knew they had tried to take Linehan’s name off the Father Ted musical, but Mulville’s attempted justification for this is appalling:
[Linehan] believes Hat Trick was terrified of its younger members of staff. This is a claim Jimmy Mulville, Hat Trick’s managing director, strongly denies in a phone call to me in which he agrees that, although in need of revision, the show was “really funny” and a “surefire hit” in the West End. He also agrees Linehan was its “linchpin”. He and his colleagues reached the conclusion, however, that Linehan’s involvement would make the show impossible to stage in the current climate.“I said, ‘We’re not getting at you. We’re trying to save the work and the only way we save the work now is by disassociating it from you, tragic as that is,’ ” Mulville says. “I know writers really well. It’s hard for writers to do that. And I said it would take an enormous amount of personal courage and humility, but the only way that we go forward is to make a statement. We had statements prepared where we said, we believe in Graham’s right to speak his mind and that he’s sincere in his beliefs.”
But Linehan regarded Father Ted: The Musical as his pension.
Mulville says: “That was my expression: ‘This is your pension. I want to make sure that you have this [settlement] because I think you deserve it. What has happened to you has been awful.’ I don’t believe in the cancel culture. I hate cancel culture. I think it’s non-redemptive. I think people are not given second chances and it’s a horrible aspect of the modern world. But it’s reality.
“It’s tragic that we live in a world where people are put in these positions, where groups of people don’t want to work with them, but that is the real world. That’s the realpolitik of the whole thing.”
As I stated in a recent Tweet, Mulville is claiming to be against cancel culture whilst utterly capitulating to it, and in fact engaging in it. Linehan replied, claiming that even my scathing summation didn’t go far enough:
We seem to have entered a strange stage of the cancel culture era where people know the practice is wrong, and many speak out against it, yet appear unable, or in this case shamefully unwilling, to stop it from happening.
With the trans debate, however, we may be somewhat closer to a sensible outcome. We’ve seen the ‘Isla Bryson’ case topple Nicola Sturgeon, the Tavistock clinic closing, and the absurdities and horrors of the radical trans movement exposed to millions in Matt Walsh’s What Is a Woman? documentary.
Still, much as with the recent attacks on Matt Walsh for being ‘too mean’ to professional attention-seeker Dylan Mulvaney, there remains a reluctance amongst many to mount an appropriately robust counter to what amounts to the systemic mutilation of children. We get a glimpse of this in the squeamish middle-class tone policing in Billen’s otherwise favourable profile on Linehan. The piece ends with the odd line:
My optimism dims. Linehan’s trans jokes are less all-vanquishing kryptonite than hand grenades thrown into a minefield.
Billen is also concerned that, God forbid, Linehan may carry his new-found scepticism over into other arenas:
I worry myself when he starts talking about how the “lies” told about gender may lead people to doubt vaccines and global warming. In one interview, which he does not quite disown, he said he was no longer even “100% on climate change any more”.
In other words: don’t go too far Graham, or you may find your next profile is not in the Times but the Daily Sceptic.
Stop Press: Graham Linehan’s comments under the Times article have been deleted. It would never happen at the Daily Sceptic Graham!
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Huh?
Transsexualism is now a form of hatred towards women? A man who says he wants to be a woman is sexist towards women and hates them?
Just when I thought the world couldn’t get any madder…
Almost exclusively misogynistic gay men – yes.
You need to never forget that “transwomen” are actually men, and anybody that get in their way must be destroyed.
So does that mean that lesbian girls that want to become men – by far the most.common form of transsexualism these days – hate men?
What’s the opposite of.mysogynistic?
Do you mean misandry or philogyny?
Yes that’s it.
So, I guess, in 2020s logic, men that want to become women are misogynist. And women who want to become men are misandrist.
That, judging by the up.and down votes makes sense to the majority.
..yes, men in frocks are still misogynists and hate women…who knew?……LOL!
Mentally ill young girls don’t rape women, or do a lot of grooming.
Slow down, I’m struggling to keep up with your logic.
So transsexual men are misogynist? Or are they mentally ill? Or both? Or are misogynists mentally ill?
Please explain.
Lesbians want to become men..? I though it was 90% the other way.
Don’t feed the troll. Willful misunderstanding despite the clear mention of ‘women only space’.
Go on Stewart, tell me why Adam Graham (aka Isla Bryson) should be kept in a female prison. If you can’t, then reel in your damn neck.
I really don’t get some people on here.
Have I argued that?
I’m just calling out the completely ridiculous assertion that transsexualism is some new form of hatred towards women.
It’s a new form of identity politics, borrowed from feminism.
I’m great because I’m a woman, I’m a victim because I’m a woman, people treat me unfairly because I’m a woman, people who don’t applaud women for being women are against women.
Just change the word “woman” to “trans”.
And just because the very unusual case of a man claiming to be a woman in a Scottish prison has been all over the news, let me tell you that is not where the biggest harm of trans ideology is being done.
It’s in schools where they are confusing the hell out of kids shoving the ideology down their throats.
How about you stop and think for a bit, actually read what is being written, educate yourself a bit and then reel your own neck in?
Before transsexualism became an ideology, most sex changes were men to women.
In the last decade or so, since it’s become an actively promoted ideology, females wanting to become men are now the majority by a big margin.
So no, it’s not the other way around.
Stewart, sorry but facts and evidence show that trans women..i.e men transing to women, are by far the most common…but that isn’t really the problem..it’s a problem because they are the ones that want to cancel women from sport, they’re the ones that want to go into women’s spaces in hospitals, prisons and changing rooms..they are the ones that need cervical smears and goodness knows what else…we actually never hear about it the other way around..unless you have some examples?
I think that if you delve into the data, you’ll find that the reverse is far more common now.
The news is creating a distorted picture. The cases of men in women’s prisons, men in women’s sports and so on, are eye catching and understandably quite incendiary.
But the bigger story, I’m afraid, is of what is happening in schools, the alarming number of boys and girls being encouraged to consider their gender, and it seems this something to which teenage girls are particularly vulnerable to.
The idea that the roots of transsexualism as an ideology lie in feminism isn’t mine. I heard Rod Liddell suggest it in a talk and found the argument very persuasive.
IIRC, it is also outlined in detail in Lindsay and Pluckrose’s book Cynical Theories.
What the author is presumably referring to is the attacks (often literal) on biological women, dubbed ‘TERFS’ (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists’) by men from who knows what backgrouds. Women attacked for defending women’s rights – that’s sexism.
That is a complete sideshow. Most trans men don’t do that. You are all falling for the politics.
Most transsexualism now is girls saying they are boys.
Children in schools are being indoctrinated that gender is a choice and encouraged to question their gender. This is increasingly widespread.
Women are not the biggest victims of transsexual ideology. Children are. And it’s extremely annoying that feminists want to make it all about them.
No..you want to make it all about feminism. Which it isn’t… There’s a difference…
The reasons for transitioning are entirely different. TIMs are not a homogenous blob either. A significant number are AGP males who get a sexual thrill from larping as women and given that c80% of TIMs retain their c@ck and b&lls it would seem that very few have genuine gender dysphoria. Do they hate women? Donning sissy-porn frocks and pigtails, with their mouths in perma porn pout is hardly a flattering hommage to womanhood. Feeling so entitled that they would barge their way into women’s sports and spaces hardly signals respect for women. Many will certainly be insanely jealous of women, and what defines all TIMs is their raging narcissism and self-absorption. You are correct that there is a significant increase in TIFs; c7000% uptick in referrals of girls to GIDs clinics. However the drivers are entirely different: social contagion, autism, abuse, trauma, escaping their ‘inadequate’ bodies in an increasingly pornified society. Put it this way, my 11yo tells me that c50% of her friends identify as lesbian. What are the chances of that when the census reveals that less than 2% of the UK’s population is gay?
Transvestite used to be someone who liked dressing in the clothes and have the appearance of the opposite sex. It was not always linked to sexual orientation – straight men liked to do it at times.
Trans-sexuals were those who wanted ‘to be’ a member of their opposite sex. This had various situations, from those who were content to dress and behave and live a lifestyle of the opposite sex, to those who wanted to have partial or total physical and chemical changes.
This usually took place over a number of years under psychiatric and medical supervision – certainly it was never children – generally to make sure the individual was certain, as some of the process could not be reversed. Normally the individual would be expected to live as a member of their chosen sexual identity for at least a couple of years before doctors would agree to proceed to more permanent alterations. Some who originally wanted the full conversion, decided only a partial transition.
This all went on quietly with nobody really knowing about it – or caring. There were on occasions sniggers at women who ‘dressed like a guy’ or men dressed like women, but there was no huge problem.
How did it become ‘huge’ – a mainstream political and ideological issue?
I rhink it’s the offspring of feminism, which is really a devisive and very dangerous ideology.
But when I propose it on here, I just get a barrage of abuse. Strangely though, no alternative explanation, despite asking for one.
I won’t really get into the feminism thing, I’m not sure whether it plays a big part in this issue or not. I do agree it is divisive and seems keen on casting women as eternal victims, something I abhor.
For what it’s worth, I’ve said before that my view is that the trans thing is a cultural war being pursued in the West, either from within or without – get people worrying about something that isn’t actually a problem for most people, then shady actors can get away with even more than they were already getting away with. The people who see the current trans movement for what it is, are the same ones who see the corona scam, the Ukraine scam and the climate scam for what they are – of course they’re going to be vilified. The Telegraph article referred to literally states that. I don’t know if Billen is really as dumb as he sounds making that statement, or if it’s a clever way to get people to realise that all these scams have the same goal and probably come from the same source. Isn’t the whole point of a journalist to question things all the time, rather than take them as established?
There’s also the argument that the medical/pharma industry plays a big role – lots and lots of money in lifelong hormone treatments, dicing and slicing, reconstruction, dicing and slicing again for those who realise they got it wrong. Lots of work for immoral surgeons and psycho-the-rapists.
I agree that the trans issue serves to distract and divide the population and diverts attention away from the machinations of plutocrats.
That said if you were to see how transsexualism, feminism, race, and climate are rammed down the throats of kids in schools these days, you’d be really worried.
I honestly and genuinely see all of these things as linked. I could be wrong but I do see common strands. They are all highly irrational, all battles that never have an end, against a mostly imaginary enemy. And they tend to come as a package, people making the world better defending the “vulnerable”.
I’m actually a bit taken aback at the reaction on here to just the suggestion that feminism may have prepared the ground for the irrational transsexualism we see today.
It feels a bit like the reaction you get on a place like the Guardian when you say something against climate change and someone who has just had their long held worldview challenged flips out and starts calling you a climate denier and worse.
It seems like scepticism goes.inly so far on here with some.
On the subject.of feminism you are like a normie who has just encountered someone arguing against climate change hysteria and net zero policy.
You only have insults and an incapability to think beyond your closely held beliefs.
But I hate to break it to you. Feminism is a dangerous, insidious ideology that is now being used to attack defensless boys in school.
But it doesn’t seem like you care too.much.
And once again, true to form, despite the article in question not containing the word “feminist” and being about a totally different subject, you feel it necessary to steer the comments section onto your favourite topic so that you can occupy your soap box. You must be getting through a fair few axes with all of this constant grinding. Pathological. That’s you. Pathological in banging on about how everything is the fault of feminists and women are to blame for everything that’s wrong with society. And before you do your usual “strawman” cry, I’m well versed in your posts by now and you use the words “women” and “feminists” interchangeably, as evidenced by our recent exchange. You disparage and scapegoat the opposite sex because you are a misogynist, as anybody who can engage functioning eyes and brain can see.
Must I seriously go and cut and paste a dictionary definition to remind you of the meaning of the word “misogynist”? You can deny it as long as you like but I know what you are and your attitude towards women stinks.
Does it not get claustrophobic wedged in that closet with your self-delusion?
100%
You mean like, when an article about vaccine passports, or climate change cones up, people mention the WEF, or the Gates Foundation, or perhaps other things they consider hidden root causes that aren’t mentioned in the articles?
You mean like that?
You don’t realise you are reacting like a mindless BLM or Extinction Rebellion supporter when challenged, hurling insult after insult, so completely absorbed in your.own mind that you are incapable of hearing let alone processing what is being said.
The idea that feminism is causing serious damage in the world and has spawned other forms of identity and victim politics, is something that you just don’t want to hear.
Ok give us some examples of what you mean..I’m willing to listen and learn…..
As a woman I know that older feminists, including myself, have worked hard to make ‘the system’ better for women…not worse for anyone else….
I don’t recognise any women I know in your all-encompassing anti-feminist rants…but as I say, give me an example of what you mean and I’ll discuss?
Yes, I remember that too. Here in NL it was something like counselling for at least 3 years and having to live the gender you wanted to be for at least 2. I always felt a lot of sympathy – if someone would go such lengths, then, whatever was the cause, they were clearly unhappy with who they were and if they did genuinely feel happier and more content changing, then so be it.
Right now I am starting to actively hate the entire movement, even though I believe that there are very unhappy people or mentally unstable people getting dreadfully exploited. Unfortunately the movement seems to have attracted a lot of perverts, piss-takers and attention seekers.
The preying on children in this is disgusting beyond words. Children’s shows, their schools – from the same people who probably worked hard to have commercials with sugary products and junk food banned because children were so easily manipulated…
Because social media deemed it to be so?
I think the left need as many victims as they can muster .
It is impossible to change sex.
It is, sadly, possible to mutilate and sterilise young people after encouraging mental health issues and damaging them with drugs.
It’s a Satanic agenda, and not the only one.
Did I mean agendum?
O-level Latin was in 77!
Billen said:
“I worry myself when he starts talking about the “lies” told about gender may lead people to doubt vaccines and global warming.——–he said he was no longer even “100% on climate change any more.””
This Billen cove must be inundated with dinner party invites I’m guessing. What a bell. Sheesh!
Am I correct in thinking that this marginalising of people from society is to prevent another group of people from thinking they are being marginalised?
How desperately sad. I did not know. The man is a genius. One of the main things I’ve loved about the people I share these islands with is their pomposity-pricking, knowing, subversive humour.
My head has exploded. I am off to the forest. See you in ten years… if I have bothered keeping track of time, that is.
I know what you mean.
“winning the trans debate”
There’s no debate, because that would involve rational argument using evidence and logic, and the supporters of “trans” are both utterly incapable of it and utterly hostile to it.
It’s not even about ‘trans’ or any other cultist code word, it’s about power, control and epic levels of good old fashioned misogyny.
Mullville “It’s tragic that we live in a world where people are put in these positions, where groups of people don’t want to work with them, but that is the real world. That’s the realpolitik of the whole thing.”
Only because jelly spines like Jimmy Mullville are incapable of ignoring it. If he had simply just put the musical on and as CEO said “this is happening”, the small band of blue haired wailing morons would have moved on to pissing their pants about something else and it would have been a straight up success. probably even on a par with Book of Mormon.
Rick Gervais packs out venues because he ignores any performative offence taking and surfs over the bullshit. There is no reason why this musical wouldn’t have done the same. In this case though Mullville lost before he’d even laid down a card by acknowledging the nonsense – and lo, he made it an ‘issue’. Twat.
Strangely enough, Plod doesn’t do anything about this kind of hate.
At the risk of cancellation myself, substitute “Jew” for “transphobic” (or whatever the ludicrous hate label is now) and you have the proper sense of what is going on.
As James Lindsay has pointed out – we live in Herbert Marcuses world of repressive tolerance. The tolerance for pointing out reality to those who live by or assert fantasy must be viciously repressed.
What a horrible and sad state of affairs we are in.
What I think we have to remind ourselves of though is that the vast majority of ordinary people don’t think or act like this..it’s not want we want…
…..the day we start believing that what the TV Luvvies do or think is real
life …..well that is the day I give in….
I object to an adult man calling himself a woman, because this seriously distorts the purpose of language as a set of shared tools we use to think and convey our thoughts, perceptions and experiences of reality. In order to do that our language use is codified in grammar.
Man and woman are common nouns – classifiers that convey the sex of the person we perceive in reality. Calling a man a woman is signalling that I perceive him the way he perceives himself – as a woman – and that I am engaging in a ritual act that signals assent to a belief system I do not hold. Both instances are untruths.
Further, if the man is calling himself a woman, then he will be using female pronouns and proper noun (name or label). But nobody gets to own their own pronouns. Again, they are shared tools with shared common understandings. Using female pronouns is in fact using them as common nouns – classifiers. Similarly with the proper noun or name or label. It is a means to reposition that person into another sex class other than their sex class in reality.
These are all abuses of language at its fundamental level.