Not in the mood
The Times talks to Graham Linehan:
Over the past four years he has lost almost everything, campaigning obsessively, not against trans rights, he insists — “I know more trans people than the people who call me transphobic” — but for women’s rights.
Of course he insists, because it’s true. The defense of women’s rights is framed as an attack on trans rights via the expedient of never bothering to explain what “trans rights” are and who says so and why we have to defend them at the expense of women’s rights. There is no “right” to force the world to pretend to believe your fantasy about yourself.
With his wife he was part of the writing team behind the 2016 pilot episode of Motherland but Linehan left midway through the creation of the first series, broadcast the following year. By then he was becoming embroiled in sexual politics and he links his rising interest in the trans rights debate to his work during the campaign in Ireland to decriminalise abortion.
He and Helen took part in a short film made by Amnesty International, which focused on their own tragic case. After an 11-week pregnancy, Helen was advised by doctors in London to terminate the pregnancy because her foetus had been found to have a condition known as acrania, and there was no chance that the baby would survive longer than an hour after birth. In Dublin Helen would have been forced to carry the pregnancy or face a 14-year prison sentence for procuring an illegal abortion. The film about their experience, says Linehan, “helped to moved the needle in many ways”.
See also: Texas.
Then something took him by surprise. “It was such an odd thing but I was in Dublin at a protest. Someone was going, ‘Women’s right to abortion!’ And we went, ‘Yeah!’ Then they said, ‘And trans people need to have their operations paid for by the state!’ And we went, ‘What?’
So they went “Terf!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“I did what everyone does: you’re very polite, calling for debate. You say things that you cannot imagine anyone would disagree with, like ‘a lesbian does not have a penis’. And yet the pushback was so ferocious.”
…
He emphasises repeatedly that he has trans friends and says many agree with his views. He distinguishes them from the activists, who he reckons take their cue from Donald Trump, to achieve their ends at any costs.
Part of the bully class, he explains.
He cites two of the best known trans women sports competitors. “Laurel Hubbard is Trump; Rachel McKinnon, the cyclist, is Trump,” he says. “Anyone who can get on a bike, or beat women easily and take the money, and take the crown, that’s a narcissist, that’s a narcissistic psychopath. These are the people who are being emboldened by activists who think they’re helping transsexuals”.
Ok but why can’t he just go back to comedy? Huh? Huh?
“And do what? Dance round the maypole? I’m not in the mood. I’m happy to put on the hat with the bells on it but only when the house isn’t on fire, but the house is on fire. The. House. Is. On. Fire.”
Women’s rights are on fire, and the right to tell the obvious truth is on fire.
Even Wikipedia describes Linehan as an “anti-transgender activist.” So this either means an activist for or against anti-transgender, or opposed to transgender activists? The description is so bad there is no way to clear it up.
Then also on his Wikipedia page, the first reference is a link to a Pink News article. The link says he “whines to the House of Lords” when the actual article says no such thing. Someone doing Wiki editing obviously has it in for him.
So the people who insist on the validity of gender self description won’t accept Linehan’s self description.
There is no reason to engage in mutual courtesy if you believe the other side is a monster. I think gender identity doctrine and its fallout is monstrously pseudoscientific and dangerous, but I’ve always credited the vast majority of proponents as meaning well, as following the same values I have for fairness, kindness, liberty etc but using poorly reasoned conclusions to arrive at different policies. But social justice theories often start out with the premise that the oppressors positively enjoy oppression: they’re haters, sadists, and monsters beyond reason. No common ground; no debate.
I would carefully craft an argument demonstrating a self-contradiction way back in the beginning of Gender Identity Doctrine, and would then watch all the responses roll in ignoring it and asking that I instead explain why I hated trans people soooo much. That’s what people do when their reasoning is weak, but passion is strong. They demonize the other side and think it’s only description.
Whenever people say that men can get away with being gender critical, I consider the exceptions like Graham. He will never write a sit com again. Probably.
Sastra #4
I admire your patience, especially when dealing with so much bad faith from the other side. As I keep saying, I don’t doubt that many of the people riding the Gender Ideology bandwagon got on it for reasons that seemed both noble and worthy at the time. I’m less convinced that there’s anything particularly “noble” or “worthy” about their motivations today. I think people are attracted to all sorts of causes or movements out of a sincere desire to do good, but once they have made a commitment, it increasingly becomes about reducing cognitive dissonance, consistency with former statements or actions, group conformity, peer pressure, rooting for one’s “team”, keeping the group together etc.
“Sounds good to us!” — Texas
“We see no problem with that.” — U.S. Supreme Court
@ #5 – I know that many peoiple who stake their position based on “kindness” towards trans IDing males (if they are even aware of trans IDing women they don’t specify,) do not want to hear about the nasty things that trans activists do toward “TERFs” and if they do hear of them, blame the reporter and tell them to stop reporting. It is an imposition on their ability to maintain good will.
Michael Haubrich #7
There’s something very analogous to both “willful blindness” and religious extremism of going on here, isn’t there. William C. Clifford’s classical text on the Ethics of Belief also comes to mind. I don’t see it as any kind of redeeming trait or mitigating circumstance to say that someone sincerely believes they’re doing the right thing if they talked themselves into holding such a belief for ideological, tribalistic, self-serving. or just plain bad reasons and are unwilling to even consider any evidence of argument to the contrary. And as I have previously written, if TRAs deserve some points for their willingness to err on the side most favorable to trans people, then surely they also deserve to lose some points for the corresponding willingness to err on the side least favorable to feminists and women in general.
I recommend Linehan’s newsletter, The Glinner Update: https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/
Richard: Also his (and Arty Morty and Helen Staniland’s) podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/c/GrahamLinehan/videos
Usually on Wednesday 4pm UK time, sometimes an extra one on a weekend.
Bjarte #5 – you have given a pretty good description of the old me.
When the “bathroom wars” erupted, I didn’t see any great problem with “use the bathroom you’re most comfortable with”. Maybe that’s because I have never been a woman.
When the great TERF hunt began at FTB, I thought it was a storm in a teacup. Man, I was wrong.
I remember empathising with a FTM blogger there over her struggle for a hysterectomy, as my stepdaughter faced a similar struggle. Jo kept being told she was “too young” at 32, even though the endo was destroying her ability to work and parent.
But the more I read and heard from TRAs, not genuine trans people, but those who jumped on the activist bandwagon, originally for good reasons, the more sickened I became by the underlying hatred of women. I had to get off that bandwagon or be consumed by it.
I still want to see trans people be able to lead a fulfilling life, to be free from bullying and violence. I want that for all my fellow humans. But I will not stand by while women are (figuratively) burned at the stake, where hard won women’s rights are hand waved away, and where the Gender Police make and enforce the rules.
I think someone else put it more eloquently