I recently sat rivetted in the Gielgud Theatre watching Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible (1953). The play is a dramatised account of the 17th century witch trials in Salem, USA. The respectable folk of Salem cast the first stone against innocent people because they had good reason to deflect scrutiny from their private lives. Others who were not central protagonists joined in because they were petrified of the mob hysteria. Miller wrote the play as an allegory of the 1950s McCarthyite era in the USA when the Government accused people of being communists and then persecuted them. It has stood the test of time and has equal resonance with the transgender body politics of the 21st Century: accusers are self-righteous critical social justice warriors (backed by the Government and civil institutions) and the witches are ‘transphobes’.
The writer, broadcaster and comic Andrew Doyle describes the faithful adherents of the postmodern, non-theistic faith in transgender identity as the New Puritans. Under the guise of protecting the human rights of women and children, non-believers are accused of cunningly hiding our true devilish nature, which is the desire for trans genocide. Like the witches of yore, when we protest our innocence, this is taken as further evidence of guilt. We are no longer strung from trees but expunged by other means – the refusal to debate with us, the denial of platforms from which to speak to others, impugning us professionally, bringing lawsuits against us, depriving us of livelihoods, and so on.
In the world of celebrity, those who do not express unequivocal adherence to the new faith often cringingly ‘confess’ to the sin of unwitting transphobia. The most recent example is the singer Róisín Murphy. Predictably, her fulsome apology to her LGBT fans for comments on Facebook about the need to protect vulnerable children and the harm of puberty blockers has not appeased the zealots. Her record label has declared it will no longer promote and market her forthcoming album and is “in touch with various organisations about how best to use proceeds in support of combating transphobic hate in solidarity with the community”.
In contrast, the comedy writer Graham Linehan has a long history of refusing to capitulate. Over the years he has assiduously spoken the truth: there are only two biological sexes, women don’t have penises, the gender identity clinic for children at the Tavistock was a moral scandal, and when men who identify as women are given permission to enter women’s sex-segregated spacesthey prove themselves to be no less sexually predatory than other men. Despite his success as the brilliant writer of Father Ted, The IT Crowd and Black Books, Linehan’s courage has cruelly cost him his career.
Linehan’s recent cancellation by the Edinburgh Fringe is just one example of his overall persecution. Brendan O’Neill, author and Chief Political Writer for Spiked, has argued out that it points to:
a moral disarray in the cultural establishment; to a strange, swirling climate not only of censorship but also of double standards, hypocrisy and prejudice.
Where the Fringe cancelled Linehan for defending women, it embraced the notorious comedian Frankie Boyle. Boyle has kept his head below the parapet of transgender politics and is thus morally ‘clean’ for the LBTQIA+ social justice zealots who leave him to make jokes about raping and killing women.
TalkTV recently conducted an interview with Linehan on his cancellation by the Fringe. The host, Rosanna Lockwood, acting as judge and jury, insisted it was because of his unacceptable, abhorrent views that all trans-identifying people are “nonces”. Linehan robustly denied this accusation as demonstrably false, but provided evidence that there are central figures in the LGBT community who are guilty of sexual crimes against children and who gain protection through a veil of silence. For example, Stephanie Hayden, the man who brought a (failed) legal case against Linehan of libel and of ‘deadnaming’, has been exposed as having previously been convicted of indecent assault on a 14 year-old boy, and under his male name is a registered sex offender.
Lockwood smugly treated Linehan’s protestations as further proof of guilt but gave a panellist, the LGBT rights activist and ‘national treasure’ Peter Tatchell, a free pass to dodge Linehan’s evidence. Tatchell has long been dogged by the accusation that he is an apologist for child sexual abuse. In the 1980s, he contributed a chapter to an anthology called Radical Perspectives on Childhood Sexuality, Intergenerational Sex, and the Social Oppression of Children and Young People (1986). In 1997 he wrote a letter to the Guardian claiming that some of his friends “had sex with adults from the ages of nine to 13. None feel they were abused.” He now distances himself from these views, arguing that he was conned into expressing them and that he is morally opposed to paedophilia.
In 2018, figures released by the Ministry of Justice showed that half of all trans prisoners have been sentenced for more than one sexual offence, almost all against women and/or children. As the organisation Sex Matters points out, the criminal-justice system panders to rapists, child abusers and other violent men who claim to be women. It demands at every step that these men’s victims use their female pronouns, concealing the truth of male violence. When women try to speak in public, the police fail to protect them. When women are assaulted by these men, the police and Crown Prosecution Service are reluctant to bring charges.
Sarah Jane Barker, who has completed a life sentence for kidnap and attempted murder, is the most recent example. He has been cleared by the courts of intentionally encouraging the commission of an offence when he told the approving, cheering, whooping crowd at London Pride, where the Metropolitan police passively stood by:
If you see a TERF, you should punch them in the f**king face!
Linehan shines a light on the injustices to women and children that the New Puritans cannot bear to be exposed. They often ‘feminise’ him as weak, as having brought the demise of his career on himself. In another moral universe, however, Linehan would be seen as a hero in a specifically masculine sense. In the language of machismo, Linehan has had the ‘balls’ to boldly walk with his sisters in our struggle.
If there is a God looking down from heaven, as the first Puritans believed, I imagine that when Linehan’s time comes, he will be ushered through the Pearly Gates with all the other flawed humans standing up for true justice. In the meantime, he can look forward to the cold comfort of earthly vindication. Perhaps one day, his full-throated accusers will disavow that when they publicly denounced him for being a “nonce-finder”, what they really meant was that they too were concerned that paedophiles exist within the LGBT movement, hiding under the cloak of being women. Let’s hope, for the sake of safeguarding children, as well as justice for Linehan and all the women bravely waving a red flag, that society dares to come to its senses sooner rather than later.
Heather Brunskell-Evans is the author of Trans Gender Body Politics.
Stop Press: John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, has apologised to Graham Linehan for joining a pile-on against him in 2019.
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At last some attention on the M from the LGBT alphabet standing for Minority attracted which some of us know better under the letter P. What better way to capture new young prey than under the guise of gender confusion and groupthink.
Did you mean minor-attracted?
Yes sorry about typo
I like it. The woketards are all very much minority-attrackted.
It’s what’s wrong with our society now as a whole. Anybody raising legit concerns about or providing contradictory evidence against any of the narratives we’re being bombarded with on a daily basis will get cancelled and/or crucified. This clip is a good illustration, as well as being another example of the misogyny women are being faced with in their daily lives. Apparently female students cannot protest to having a man parodying a woman living with them. Their legitimate concerns around feeling safe in their personal living space are invalidated as long as this guy identifies as one of them. They are wrong and he is the victim. And look how sympathetic the female interviewer is! The same one who gave Graham Linehan a hard time. Graham is a flipping hero in my view.
https://twitter.com/OliLondonTV/status/1699224019734560888
Met Graham at the HiFi Club in Leeds after his performance there a couple of months ago. A more humble, principled, deep-thinking and intelligent chap you’d struggle to find. And funny, obviously. A hero. Just what we need.
Great article, thanks
Can we try avoid describing any of these people as “rights activists”. They want you to think that’s what they are because who be against “rights”?
The truth is that these people enjoy exactly the same rights as everyone else.
They’re really the new ignobility: Demanding the privileges of an ennobled status because they’re specifically not doing anything that’s of value to anyone but themselves.
The New Ignobility
Put that on a t shirt
Here I go, diving in with what I think is the truth that will probably alienate all sides. I am “emotionally” anti-gay. What I mean by that is the whole notion of gay to me is a big turn off. But rationally I have no problem with homosexuality. I open with this to explain, especially when younger (and when Tatchell was more fundamentalist – he’s mellowed but IMO he used to be pretty objectionable) I instinctively/“emotionally” disliked Peter Tatchell. But I cannot abide this kind of societal collective blindness to evident truth simply because the truth sits uncomfortably with a political narrative. This often gets me in trouble but it’s how I am.
For year before Jordan Peterson came along and quoted the academic research to back it up, I have been saying it is evident women on average value relationships and men have a relative bias to valuing things. To me that was just evident. For years I’ve pointed out how, contrary to the social narrative ‘it’s what’s inside that counts’ men and women nearly always get partners who are in the same looks “score’ category (looks scored out of ten and the remarkable thing is how generally consistent people’s scoring is) and rarely more than one different – though if there is a difference it is more acceptable for the man to have a lower looks score than the woman. So everyone at the dinner party table saying it’s what’s inside that counts, ignores the rider “sub-categorised by looks.” And often these same people don’t like that being pointed out, even though IMO it is utterly and straightforwardly evident.
I find it notable how often these views get me in trouble because I’m not reflecting the dinner table consensus narrative. But I can’t help myself. When something is self evidently right I say it. When younger I was probably a bit like that Just William story when he determined to be a good boy, follow the bible and always tell the truth, which, of course, was a great way for him to be mischievous and led to hysterical results when his aunt, who William didn’t like, came to stay.
Now I’ll talk about when I reached puberty and was at school. Yep it was like being hit by an overwhelming passion train. And I distinctly remember most of the class sharing the fantasy of sleeping with the 35 year old sculpture teacher at my school. And I can absolutely assure any reader, had, for me, this event occurred, which was almost certainly I hasten to add, a zero probability event, I am absolutely sure I would have been very happy and in no way would the experience have led me to carry life long emotional scars. Well maybe an extra big one proudly notched into my bed post. Sorry, but it’s true. Maybe some shy retiring types would have been scarred. I don’t know. Maybe. However in my case I was a bit Jack the lad-ish and such a suggestion (emotional scarring) would have been met with utter derisory mirth.
So let me now relate a second bit of experience.
I used to, as a teenager, go to a nightclub in charring-cross road. It was run by a man who was widely known to be a pedophile and undoubtedly used the club to befriend young clubbing boys (many if whom were below 18 but allowed entry anyway). I was friends with some of them and talked to them about it. And I can confirm – I remember being in a sense slightly shocked by it at the time – that some of them thought of sleeping with the club owner exactly the same as I thought about sleeping with my sculpture teacher. They were very happy and relaxed at the thought of doing so. I can’t see how I can claim my feelings about my sculpture teacher are any different or ok to write about yet the same is not ok for a young gay man (unless there is some emotional anti-gay feeling, which I readily admit I have, but rationally have no fundamental problem)
Peter Tatchel was simply reflecting what he saw when he wrote his article, and no that does not make him a pedophile any more than me fantasising about sleeping with the sculpture teacher when I was younger or writing about the fact others similarly wanted too makes me a pedophile now.
Exactly the same forces as make people like Lineham shut-up and apologise have made Tatchell shut-up and apologise for his essay. And I think Lineham is wrong to hit him with that. Discuss it sure, but don’t hit him with it during a sound bite debate. There is more of an issue with conservatives being censured for going against the narrative, than leftists or minorities, but it does happen the other way round too. So though I have never particularly liked Tachell I defend his right to speak truth and not be censured for doing so and I feel slightly sad he has been forced to publicly reformulate his expressed view. It is exactly the same “confess your sins” witch hunt dynamic at work as has affected Lineham,
I’ve not followed the Tatchell business enough to be able to comment on it but the rest of your remarks seem to me quite normal and uncontroversial
Once upon a time in the past, oppressed minorities where groups of people persecuted by the state because of their membership in said group. In fact, this used to be the definition of oppression — persecution by state and social institutions based on group membership with little or no regard for the individuals being targetted by it. Nowdays, oppressed minorities are specially favoured by social institutions and the state and they’re said to be oppressed because not all members of the overwhelming majority group of non-special people – let’s call them commoners – agree that the favoured group really deserves its special status.
What’s wrong with this picture?
On the Roisin Murphy thing. So if we buy her album to show her support, much of the money goes to groups with a particular agenda that goes against what she said. And if we don’t buy it, she’s punished for what she said. Is there something else we can do? Some way to direct money to her and cut out the record company?
The record company don’t seem to realise they’ve missed a trick here – her initial comments raised her general public profile and might have meant picking up additional sales from the ‘straights’, over and above any lost from her main audience. But her forced apology certainly put the kybosh on that, didn’t it?
We can buy any of her previous albums instead of the current one which is on the ’Ninja Tune’ label, all her other albums were released by different record companies. She’s actually a brilliant musician, not pop rubbish.
I’d find a way to pirate it and then some way of sending her a used fiver
Great article. I would have purchased a copy of Roisin’s album in solidarity (I loved Moloko back in the day) but won’t if the cash is going to support that lot.
I always wonder what all the trans allies, aiders and abetters would think if a bloke in a frock raped one of their kids in a ‘single sex’ toilet. Which moral dilemma would that plunge them into?
They tend not to breed anyway.
Er, not so – I know a lot of straights with kids/grandkids who are trans allies, aiders and abetters (the local kids charity shop, run entirely by ‘older’ women, has still got pride stuff in the window), but mostly without any thought to the social/societal or health consequences.
I hear you, Wyrd. The Alphabet Mafia apologists. Never before in my life would I have dreamed of experiencing women being capable of misogyny. I didn’t even know it was a thing, but the proof of this phenomenon is all around us and the social contagion is just getting worse. To call these women ‘traitors’ would be an understatement. Absolutely beyond shameful.
As I said above, we can buy any of her previous albums which are not on the ’Ninja Tune’ label.
You’ll never hear an Islamic joke from the so called edgy Boyle, I promise you.