Graham Linehan. Hero? Villain? Madman? Publicity Hound?

[millwall32 114]

There's another forum which  I'm banned from that has several very long threads about Graham Linehan. Trans Mania: Graham Linehan is an Obsessive Transphobe (cookdandbombd.co.uk) (Note Deathlist admins: I got banned from it for using the word "retarded". Not even for calling someone retarded, but for using the word "retarded'". It's a very PC/woke space.) 

I've had a bit of free time in the last few days and I went through most of the Graham Linehan threads on there and listened to the audiobook of  his autobiography on a plane. 

I wondered what people on here thought of the whole "Graham Linehan Trans Row".

I can't decide between his own self image (defender of women's rights who's also bravely raising and publicising severe abuse of children) and the more critical view of him (basically raging transphobe/ homophobe who's literally gone insane over the subject and is a severely nasty piece of work.) Having listened to his story from his point of view in a bit more depth I'm still totally undecided.

Do Deathlisters have any thoughts on him?
 

[Spade_Cooley 9,569]

This strikes me as a great idea for a thread and one that'll surely bring disparate political sides together in an intelligent and cordial atmosphere. Can't wait to read it.

[millwall32 114]

Just now, Spade_Cooley said:

This strikes me as a great idea for a thread and one that'll surely bring disparate political sides together in an intelligent and cordial atmosphere. Can't wait to read it.

Well, if you can see anything uncordial in what I've written point it out to me and I'll change it. 

Genuine question, sincerely asked.

[Commtech Sio Bibble 2,063]

2 minutes ago, millwall32 said:

Do Deathlisters have any thoughts on him?

Probably, but I'm not sure that I want to hear what the likes on Bon Scott have to say on this bigoted divorcee.

[millwall32 114]

Just now, Commtech Sio Bibble said:

Probably, but I'm not sure that I want to hear what the likes on Bon Scott have to say on this bigoted divorcee.

He's been dead 44 years. He won't say much at all.

 

Out of interest, why do you go straight to "divorcee" ? 

[Clorox Bleachman 2,460]

 

Perhaps this was the moment he became obsessed with genitals...

[millwall32 114]

11 minutes ago, Clorox Bleachman said:

 

Perhaps this was the moment he became obsessed with genitals...

That's one of the elements that confuses me :  "obsessed with genitals".
It does seem to have become an obsession for him.

Having said that, I can't see much that he's saying which isn't factual. Even if his "spin' on the facts may be extreme. 

It may be one of the oldest problems for anyone discussing any subject- "It's not what you're saying, it's *how* you're saying it."

[Spade_Cooley 9,569]

23 minutes ago, Clorox Bleachman said:

 

Perhaps this was the moment he became obsessed with genitals...

 

[TQR 14,414]

There are lots of words to describe Linehan. A fair few of which are anatomical, so let's pick the most appropriate one, the one that we all have in common, whether you're a man, a woman, an enby or anything in between, whether you're trans, not trans or just have gammon-infuriating pronouns.

 

Linehan is an arsehole.

 

Thread complete.

[millwall32 114]

1 minute ago, TQR said:

There are lots of words to describe Linehan. A fair few of which are anatomical, so let's pick the most appropriate one, the one that we all have in common, whether you're a man, a woman, an enby or anything in between, whether you're trans, not trans or just have gammon-infuriating pronouns.

 

Linehan is an arsehole.

 

Thread complete.

Sure, maybe. But what exactly are you saying makes him an arsehole?

I definitely see objective  evidence of him being obsessive. 

Mind you, are you saying that the sheer level of obsession makes him an areshole?

[Dying Probably 579]

To address the title, 3/4 of them. Hint: not the first one.

Transphobia is just simply being a pain in the arse for the sake of being a pain in the arse, as the statistics around the topic are showing over the years - and Linehan's constant bitching and moaning on the subject makes him all the more arsehole-y.

He's up there with J.K. Rowling as someone who shot their career in the foot by being, as TQR said, an arsehole - and then had the bollocks to decry something that seems basic. "Cancel culture" isn't what happened here: it's the consequence of your own actions.

 

Piss on your Cheerios and they're going to taste like piss.

[msc 18,491]

He's an idiot. Before his first Twitter ban he was doing twitter exposes of trans women, which is already dodgy enough, and had a habit of getting confused by actually non-trans women, like a social media Don Quixote. He became an ardent climate denialist and vaccine doubter and has gotten so bad on his issues even Musk's Twitter banned him. When Channel 4 are willing to work with anyone he burned his bridge there, because of one episode of an unfunny sitcom. The Father Ted team stuck by him even after all this only for him to demand they publicly backed his views, which led to him getting axed from the musical. His agents dropped him after standing by his side because he made them choose between himself and David Tennant. He's lost money, friends and family because he's absolutely unhinged and sees enemies everywhere. If it weren't for his death threats to people you'd almost feel sorry for him as he's clearly mentally ill but so are a lot of people who don't destroy everything they know and love.

 

See, JK Rowling still has friends (including liberal friends who disagree with her transphobia), and money, and influence, so I'd dispute that being "trans exclusionary" is enough to get you cancelled. You have to put a lot more effort in, like Graham has repeatedly.

[millwall32 114]

I've just got to the end of his book and I have a couple of conclusions, good and bad.

 

1) Great comedy writer. If you look at the thread on Cook's and Bomb'd , link above, there's a very obvious feeling of those who wrongly consider themselves to be comedy talents kicking a man when he's down. (Or perhaps, more accurately, kicking a man when he's too mentally distracted to fight back.) 

2) He's obsessive. I can't think of any autobiography I've ever read that focusses so much on one topic that isn't strictly related to the reason the subject is famous. For example, if you read a celebrity "recovery memoir", you won't find that 80% of it is related to AA meetings, drug dealers, and *other people's* drug use. Linehan's story is around 4/5 related to the trans issue. He's allowed himself to become solely associated with it. Maybe he thought that he'd get more support or be able to parle it into a positive career branch. That won't happen since he's come to be seen as obsessed with trans rather than informed about it.

 

3) He has no presentation skills on the Trans issue. He shares the truly horrifying stories: men being allowed into women's prisons and women's spaces, abuse of children, blackmail, online abuse etc. But tends to come across as angry and nothing else. I think the key is that there's not a single constructive suggestion anywhere about what to do for trans people in legal or legislative terms. One of those, anywhere, would change the whole tone.

Maybe this comes from the fact he's a writer. They're not supposed to be emotionally intelligent in the real world, only in abstract. 

 

4) He's too reactive. If you're in an online argument about an issue you should never allow yourself to get personal while criticising  the other party. This is the exact stage at which you've lost the argument and they've won on presentation grounds. You are, in effect, drowning your own argument out. This is doubly so if you are wholly or in part in the right.  And from time to time, he is in the right. I'm far from being a media expert, but I'd say he'd be far better off sharing the evidence of the shocking stories he's come across and then *not* commenting on them further. Let others do their own working out so that he doesn't come across as haranguing on the issue.   

 

NB- I'm in the States at the moment. Los Angeles to be precise. I had a coffee with a trans friend yesterday, asked them if they'd ever heard of Graham Linehan and they hadn't. So maybe the ultimate irony here is that there's been no "cut through" in media terms.

 

 

 

[millwall32 114]

Having said all that, I'm more interested in what others think.

 

Any thoughts DL'ers??

[Death Impends 8,011]

Just gave Anita Bryant's book a read. She's a bit too consumed by this obsession with the gay issue but raises some pretty salient points on the horror stories over how they're invading straight spaces and corrupting the children.

[millwall32 114]

Just now, Death Impends said:

Just gave Anita Bryant's book a read. She's a bit too consumed by this obsession with the gay issue but raises some pretty salient points on the horror stories over how they're invading straight spaces and corrupting the children.

Anita Bryant is an interesting example.

As far as I can tell she was/is simply "anti-gay". IIRC, the original stance on Gay Rights which made her famous was that she wanted to repeal a law that outlawed discriminating against gays in employment . recruiting . Or to put it another way, she wanted to make it legal to not recruit people for being gay.

 

I don't think Linehan is saying anything similar. He's not saying it should be illegal to transition, or that transitioning is wrong per se.

In an odd way his position on the trans issue is more nuanced and tolerant than Bryant's on Gay Rights.
And I'd agree that they both have the odd salient point mixed in with everything else.

 

Maybe the key difference in presentation is that while Bryant was widely despised and mocked she always came across as a slightly dotty aunt; Linehan comes across as an obsessive who's fighting individuals. 

 

NB- Do we know anything about Bryant's current health for the main List. All IO can find is that she's 84, and seems to be running a ministry in Oaklahoma.

[Sean 6,343]

Graham Linehan is a comedic genius. I dont disagree with all his points on transgenderism specifically that children transitioning is dangerous and not right but he is a fanatical obsessive who lacks any nuance in his talking points.

[millwall32 114]

I've learned quite a lot about the concept of "less is more" by reading his book.

[Death Impends 8,011]

Anyways that's enough of "is this raging bigotry anything remotely resembling a coherent ideology" for one thread