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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Graham Linehan interview in The Times (17 March 2023)

184 replies

IwantToRetire · 17/03/2023 01:42

From both ends of the trans debate, I am told his interventions are “counterproductive”, “a net bad” and “unhinged”. Some gender-critical women — that is, women who agree with him — believe he craves attention, martyrdom and leadership of a movement whose fight is not even his. One mentions that he was once pro-porn and sex work, which he admits to being before “talking to feminists” changed his mind. Over on the other side of the battle lines, an activist dismisses him as a fringe character full of hot air. None of these people is prepared, however, to go on the record, mostly saying they fear he will retaliate in his customary style.

There is one admirable exception. She is Kathleen Stock, the radical feminist philosopher who resigned from the University of Sussex in 2021 after a campaign by “queer, trans and non-binary” students who wanted her fired. “Graham and I have clashed in the past,” she says, “and we probably aren’t each other’s favourite people. But I think it’s fair to say he’s genuinely committed to fighting what he believes is a woman-harming and child-harming ideology (and I agree with him on that); and he talks to some demographics — particularly ordinary blokes, who don’t really care so much about niceties of language and aren’t put off by his sometimes bludgeoning style — that others don’t necessarily reach.”

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/broke-shunned-and-cancelled-father-ted-creator-graham-linehan-and-the-trans-debate-cgv8gqpjk

Sorry no share token

(If you paste the Times link above into archive.ph/ it has been archived)

OP posts:
RoyalCorgi · 17/03/2023 14:05

A PP mentioned Dave Chapelle and Ricki Gervais, and the fact they hadn't been cancelled. Obviously part of it is that they are too big - too famous, too successful - to cancel. But the other difference is that they are able to look at this issue and keep some distance - when they mock it, it's to point out the intellectual absurdities. With Glinner, you can absolutely feel the enormous moral rage he has that means he can't keep a distance from it. He sees this, rightly or wrongly (I think rightly) as a war, not just against a ludicrous ideology, but against an ideology that is enabling sexual predators to actively harm women and girls. If you see it like that, and if you actually care about the welfare of women and girls, then it's very hard not to feel as intensely as Glinner does.

MishyJDI · 17/03/2023 14:10

I think the problematic "I said I'm from Iran" episode in the IT Crowd is super funny. Today, not acceptable. The same as how trans were portrayed in Ace Ventura.

The thing is though, to admit that it was a joke of the age, and not one of today. Look at how some of the Monty Python jokes have aged badly. What is not good is not admitting that, such as John Cleese going feral about how today you just get cancelled.

Nah John. It just aint funny any more. Try a different angle. Certainly not GMB news!

Anyway as I mentioned. Trick is to make comedy relevant to today's world - which is a lot more educated around using simple minority stereotypes. Thank goodness!

ditalini · 17/03/2023 14:12

RoyalCorgi · 17/03/2023 14:05

A PP mentioned Dave Chapelle and Ricki Gervais, and the fact they hadn't been cancelled. Obviously part of it is that they are too big - too famous, too successful - to cancel. But the other difference is that they are able to look at this issue and keep some distance - when they mock it, it's to point out the intellectual absurdities. With Glinner, you can absolutely feel the enormous moral rage he has that means he can't keep a distance from it. He sees this, rightly or wrongly (I think rightly) as a war, not just against a ludicrous ideology, but against an ideology that is enabling sexual predators to actively harm women and girls. If you see it like that, and if you actually care about the welfare of women and girls, then it's very hard not to feel as intensely as Glinner does.

Yep. Glinner is trying to do something about it, has treated it as a campaign just like he gave his support to Repeal the 8th, and given that he put his relationships, career, financial security on the line I don't blame him for feeling 'well what the fuck else do I have to lose?'.

Chapelle and Gervais have made jokes. Which should be BOG STANDARD! That's how completely crazy this whole thing is - it is normal and average and unremarkable for comedians to make jokes. It is normal and average and unremarkable for comedians who make edgy jokes about the world as it is in all its craziness to comment on this sort of thing. But most of them don't. At all.

LizzieSiddal · 17/03/2023 14:47

I feel so sorry for Graham, he’s paid such a high price. I hope things turnaround for him very soon.

As an aside I went to see Micky Flanagan this week. He did a whole section on “The Trans Swimmer”. I was very relieved at the response from the crowd, lots of laughing clapping and cheering.

MavisMcMinty · 17/03/2023 14:51

Interesting @LizzieSiddal - Flanagan is so popular, such an “everyman”, that’s encouraging.

GrimDamnFanjo · 17/03/2023 14:54

I admire Glinner for simply keeping going.
How easy it would have been to just say he'd made a mistake and got things wrong.
Instead he loses his family, friends and most of his work.
He is on a mission and I sincerely hope that he gets some happier days soon.

DameMaud · 17/03/2023 15:13

FOJN · 17/03/2023 13:27

Actually Glinner comes out of this with 100% sterling integrity. Billen looks awful lurching around to find something that will stick, maybe about obsession or mental illness of some kind..

The comments about buying coffee and a pastry were in particularly poor taste too.

Being gas lit by the state, it's institutions and bullied by your own industry would be enough to make anyone's mental health suffer.

There are days when I don't look at news to avoid this issue because I can scarcely believe the world we're living in and I have not been subjected to anything like the abuse GL has endured.

That 'small pastry' comment smarted with me too FOJN.
Struck me as setting it up from the start to portray Glinner as vulnerable in some way- to inspire pity rather than admiration. A foreshadowing of the later obsession comments.

I also feel exposure to the media/culture of this topic threatens my mental health. I can feel it as it's doing it! There's so much I use to love or was interested in that I actively avoid now- but it's so bloody hard to avoid isn't it?

Slothtoes · 17/03/2023 15:15

Mavis haha excellent

TheSingingBean · 17/03/2023 15:24

DarkDayforMN · 17/03/2023 11:32

Glinner is still paying the price for being one of the first to speak out and it sucks. It’s not like he’s especially vicious or anything, he was just willing to say what no one else at that time with a public profile was saying (no, “trans women” aren’t women.)

I think without him we’d have self-ID; he played a critical part in raising awareness back in the days when it was all about filling in consultation responses.

I really hope he is publicly vindicated.

I completely agree.

It's so sad (and profoundly disappointing) that his friends deserted him. I used to love Graham Norton, I can't look at him in the same way anymore.

I know many are silenced by fear but to be unwilling to say ANYTHING in support? Shameful.

inkjet · 17/03/2023 15:50

StephanieSuperpowers · 17/03/2023 12:44

Yeah. I must say, there are a lot of comedians I just don't find funny anymore because of this. Actually, most. It's strange, many of them position themselves as brave tellers of truth to power but nothing could be further from the truth.

Completely agree with this. Ditto a lot of journalists/commentators/media profile people who think the same.

LocalHobo · 17/03/2023 15:58

the fact that Linehan is speaking the opposite of hate

Say it again for the people at the back.

Spidergloves · 17/03/2023 16:03

I didn't realise so few people pay for the substack mail outs.

That's no reflection on Glinner, it's no easy feat. I've been watching a professional media start up trying to create a following and get people to make the leap to paid subscriptions, the discrepancy between those who take the free stuff and those who think it's worth paying for is always vast.

I pay. There hasn't been so much content since he got back on Twitter but it feels like the least I can do.

LittleFingerStrength · 17/03/2023 16:12

I hope things improve for him too.

What has to be taken into consideration is that his children lost living with both parents, their home I presume and children support from Dad due to his reduced income. TRA were very cruel to those children and I doubt the Children will view them well when they become adults.

chilling19 · 17/03/2023 16:33

I subscribe to Glinner's sub stack - it is great value. I particularly like the weekly 'good news' round up, something I sorely need after a week of crap.

Graham - you are a a good 'un. I have dug for your crowd funder as have others on MN.

For those of you who wish to do the same, search for the following on Google or CrowdJustice: 'I'm being sued by another trans rights activist'.

Allthegoodnamesarechosen · 17/03/2023 16:38

I’ve changed my will to leave a fair slug to Glinner ( though I’m not intending to shuffle off quite yet).

Without people like him ( there aren’t many) it’s going to be a grim world for girls.

lechiffre55 · 17/03/2023 16:39

Glinner in a big man in both stature and heart.
He's paid, and continues to pay, a terrible price for speaking up for what he believes in, and even after all the hurt they have caused him to try and shut him up he's never kowtowed to the baying rabble bearing pitchforks and torches.
Glinner gave a heartfelt apology to Count Dankula in a video recording that was presented to Count Dankula at the end of his roast. It takes a big man to acknowledge his mistakes and say sorry. It takes a lot of bravery. I very much doubt any of the useful idiots will apologise to Glinner when the gender bubble finally bursts, because not one of them has one iota of the integrity that Glinner has.
I am sad at how much this fight has cost Glinner personally, but I'm glad that we have men like him in the world.

Sausagenbacon · 17/03/2023 16:50

Well I thought the whole from Iran joke was hilarious. How chilling that I'm not supposed to find it funny.

ILikeDungs · 17/03/2023 17:11

I introduced myself to Graham at a thing in London. What a decent bloke.

I think I should dig a bit more, it's a lovely day for gardening!

Saucery · 17/03/2023 17:35

I’m not a fan of paying for content. Michael Marshall Smith has just launched a newsletter, for instance and I’m like Nah mate, write another book, I’ll buy that instead. I make an exception for Glinner, because for standing up for what he believes in he’s had his livelihood taken away from him.

BloodyHellKen · 17/03/2023 17:45

Theeyeballsinthesky · 17/03/2023 12:59

Yes @BloodyHellKen you can’t tell me that Adam Hills doesn't know what a woman is! one of my biggest disappointments though is Dara O Briain who makes a huge deal out of science & evidence and is absolutely silent on this issue

@Theeyeballsinthesky I was very disappointed with Adam Hills. He seems like a sensible, intelligent man and he has 2 daughters doesn't he?

I have a lot of time for Dara O Briain and I just assume that anyone in the public eye like he is who keeps silent when his contemporaries support TRAs doesn't follow the TRA narrative at all but also doesn't want to be singled out for possible cancelling or worse.

A bit like an atheist with religious friends. You nod and smile but deep down you're thinking WTAF, I'm glad I don't believe in that guff 😂

No offence to any religious Mumsnetters reading :)

Ofcourseshecan · 17/03/2023 17:49

JacquelinePot · 17/03/2023 06:53

I'm such a massive fan of Glinner's comedy writing, I would absolutely love to see him working again. In the meantime I follow all his ro-women work, and am grateful for it.

As for the Ted musical, if it happened without Glinner, there's no way I would go and see it.

I think Graham is an important voice and it's a travesty that his involvement in the fight against:

  • stopping kids going through puberty
  • men in women's spaces
  • men coercing lesbians
  • the tearing down of child safeguarding
  • woke homophobia etc.
has caused him so much harm and cost him so dearly.

If anything, I don't think he goes far enough! It doesn't really matter if a man is genuine in his belief that he is "really a woman" or is using trans as a cloak for nefarious means. One is a man pretending to be a woman and one is a man pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman. Neither is a woman and we don't want them in our spaces.

It doesn't really matter if a man is genuine in his belief that he is "really a woman" or is using trans as a cloak for nefarious means. One is a man pretending to be a woman and one is a man pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman. Neither is a woman and we don't want them in our spaces.

Perfectly expressed, in a nutshell.

drhf · 17/03/2023 17:53

The article was interesting, and I didn't mind the writer's scepticism about the issues - as PP have said, readers can read Graham's comments and decide for themselves.

But I didn't like the sneering bafflement that Graham gave up his career for this debate. Is it really so surprising that a comedian - one who wrote Father Ted - would be prepared to sacrifice a lot for the right to speak the truth without being censored by petty dictators preaching sanctimonious dogma? Talk about missing the point of the show.

IwantToRetire · 17/03/2023 18:19

When I posted this late last night, I had only really skim read the article as it is quite long.

But was puzzled by some of it, like was the writer trying to be too "balanced", or ... so have found other comments about it interesting.

I mainly posted because without diminishing what many others have lost, what Glinner has lost is more than live changing and mostly in the public eye.

“I thought this would be over in a few months and someone would step in. I really did think as soon as people heard what’s been happening to children, all my friends, satirists, comedians, progressives, people who marched against the Iraq war, lesbians, gay men, they’d all come rushing to my aid.

“And no one turned up. Just no one turned up. All I got was dirty looks, people ghosting me. I joke that I used to know no one from real life, only people from the media. Now I know no one in the media and I’m friends with social workers and doctors and the Tavistock whistleblowers.”

And also picking up some of the implied attitudes of the writer of this article, I wonder if it isn't only because so many have accepted (stayed quiet about) the trans takeover, particularly in the media, but whether not just other men, but people cant accept a man taking up women's issues. That somehow the Stonewalling has been so effective that many people now think it is only older white women who care. And again as the writer implies, why would you (particularly a man) give up a job in the media for women('s rights).

And another element, which I hope I can write without upsetting anybody, is that much of the media especially BBC / Fleet Street is still very much white english public school boy. So that Boris Johnson can make really vile comments and everyone goes oh dear, he's such a naughty boy but we still like him. And what some of what has happened is about the english sense of superiority, ie some of the media elite think maybe its a bit uppity for someone from Ireland to have opinions they are meant to take notice of. Fine to make jokes, some a bit near the line, but presume to talk politics. Unacceptable.

Not quite the same, but when Mick Lynch started getting a lot of interviews, he became an internet sensation (for a while), not just because of his politics, but I honestly think some people couldn't believe that someone who spoke like him could be someone to be listened to.

I wonder if anyone else think that part of it is this.

Because I just cant believe how he has been treated, and that everyone just sort of shruged, including those in the media who are doing it.

And of course he doesn't give up publicly.

Others, and I dont for one moment criticise them for doing it, just decide that for the time being enough is enough.

OP posts:
Ereshkigalangcleg · 17/03/2023 18:27

Yeah. I must say, there are a lot of comedians I just don't find funny anymore because of this. Actually, most. It's strange, many of them position themselves as brave tellers of truth to power but nothing could be further from the truth.

This. Self satisfied, by the numbers comedy. I've lost respect for so many of them.

TheWordWomanIsTaken · 17/03/2023 18:54

I have nothing but the utmost respect for Graham.

The toll that this must have taken on him is unfathomable.
I wish I had been aware of the stand-up - would definitely have tried to get tickets to go to show support.
Does anyone have a link to his sub stack - I want to support him via subscription.