Ian Hislop is disappointing

[RoyalCorgi]

Glinner's latest substack mentions that the new issue of Private Eye makes a dig at him for being "unhinged" on Twitter. Glinner then reveals that four years ago he emailed Ian Hislop asking him to cover the subject of SH, and politely explaining the issues. This is the reply Hislop sent:

Dear Graham,
Hello. Thanks for the messages and for alerting me to the activities of Hayden and Bergdorf. Despite my well known belief that Twitter drives everyone bonkers and my suspicion that the Trans/TERF debate is not quite as important as those involved in it believe, I do have people looking at the issues, the areas of impact in the real world, and I will pass on your information to them. “The oxygen of publicity” is always a possible side-effect of the “letting in of sunlight” but as I say I am grateful to you for the guidance. Hope that you are ok somewhere in the social media swamp.
Best,

I've always liked Private Eye and hoped that Hislop was privately gc, even if the subject didn't feature much in the mag. (Deputy editor Francis Wheen was very gc but has now retired.)

So that's a shame.

Here's Glinner's full post:

https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/ian-hislop-knew

@RealityFan

Below is a heading quote from https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/articles-reports/2022/07/20/where-does-british-public-stand-transgender-rights report

"Women are split on whether trans women are a threat to women's safety or rights, but men are much more convinced that they are" and gives a bar chart for the figures.

Well Glinner does post a lot and is quick to robustly riposte which with people who are one topic tweeters can look a bit frenzied to the outside world so whilst it's a cutting comment "unhinged' isn't exactly the worst slur being slung. It's clearly touched a nerve which is understandable when Glinner is treated so harshly. From that excerpt it highlights how Frankie Bs the one with form for trans abuse. Ian Hislops response seems fairly even handed. Private Eye has been critical of TRA and gender equality legislation on occasion if memory serves so whilst it's understandable to want to lash out I personally don't see this as subscription cancelling level stuff.

I don't know what I'm more surprised about. That you place Ian Hislop in the same box as Owen Jones or that you think Owen Jones is a 'upper middle class complacent 'right side of history' type of person' 😂

Oh dear! There is no love lost between Lewis and Linehan.

"Helen Lewis is a dishonest, unethical careerist hack"
https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/helen-lewis-is-a-dishonest-unethical

"Vichy Feminism is going to get someone killed"
https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/vichy-feminism-is-going-to-get-someone

I have immense admiration and sympathy for Glinner.

Possibly a more constructive response from Glinner would been to have (again) written privately to Hislop.

Most people would only have recourse to an official "Letter to the Editor". Glinner was phenomenally privileged in that he was to be able to write privately to Hislop and receive a private reply. He has chosen not to exercise that privilege a second time.

Whether publishing the correspondence with Hislop helps, hinders or is ultimately irrelevant depends a lot, but not entirely, on Hislop's reaction, privately and publicly. The ball is in his court now and is his to play. Whatever he does, including ignoring it, is significant in some way.

I won't be cancelling my subscription to either Glinner's Substack or PE.

I have a great deal of admiration for Graham Linehan and to be honest I can completely understand why he might feel like this (if indeed he does feel this way). You like to think you can rely on friends and when you discover you can't and even worse they look the other way while your career/life is decimated and don't speak up to defend you I think it's pretty shit.

Maybe they did? I have seen in real life that when someone is deep in the middle of a crisis, sometimes people do develop that “with me or against me” mentality as a pp mentioned, as a kind of self-protection mechanism. Sadly it can also be a sure fire way of losing friends even faster. I really hope he does have someone in his life who he feels has his back and yet can still be a bit of a dissenter/say are you sure?

However, even if sometimes I wince a bit at some of Glinner’s posts, I also ask myself if he has a duty to express himself moderately given his profile or if he can just say what he thinks like anyone else. After all, most of the time I agree with what he is saying, I just wish he’d back off a bit on some of the more personal comments eg on appearances. Perhaps I’m too used to the debate here where it is strictly play the ball not the player.

Yes. Ask most men, even the vast majority, what do you think of trans, and you'll likely get a fullsome answer, likely mostly not very politically correct.

However, ask most men is it an issue, does it bother you, aren't you concerned about mission creep into women's spaces, women's rights etc, and you'll bet much more bland, anodyne responses.

There's me at one end, taking a stance, in some ways to the detriment of my peace of mind. Then there are the guys like one of my best friends who think the individuals are weird but feels further mental energy expended (as in my case) is detrimental, only somewhat peaking in specific cases of Lia Thomas, Isla Bryson, and exasperation at teen medicalisation.

And then those guys who are totally blasé, refusing to be opinionated about anything that doesn't affect them directly. And a small number with out and out MRA/incel/trad misogynist views, happy that uppity feminists are being ground in the dust, no care for all the other female roadkill out there.

Is Francis Wheen still deputy editor at the Eye? He was/is definitely of the opinion that TWA not W but I’ve a feeling he’s retired.

Francis Wheen has retired. I'm not sure who's deputy now.

How did you hear that Helen Lewis was working for Private Eye, Sinead4ever? I know she writes for the Atlantic, so assumed she was now based in the US, but I suppose you don't have to live in the country to write for one of its publications.

I hope that he did have friends who tried that. I hope they are still his friends, but seeing how he tweets i have to wonder if he has many left anyway.

I wish he'd be more temperate with his language, play the ball not the player as you said, and not appear so unhinged. But he has to do what he thinks is right. I just think that at this stage it can't be good for him at all. I'm sure he just feels as though he can't stop now.

And i can see why people aren't going to throw their lot in with him, even though they fervently agree with every word he writes. Because they, too, will get slaughtered.

I can't begin to understand what motivated him to start all this, and i hope he has friends offline to talk to about things. And maybe that he's writing too. It is one huge hot mess. I don't blame a small publication, no matter how much truth to power they speak, for not taking up his banner.

I also do wonder how much heat and light gets in to regular life away from the web, about all this. Most people i know never even talk about trans issues much, if at all, if we're talking it is more likely to be about maternity discrimination or climate change (or football)

One thing I've learnt over this is that there likely was no purely altruistic medical model or golden age of brave free speech warriors, and the slaying of flim flam.

Medicine/psychotherapy has always been prone to fads, catastrophising, the cult of the guru/specialist, filthy lucre
...just look at lobotomies, electroshock, gay chemical castration, the march of Freudian analysis, opioid crisis etc.
Teen medicalisation is in the great tradition of these.

Even the free speech warriors in the 80s and 90s were hugely selective. Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbitt, two characters never short of a controversial opinion pretty much told Salman Rushdie not to publish The Satanic Verses, only full fat support for him from a limited number of champions like Chris Hitchens etc. Even today, Dawkins won't ever get drawn on Islamism. Is he as dissapointing here as those warriors who won't pipe up to champion women's rights?

The trans phenomenon both tests the limits of "first, do no harm" versus "the patient must always be listened to". And it absolutely pits the twin pressures of # BeKind and preeminence of "the authentic self" against the need for society still to have boundaries external to lived experience, for the individual to have to fit into society and not the reverse.

This is the multi layered dilemma we have today. And why it's no simple task to just say Hislop or Cox should speak up freely. Freedoms are really relative right now.

I remember Hislop on HIGNFY when Jo Brand was chair and the issue of women being harassed in Parliament came up, Hislop described the abuse as being pretty low level stuff, other male panellists seem to agree, Jo made a marvellous comment about the constant abuse detrimentally affecting women, she got thunderous applause. Hislop just doesn't get it. Wouldn't trust him with women's rights at all

Oops see this was already covered in page 2!

The thing about whistle-blowers of all types, is that they tend to be people who can cope with making other people uncomfortable. For that reason, they are often quite difficult to be around - and they often struggle to build alliances because there is a fundamental tension between being willing to say the unsayable versus working easily with others.

It's easy to under-estimate how hard it is to whistle-blow, which is what Glinner is effectively doing on a grand scale. I was once a whistle-blower in a mild way at work and it was incredibly uncomfortable to find myself on the other side from my friends and colleagues. I just can't imagine doing what Glinner is doing, and I give him huge credit for it, even if I don't think his decisions are always wise. And it must be incredibly galling to know that there are many potential allies in powerful positions who agree with him in private, but are too cowardly to say so.

Linehan's problem is he keeps telling the truth. He's one of those Catholic kids who believed and then found out he was lied to. The sort MN are usually gushing over.

But now it seems he has a duty to shut up. It's mad Ted.

Helen Lewis is a regular on the Private Eye podcast, Page 94.

Very much agree with this. I once raised a safeguarding issue at a child's club and my child ended up leaving the club, so negative were the consequences (including the club leader questioning my mental health - which seems a common response also used against Linehan). It was a clear safeguarding failure and all the other parents agreed with my concern, but I was the only one who spoke up formally.

How people whistleblow on a grand scale, I don't know. The stress and consequences are both enormous even when you're clearly and incontrovertibly right.

Props to Denise Fahmy, Allison Bailey, Maya Forstater, and all the other brave women doing this as well as Linehan. And yes, very disappointing when people who you absolutely know can see the truth and have power to do good and prevent harm refuse to speak up.

Lots of points on here, but am sort of getting an impression that people think PE is signifigant which I find extremely weird.

What impact has it made on anything of any signifigance. It is just a playground for an elitist group. Who above everything else want to be part of and seen as equals to the elitist group.

I posted last night about how IH comments came across as classist and implying that for Ginner to carry on as he has and still does it a bit vulgar.

And catching up on today's thread see there are contributors who seem to think the same.

He is a writer who may not be the best public speaker, and doesn't always appreiciate (and why should he) what are very English sense of niceties.

And even more bizarre people question his motives for being committed. Just because everyone else dabbles, or only condescends to speak from some nice elitist conference platform or outlet considered to be of the right status, doesn't mean his approach is the problem.

In terms of the public at large, who has had more of an impact, the small group who read PE and like to snigger quietly in private or Glinner speaking out via the mass media.

Its the same sort of arguement that says KJK shouldn't have public meetings because the right wing turns up.

The problem is the established media dont want to address the issue so raise the spectre of his mental health, his wife leaving him, his loss of work as though that disqualifies him from having an opinon.

And they then filter what he is saying through this veil.

With friends like this who needs enemies.

And on a different point ...

The comment about Rachel Dolezal is not accurate. She had been very sucessful as someone saying they were a WoC and speaking on issues of racism.

It was really only after some years when she got quite a high profile job that in fact her family outed her. And they did that for betraying whiteness.

So no it wasn't nipped in the bud.

And as ever it only got any public push back because the media picked up on it. And decided she was in the wrong. And I very much doubt they did that out of any real committment to PoC.

And as we know the problem for gender critical feminists is that the media has given TRAs a free platform. Had the media decided women should be listened to and believed this whole Alice in Wonderland situation would never have been created.

Rachel Dolzeal is often used as an example of an unacceptable comparator to trans. If it's not ok for her to say she is black then why is it okay for men to say they're women?

But I watched the Netflix documentary and came away with a huge amount of sympathy for her. Firstly, it was very apparent why she identified as black - her parents adopted four or five black children. Then they and their white son systematically abused Rachel and her black siblings for years. When she finally escaped from her family home she adopted the two youngest of her black siblings herself and they appeared to have a lot of affection and respect for her, as well as being lovely young men - One of them got a place at Harvard and he was bullied out of going because of his adopted mother.

She was gentle, quiet and worked in and for her adopted community until she began to get vile hate mail calling her horrible names. This made the news and this is whwnher white family exposed her. The documentary showed a reporter confronting her with it when he turned up to interview her about the hate mail.

There is one scene where she is on stage at some event taking questions from a very hostile audience, she answers the questions with dignity, not losing her temper. She says 'what do you want me to do? I exist.'

At one point she is being interviewed on camera and says ' I didn't want to look in the mirror every day and see that little white girl who had been abused.'

How could anyone watch that documentary and have anything but compassion and maybe some respect for her? Some trans people have a similar story. But many do not come across as sympathetically.

A very interesting comparison. If you have not watched the documentary, then do.

Yes, she certainly has a complex story. I knew everything you mentioned bar the adopting her two siblings.

But nothing changes the fact that she isn't black, even if her formative experience was a real melting point.

I mean, if her siblings were instead all autistic or physically disabled, would it be right for her to commandeer those IDs too?

And it seems like the black community refused point blank to look the other way when she was outed. Why do you think they were as of one here, and why haven't women been able to do the same with transwomen?

Interestingly she initially IDd as African American, but when it was put to her as a white girl from Alaska she has zero family history of slavery, she's changed that ID to plain ol' trans black/PoC.

I haven't read the full thread. But just commenting that the word "unhinged" seems cruel as it implies out of control and insecure in one's argument, or even unstable. I don't see that with Glinner. He is quite grounded, quite secure in his articulation of reality, despite continually being told he is wrong. Many people would have had a breakdown under that kind of pressure. There are many who can see he is telling the truth but few who have his courage in speaking it. If it weren't for those like him we would be in deep trouble. He says what many are thinking. It is poor show and cowardice from Hislop who surely can't look at what is happening with children and young people with equanimity. But the suggestion that he (Hislop) speaks truth to power is laughable in this context.

Did Boyle actually say that?

If he did and by any chance he sees this, can I say how pathetic it is. It's offensive but not for the reasons Boyle would think. I am a middle class, late middle aged Tory voting Edinburgh lady but that's not why it offends me.

I hate that phrase because it's so hackneyed. It might have had a frisson of shock the first time it was used; now it's the unimaginative misogynist's version of the MN "are you on glue?"

Dec 18th 2023 - I have just listened to Hyslop's hour-long PoliticsJOE interview on Youtube. He covered the Coronation, the Covid Inquiry, Partygate, Boris, Truss crashing the economy, how rubbish Sunak is, the NHS the doctor's strike,Israel and Gaza, Sunak's spat with Greece, Sturgeon's downfall, the police investigation into SNP finances and much much more - but not the tiniest hint of a mention of the part Self ID played, or anything to do with the Trans issue at all. It's the 21st century's version of Don't Mention the War - don't FGS mention Trans.