This is the relevant section:
Relevant section of the Times interview with Graham Norton
Norton: You read a lot of articles in papers, by people complaining about cancel culture. And you think, ‘in what world are you cancelled?’. I am reading your article in a newspaper, you are doing interviews about how terrible it is to be cancelled. I think that the word is the ‘wrong word’.
I think the word should be ‘accountability’. [discusses John Cleese] It’s free speech but not consequence free.
Continues.
Presenter: ‘for example JK Rowling then, that is harder to make point with. When you look at someone expressing what may or may not be popular opinions, but to be deluged with the kind of anger, rage and attempts at censorship, it seems to me to be more than a middle aged man not being able say something he used to say in the days of empire.’
Norton: ‘What I feel about this is, when I am asked about it then I become part of the discussion. And all I am painfully aware of is that my voice adds nothing to that discussion. And I am sort of embarrassed that I am somehow drawn into it’.
If people want to shine a light on those issues, and I hope that people do, then talk to trans people, talk to the parents of trans kids, talk to the doctors, talk to someone who can illuminate this in some way’.
'You know I am very aware as a bloke off the tele that your voice can be artificially amplified. Once in a blue moon that can be good. But most of the time it is just a distraction. And it is for clicks, it is for, you know, you can put my name in a headline. ‘Graham Norton slams, Graham Norton defends, Graham Norton weighs in on’. And actually Graham Norton shouldn’t be in your headline.'
'If you want to talk about something, talk about the thing. You don’t need to attach a Kardashian, or whatever to a subject. The subject should be enough in itself.”
‘It is the Michael Gove thing about enough experts. No. Please can we have some experts. Can we rustle up some fucking experts and talk to them rather than man in shiny pink suit.”
Presenter: But I think you would also argue that discussion is good. It is what you have mostly spent the whole of your career doing.
Norton:
So I sit beside people laughing at them. That is my job. [and goes on about his opinion]
Then goes on to Eurovision.
My interpretation is that he has narrowed 'his' discussion to children transitioning. He is ignoring the other things that JK Rowling 'talks' about. Either he has judged her based on one issue (and by the way, which EXPERTS Graham? Mermaids? Webberley? Polly Carmichael? ) and has not bothered to look further into it before disparaging her in the past with 'wanging' on about her book etc as posted up thread. Or, he has selectively chosen that point to then make out that the discussion that women who are getting cancelled for is not about the rights of women and girls so only trans voices should be listened to.
Either way, he has had plenty of time to clarify what he said and which groups should have their voices heard and which should not.
His statements about 'cancel culture', spectacularly miss the point and are simply 'sparple'. It is distraction.
However, he is right that his opinion on this should not be amplified and that experts should be listened to. He is wrong in that he only points to the 'trans' voices, which is a clear indication which voices he considers as having legitimate reasons to be heard.
As I have said, I am not sure why people are minimising the impact of his words here. He is very clearly disparaging women saying they are 'cancelled' and then excluding them from the 'experts' to be listened to. And while the latter may not have been intended, that is the effect and he could have clarified what he meant.
Did he? Did he clarify that he included women's voices as having legitimate needs and I missed it? I am quite happy to be linked up to where he did.