Russell T Davies losing the plot in more ways than one

[Mollyollydolly]

Not content with destroying Dr Who he's blathering on again about the threat to gay rights. Trans activism destroys everything including good writers and Dr Who.
I worked with him years ago before he was famous. I thought he was the most talented person I ever met. It still fascinates me how we both ended up so far apart. He's lost the plot in so many ways.

Two articles from Jo Bartosch and Brendan O'Neill.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/6e9111c77bc56c4c

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/08/11/it-wasnt-trump-who-trashed-gay-rights-it-was-the-trans-lobby/

I used to think he was amazing - I remember the transhumanism plotline in Years and Years and wondering if he “got it”. Although I’m increasingly convinced that a lot of these people absolutely “get it”, they’re just craven enough to discard it in name of ambition.

I'd forgot about that. Yes I remember at the time I thought it was a dig at trans ideology. Maybe it was the last time he actually thought about it rather than what he's doing now.

He said that Trump wants gay people

‘biologically altered to become as straight as him’.

My irony meter has exploded.

That's such a dumb thing to say about Trump, there is no reason to think he has any problem with gay people. He's always been pretty clear that he doesn't care, he hires plenty of gay people, and iirc, his mentor was a gay man.

I don't understand how it is that people like Davis just make this stuff up, with no reference to reality.

I have never got the love for him? His writing is not great, the dialogue is always so unnatural that it distracts from the plot.

Didn’t you see the kid slowly transitioning throughout years and years? It was a horrific ‘background this is normal and natural type thing.’

He’s awful

I read the article about this in the guardian, and nowhere in the article did it give any clue about which gay rights were affected in the UK. I couldn't understand why the term 'gay rights', rather than, say, 'LGBT rights' was being used, since the only area of alleged rollback (ie correction to comply with the actual legal situation) relates to trans people.

Unless of course Russel T Davies was referring to the curtailment of lesbians to meet and associate without men, or to define their homosexuality???

I'm the last one to defend Trump, but I haven't seen any evidence he plans to roll back gay rights, particularly. Is there actually any evidence of this? Genuine question.

RTD is a misogynist. It comes through so clearly in his writing. Women are servant-humans to men, there to further the plot or support male endeavour. They don’t get convincing dialogue or stories of their own.

It’s A Sin was based on the memoir of the fantastic Jill, who was relegated in the TV show to be the nursemaid for the men with no need for her to have a life or ambition of her own. No recognition that ordinary women (particularly lesbians) cared for men dying of AIDS at a time when the world turned its back.

I used to think he was wonderful. I do think he has a blind spot when it comes to women, unfortunately, like so many men.

But it's also perplexing that he doesn't understand the threat gender ideology poses to gay rights, both because young gay men and lesbians are being homophobically "transed" and because lesbian (and to a lesser extent gay male) organisations have been infiltrated by people of the opposite sex. These are not difficult things to understand. I suppose some people just choose not to understand.

I agree with you about 'It's a Sin" wicked mother or a carer seemed to be the only two types of women.

I despair.

At almost precisely the same moment that rumours about Trumps bisexuality are starting to circulate

There are lots of objections one could have to Trump, but he was gay-friendly long before it was popular. He was dancing with the Village People at his inauguration. Elton John says nice things about him.

I think this is all about RTD signalling which political tribe he belongs to, and if he has to hallucinate Trump oppressing gay people then that's what he'll do.

Now what we really need is for everyone to be honest and admit that LGBTQWERTY is a political label that's only tangentially related to sexual orientation, and then lesbian and gay and bi people can just be lesbian and gay and bi without having to indulge in tribal rituals like voting Labour or pretending to like Doctor Who.

Its interesting that in the first article by Jo Bartosch she pushes blame on to stonewall trained teachers but seems to miss the roll that the media has played in all of this, often refusing to print GC views, sometimes being entirely GI and no debate, incorrectly sexing criminals etc.

I believe the real Jill was in drama college with RTD.

I loved his work, had seen it all.

Now I just think what a dumb-dumb.

Years and years was brilliant and terrifying at the same time.

Read the synopsis of the first episode in particular (it was written in 2019)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Years_and_Years_(TV_series)

To then get it so wildly wrong on this is curious, but you also have to remember how much he did get right and how that possible made him so arrogant as a by-product.

@RedToothBrush I loved Years and Years, it was like a vision of the near future, and quite terrifying.

There was a thread reflecting on whether the TRAs have made women re-evaluate gay men's attitudes and I feel that I have changed the way I view many gay men and RTD is a good example.

As a twenty- and thirty-something, I was very pro-gay rights and admired and enjoyed Queer As Folk a lot when it came out. I remember the bit of controversy when it first aired (explicitness and the fact one character is 15, having sex with a 30-year-old man) and at the time I thought that was bold and I also agreed with RTD's response to criticism that he only represented men, poking fun at lesbians. He said the burden of representing everyone couldn't lie with him alone.

That would have worked out fine if new female TV dramatists had then written witty series about lesbian experiences. But they never really came (I'm not counting the daft L-Word import) and 25+years later it's still RTD riffing on the same themes of cute horny boys, middle-aged lusters-after them and the romantic tragedy of it all. The women are, as people have pointed out, support characters: good mothers who are on their boy's side or repressive witches, good-hearted straight female fag hags / allies with no need of their own lives, caricatured lesbians. It's A Sin was particularly mawkish and uninventive.

His monopoly of gay stories on UK TV mirrors what I came to realise about many gay men I knew or knew of in the media: they didn't care about women, they just wanted to centre themselves and other men, the objects of their fascination. They could fetishise women in a kind of uncomfortable appropriation (no, most gay drag wasn't funny, with perhaps the honourable exceptions of acts like Paul O'Grady who seemed to actually like women).Their attitudes to pornography and under-age sex was that it was all fine if it was all male.

When the trans madness came along, I could only respect gay men who spoke out for women, and precious few there were. I'm now not only sceptical about gay men's attitudes, not seeing them as allies, but am happy to question the romantic way very young women tend to regard gay men: they aren't on your side.

It depends on how you define gay rights, I suppose. If gay rights have indeed become more contentious then it will most likely have been because of things like DQST, and objections to the way in which many Pride marches have turned into a parade of sexual fetishes and kink.

The cancellation and cessation of funding to local Pride events has come about because of the over-reach of trans activism and/or because key figures have been found out to be sex offenders.

The issue of surrogacy has brought into question gay men using women to have children.....and this could well be an issue for people like Davies too.

Over-reach and lack of respect for boundaries is entirely down to trans activism and the over-reach and imposition of gay sub-cultures onto the public.

I suppose, with equality having been more or less achieved, the normie gay men who just wanted to live their lives are just living their lives. Which means the "scene", Pride events etc come to be more dominated by the fetish and kink element, with their friends among the spicy straights.

I'd almost forgotten about that Queer As Folk storyline, which seemed brave at the time, but it gets me thinking. I'm cautious about mentioning the fetishisation of very young men or adolescent boys in some parts of gay male culture, but it's never gone away. Talk to middle aged gay men about their history and a surprising number will talk about their early experiences with much older men in an "it never did me any harm" way.

I want to be absolutely clear that ephebophilia is still a thing with straight men. It even exists with straight women, if we go by the number of female teachers who get into trouble for copping off with teenage boys. But I don't think it's respectable in the way that it is in certain gay male subcultures. I wonder if, even 30 years ago, a straight dramatist could have got away with showing a 30-year-old man in a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl and not being explicitly condemnatory about it.

Perhaps that's a generational thing - I have an impression young gay men are very hot on consent - but in the meantime we're left with some gay artists who get older and older but never grow out of their fascination with horny boys.

If society cuts more slack to gay artists on moral boundaries, I can see the historical reasons for it, but I feel that slack is diminishing.

And yes! Where were the witty and insightful lesbian dramas? It's almost as if, once a few gay men had their foot in the door, the "LGB" box was ticked and no women were required.

Where were the witty and insightful lesbian dramas? It's almost as if, once a few gay men had their foot in the door, the "LGB" box was ticked and no women were required.

The two that spring to mind are Gentleman Jack and Fingersmith - both historical dramas, interestingly. I can't think of modern dramas where lesbian storylines are centred in the same way.

Great post. I feel similarly.

They were adapted from source material, same with Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit which is the only other one I can think of (all the way back in 1990!). Where is the original screenplay lesbian-focused drama?

The BBC licence model clearly isn't sustainable going forwards. It will be interesting to see how favourites like Davies survive in a more commercially ruthless future.