In Defence Of Graham Linehan; Part Two - That Newsnight Interview

*See Part one

*Part 3 A Glinner of Cope

One day, this will make a great film. 

Great as in, genuinely batshit crazy, leaving audiences incredulous, asking did they miss something? Were those demented trans activists following a script created by the Church of Scientology and Annie Wilkes? Did they swear an oath of omertà? And was that a horse's head on Caroline Farrow's doorstep, or a real lawyer? 

Message boards will spring up, filled with flabbergasted future-people, wondering if there was some spore-based mind control parasite back then? Theories will emerge - it was unleashed ahead of the Trump administration, to make Q-ankers look plausible. Men are women, if they say so. Pah! Those deluded, turd-for-brains tarts. 

One of Glinner's early involvements with gender politics was when he, along with a who's who of veteran gay rights campaigners and at least three transsexuals wrote to Stonewall with concerns of their new direction asking them to acknowledge a conflict between women's rights and trans rights, and to try to lower that toxicity by accepting that a different opinion isn't hate. 

They heard back within the day. It was a blunt, unwavering 'no'.   

Say what you want about Glinner - and people do - but he's candid about what drives him. In fact he can't hold it in. 

Still, he's painted into a corner, filtered through a pre-poisoned well. Take his Newsnight interview a couple of years ago, a classic ambush on live TV. 

With chilling execution, Sarah Smith's warm smile drops within seconds as she morphs into some kind of winged bastard, circling menacingly before making swooping dives for Linehan's scalp. It's like watching a vindictive osprey. 

She demands he repent, but leaves no time for him to speak. 

And of course, for his detractors, Linehan was expertly served his arse - but look at the comments under it - I scrolled and scrolled - it's hard to find anyone who isn't defending him, not just from this bad faith hit piece, but politically, generally, and on the specific points raised. 

That's because he made sense and the stitch up was obvious. No wonder 'no debate' was pushed so hard. Any scrutiny sees this house of cards collapse. All they have is ad hominen. 

Consider the favourite angle for his detractors over the last few years has been his divorce, illustrating just how visceral, personal and illogical their issues with him are. 

This isn't so much political disagreement as a hate figure scapegoat, offered up for communal catharsis. Just imagine, this was your life being mocked?

Note the parody Graham Linehan account and superficially decent Katy Montgomerie 

Here is nothing but a flicker of a snapshot. In reality it's a constant onslaught that's lasted years: a barrage of smirking taunts, smart-arse, middle aged men claiming to be lesbians (who have, allegedly, never had a relationship breakdown...) and tedious in-jokes from spiteful shit heads who crumble at a sex-based pronoun. I'd be furious my friends weren't standing up for me. 

Without speculating on the relationship of people I don't know, I wonder if the marriage breakdown could be related to TRAs targeting his family, his wife's business, their income, the police being sent to their home, the threats and general harassment? I wonder how the unrelenting digs impact his family now? 

Fucking imagine being dismissed as obsessed when that's happening? Do you think there's anything he could have done to call off the dogs? I don't. 

Maybe he hits out at friends with a zeal that makes you wince. Probably we can sympathise with the embarrassment - but if it were me, I'd be doing foul-mouthed call outs every day, like a traveller with an intra familial grudge (sorry, Anna). I'd invite them all round for dinner under the guise of an apology, maybe in a This Is Your Life format, and livestream the confrontation from multiple hidden cameras. I'd go fucking nuclear, oh yeah. 

Why not be a bit braver? Say you value trans people's rights and recognise their struggle with dysphoria is painful, but you also believe in sex as an important and immutable category. 

Why would that be a problem? Trans rights activists aren't deranged, malicious bastards who'll try to ruin you for the smallest off-script deviation, are they? You do know they're trying to destroy a man's life because he doesn't think this is a lesbian, yeah? 

Is that okay with you? 

Iconic trailblazer
Alex Drummond - A beard & interest in lesbian sex may seen par for the course, but add in eyeliner and 'The Rachel" haircut and ta-dah, actual lesbian

One thing to particularly piss me off is the sanctimonious bullshit that gender critics are ambivalent about abortion access, or even opposed to it. 

Let's think back to the Repeal the 8th campaign, which finally overturned the abortion ban in Ireland. 

I watched closely - my children are half Irish and the idea of moving there was a possibility I said I'd consider if the ban was overturned. 

Amid the debate was Glinner, who, along with his wife, Helen, spoke about the horror and trauma of their first pregnancy being non-viable. 

They went on a media tour with Amnesty International, to decry the inhumanity of a law that would force Helen to carry a doomed pregnancy to full term, or criminalise her for saving her and the feotus' suffering. Glinner squeezed Helen's hand as her voice wobbled, the love there was obvious. It was painful, compelling testimony. 

It can't have been an easy decision to speak about such personal loss. Every time the TRAs pull this shit I want to scream. 

So, when Colm O'Gorman of Amnesty International Ireland turned on Glinner and feminists generally, I wonder how that felt. It makes me think of the high rate of psychopaths in positions such as his. It's willful, mendacious and O'Gorman's shitty mansplaining and attempts to silence women should not be forgotten, even if it's a story for another day. 

Sarah, who claims to have been threatened with being shot by Julie Bindel, of all people 

Maybe, after seeing the attempt to have him voted as The Last Leg's 'Dick of the Year' (which he managed to turn back round on the twats, like a master) you think he sounds bad, but that those nominating him were light-hearted. 

It was just a bit of fun, maybe with a serious point behind it blah fucking-blah-something-pretentious and vague. Well, it wasn't. 

He's been accused of comparing trans activists, medical protocols, or sometimes trans people, to nazis, which is ironic when you remember multiple trans activists, even covid-ballad crooner Billy Bragg, can get away with overt and direct comparisons between the Holocaust and women having boundaries. 

Bragg is in the middle, ish, above, along with all the other muh' genderites who don't understand words, or politics, or know of even another genocidal regime within the last 70 years that the determined hyperbolist could make a spurious analogy with. 

The Metro cover one confected outrage here, but it's clear as day Linehan's speaking about the intense social pressure to toe the line, and the severe consequences for protesting and resisting, a popular, authoritarian movement;

 ‘I can now answer the question honestly of, if you were around the time of something terrible happening like Nazism, or whatever it happened to be, would you be one of the people who said, “No, this is wrong”, despite being opposed? I feel happy in myself that I’ve been one of the people standing up and saying “no, this is wrong”, despite everybody telling me not to do it.’

It's interesting, uncomfortable, and true. While we now live in such a cosseted world the only frame of reference our special, really, super-duper unique individuals have is a European atrocity that almost no one alive can recall, most of society still regurgitate the words 'Trans Women Are Women' to order. Hence the reputation-shattering consequences at the acknowledgement that men are not, in fact, women. 

It reminds me of this; 

So perhaps it really is time to start planning your escape route and thinking ahead to the time you're asked "you didn't really believe rapists like are women and should be in women's prisons, because they said so?" or "you didn't seriously think treating kids with drugs which chemically castrate them, leaving them sexually immature, infertile and sick was good, did you?" or even "I know the trans activists were wetting themselves over their genocide larp, and doing Martin Neimöller rip offs like the ludicrous pricks they are, but you didn't actually ignore those who made principled stances and were vilified for it?" 

Support Glinner's defence against the nutters - it's not got long to run, and if you can't face them down yourself, it's a good idea to help those who do.