#graham linehan

[vavandeveresfan]

J.K. Rowling has been proven right!

"The Cass Review is a damning indictment of what the NHS has been doing to children.

"Dr Hilary Cass has submitted her final report and recommendations to NHS England in her role as Chair of the Independent Review of gender identity services for children and young people.

"Hilary Cass’s report demolishes the entire basis for the current model of treating gender-distressed children. Its publication is a shameful day for NHS England, which for too long gave vulnerable children harmful treatments for which there was no evidence base. It’s now clear to all that this was quack medicine from the start. 

"Dr Cass delivers stinging criticisms of NHS gender clinics, both adult and child, and her description of the Gender Identity Development Service is absolutely damning. It is disgraceful that GIDS, alongside the adult clinics, did not cooperate with her attempt to survey its practice, or to carry out a high-quality, long-term follow-up study on the treatment of children as part of the review, which would have been a global first."

You can read the entire review here. (pdf)

"Glinner" is Graham Linehan, a writer, screenwriter, and comedian who's been fighting against transitioning minors for years, losing friends, his job, and his agent along the way. But he's kept on fighting.

,

;

.

.

The tide has turned in the UK and in Europe. When will American media finally begin reporting on the closing of "gender clinics" and the bans on puberty blockers for children? I figure nothing will happen here in the U.S. until the lawsuits start flooding in. It's already begun. And with proof like the Cass Review and the WPATH files, it's going to be very, very difficult for clinics, doctors, and therapists to continue lying about how transitioning does no permanent and irreversible physical and psychological harm.

[mysharona1987]

This could easily apply to JK Rowling and Graham Linehan too.

I remember the reason Graham’s wife left him wasn’t so much that she disagreed with his political views (she’s gender critical, iirc), but that he was making 100 to 200 tweets about it *per day* and it became his absolute obsession in life.

“Honey, did you take out the bins?”

“Not now, the world needs my 5,782nd tweet about public bathrooms.”

It would get exhausting.

[feminismisstillahatemovement]

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: The Most Divorced Time of year

[mysterious circle of robed figures] JK Rowling: hello children Rowling: today we continue our quessst to rehabilitate glinner Rowling: i will not ressst until he isss reintegrated into ssociety Rowling: and not ssleeping on my couch anymore

Rowling: cuz you know Rowling: that man isss Rowling: i mean ssure i hate transs people too Rowling: but i have other interesstsss assss well Rowling: Rowling: i'll let you know asss sssoon asss i think of sssome

Rowling: i do have other interesstsss outsside of transsphobia Rowling: like Rowling: for example Rowling: i like hating on autissstic people too Rowling: i mean, let's be frank Rowling: they've had it too good for too long

Rowling: and, you know, dissabled people Rowling: and the goblinsss Rowling: in fact actually i'm pretty versssatile Rowling: i'm almossst as well-rounded as hp lovecraft if you think about it

Graham Lineham: jk did you know that trans people have smaller skull shapes Rowling: it's 1 pm graham, why are you sstill in pajamas Lineham: i've been researching how the trans control the media Rowling: did you even try to look for a job today

Rowling: graham here's the newssspaper Rowling: hey maybe you could look at the want adsss Rowling: bet there'sss plenty of openingsss for a transsphobic comedy writer Lineham: i don't read newspapers, i heard that the wood pulp industry is captured by trans activists Lineham: they put estrogen in the news ink Lineham: you know Lineham: to get you Rowling: Rowling: wait really? Rowling: shit maybe i should sstart possting that

Rowling: graham ssseriousssly Rowling: you could at leassst apply Lineham: no everyone's against me Lineham: there's no jobs for a fearless truth teller like me Rowling: i Rowling: how Rowling: we live in england! there'sss nothing BUT jobsss for transsphobesss! Rowling: how are you still unemployed!?!

Rowling: look jussst march into the BBC and asssk if they're hiring any transsphobesss Rowling: maybe they'll be impressssed with your moxie and hire you Lineham: it doesn't work like that these days Rowling: jusst wear a sssuit and ssit in the lobby til they hire you!

Lineham: i've got a great idea to get back in people's good graces! Rowling: whatss that Lineham: well you know how david tennant is the most beloved man in the country? Rowling: right Lineham: well if i can bring him down, then i will assume his place Lineham: as the most beloved man in the country Rowling: Rowling: right ok that makess ssensse to me

Rowling: look i clipped out a bunch of adss for transphobic jobss Rowling: i'll jussst ssend them to graham'ss agent Helen Joyce: terrible news, dark lord! Joyce: his agent dropped him for attacking david tennant Rowling: Rowling: oh

[probablyasocialecologist]

Linehan views his life through the prism of someone who has been, in modern parlance, cancelled – a pariah whose dogmatic beliefs have supposedly exiled him from the liberal dinner party circuit. “Some time before I lost everything” begins the book’s very first sentence. His life has been “smashed to smithereens”, he laments. When formerly sympathetic journalists turn on him, it’s a “prison stabbing”. And all this at the hands of the “terroristic” trans rights lobby, which he brands the “gender Stasi” and likens to “nascent Nazis”. (Linehan sees himself as a “campaigner for women’s rights” rather than an “anti-transgender activist”, and is infuriated by Wikipedia’s refusal to allow him to edit his own page accordingly.) In Tough Crowd, Linehan denies being bigoted – and in fact takes great pains to emphasise his support for same-sex marriage, and insists that he “know[s] more trans people than some of the people calling me transphobic”. In my view, and that of his critics, some of his online remarks have been plainly and unapologetically transphobic: Linehan has characterised the trans rights movement as “paedophilic” and called trans activists and allies “groomers”. It’s true enough that his former life is in tatters: the controversies led to the end of his marriage, the abandonment of a planned, lucrative Father Ted musical, and his agent dropping him. He has been cancelled, he writes in his new book, which has been serialised in two major newspapers.

[...]

Although there are more than 100 pages dedicated to criticising the trans rights movement, the book is almost entirely devoid of data. Instead, Linehan relies on case studies – anecdotal instances of trans people who have committed crimes. Because trans people make up a tiny proportion of the general population, the sample size is too small to collect reliable data when it comes to crime. Figures last November suggested there were 230 trans people in UK prisons; 168 of these were trans women (and, despite fear-mongering headlines of women’s prisons being swarmed by those who were assigned male at birth, only six of these trans women were held in female establishments). Activists have in fact argued that it is trans women who are disproportionately at risk in prisons; a report from 2018 revealed that trans women accounted for a fifth of the deaths in female prisons between 2016 and 2018.

[...]

This is a recurring feature throughout the book – Linehan’s inability to actually provide solutions for the problems he purports to identify. He suggests that referring to trans men as men can lead to “their understanding of their own health [being] limited or non-existent”, yet elsewhere condemns the use of gender-neutral language around cervix care. He weighs in on the debate around single-sex spaces, but neglects to define how a trans-exclusionary bathroom could possibly be enforced. Would trans men who have medically transitioned be expected to use the women’s restroom? Already, there are documented instances of cis women being harassed after being mistaken for trans women in single-sex toilets; transphobia’s harm does not keep within the lines.

[elierlick]

"My kids won't talk to me" pride flag

[useless-englandfacts]

after the laurence fox case i think russell t. davies should take advantage of the legal precedent and sue

[thingstrumperssay]

The person who has the OF is a trans woman.

She did not get bottom surgery.

"My wife and kids left me because of my transphobia" Glinner, who will talk at anti-trans meetings, watches trans porn.

I wonder if he'll be invited to Posie Parker's next transphobe gathering?

At least this is a lot better than what they usually turn out to be- pedophiles. Plus he's supporting sex workers! (I mean, he could still be a pedophile, but we don't know that for sure yet. I don't, anyway.)

[iconuk01]

Father Ted creator Graham Linehan revealed he had been dropped by his agent after his comments about David Tennant.

The 55-year-old TV writer branded the Doctor Who actor, 52, an ‘abusive groomer’ on Twitter – now known as X – in July after he wore a t-shirt that read, ‘Leave trans kids alone you absolute freaks’.

Describing David as ‘disgusting’, ‘ignorant’ and ‘reckless’, Graham explained that he had been let go by Independent Talent to a Conservative Party Conference event in Manchester.

The writer has previously become known for his stance on transgender activism, which led to the star being banned from Twitter and his Edinburgh Fringe show to being shut down.

So, essentially "Oh no, not the consequences of my (hateful) actions"

[quinnfabrayapologist]

Graham Linehan claiming he sold out all 10,000 copies of his book when every new source says he sold less than 400 total is actually a great representation of the average gender critical's relationship to the truth

[vavandeveresfan]

Jenny Watson: "We can do it, so let's do it." Jenny outlines her plan for a female-only, lesbian space.

For my lesbian, bisexual women, and radfem Followers. Via Graham Linehan's Substack.

For many decades, London was considered the global capital for lesbian nightlife. But you’d never know it if you visited the UK today. It’s not for a lack of British lesbian culture: I’m a lesbian, I’m involved in our country’s lesbian social scene, and I can assure you, it’s alive and well. What we lack at the moment are our own dedicated spaces. I think the UK needs once more to have lesbian-run, female-only community spaces. 

I’ve got an idea about how to make one such space a reality. And I believe I'm in a position to make it happen.

Over the past seven years, I've had the privilege of organising a range of lesbian social events in London. Throughout this time, I've made many connections in our community, gained an increasing understanding of our needs, and created social spaces that I hope go some way to meeting them. 

And in those seven years working to coordinate part of the the UK’s lesbian social scene, I’ve come to see how badly we need a dedicated, strictly female-only event space — now more than ever. 

Men have been encroaching on the lesbian community, and the problem is only getting worse. There’s been a sense of inevitability, that this is just something we have to learn to live with.

But I’ve had it.

In June, I skipped London’s official Pride festivities and instead visited an alternative, independent event at the Hampstead Ponds. It was a female-only picnic. Hundreds of women of all ages were gathered, from their teens to their eighties. And the sublime joy that I felt that day led me to a eureka moment:

We need this. We deserve this. This is our right. As lesbians and bisexual women, we have a right to social spaces that are entirely our own.

So, earlier this year, I decided to implement a women-only policy at my events. Although this sparked controversy, we ultimately received recognition from the UK’s largest pub operator that it is legitimate to hold women-only lesbian events - a real victory!

And then it suddenly dawned on me: we need more and not only do we need this, I can do this. I feel I have a good sense of the UK market for lesbian social events. So I crunched some numbers and developed a business proposal. I gauged interest and studied feasibility. And I’m excited to tell you: I believe this can work.

My plan involves establishing a private members’ club and securing a prime physical space in London. By day, this space will operate as a versatile hybrid workspace, becoming a venue hosting various social events in the evenings and weekends. Alongside these, we'll provide online events, and collaborate with service providers for health and wellness advice, fitness guidance, group trips, and more. Revenue will come from the events, partnerships, as well as from membership dues.

To the lesbian and bisexual women reading this: you’re welcome to get in touch with me if you’d like to learn more. There's an opportunity to invest if you’re interested, too. I’ve got a pitch deck I would be happy to show you and a fully fleshed-out, 50-page business plan. And I’m happy to report that there are already investors who have given the thumbs up. 

Following my announcement and inspired by the community's heartwarming response, I decided to introduce an early-bird membership programme. This includes a personalised QR-coded membership card for exclusive updates and access to a members’ discussion space. Joining early also signifies your part in accelerating our community's launch. 

Which brings me to another issue, and it’s a big part of the reason I’m writing this now: online critics. There’s a small but vocal group of people online who’ve been saying some pretty nasty and completely unfounded things about me. This group of people have taken to personal insults, and accusations that I’m a fraudster and a grifter.

I’m not entirely surprised to encounter pushback, but at the same time, the level of vitriol has been eye-opening.

But I try to put it in a bigger context: Lesbians have faced so much abuse, and for so long we’ve had to settle for having social spaces conditionally, on terms set by men. There’s a climate of distrust and fear looming over the lesbian community as a result. So much so that today the idea of even having one single space fully dedicated to lesbian and bisexual women seems so radical, some people’s initial reaction is that there’s got to be a catch.

I completely understand that a good dose of scrutiny, of tempering optimism with some degree of caution, is reasonable. It’s healthy. And it’s entirely welcome.

But personal insults and unfounded accusations are not. I know that emotions are running high, and we as a community are feeling beleaguered right now. But that’s no excuse to target my Irishness in personal attacks, for example. Or to target my business supporters with lies about me.

I'm not here to push or persuade anyone who doesn't feel the spark for this project. However, for those who do, our project investors' safety and security are crucial — capital funds are securely placed in escrow and I've teamed up with a business consultant who's right here supporting us until opening day. We’ve put together a solid business plan.

If anything, the tenor of some of the criticism I’ve faced only hardens my resolve: it just highlights how badly women need a space to unite us, to heal us in this difficult time.

It’s been upsetting to endure the smear campaign that a small online group has thrown at me… but my mind keeps going back to that Edenic afternoon at the Hampstead Ponds, where hundreds of women were gathered in serenity and harmony.

This will heal us. This will unite us. And it will make us all stronger. Lesbian strength comes through unity.

There are various ways you can help, but the most crucial one is spreading the word - our message is the most important part of this project. 

Other than that, as I mentioned earlier, if you are a lesbian/bi woman, there is the option to join as an early-bird member (however, this is not compulsory; you can wait until our opening). Additionally, there's the opportunity for investment or donation. I've prepared a comprehensive 50-page business plan and pitch deck available for those who are interested.

For a deeper understanding of the project, feel free to visit our website or you can email me at contact@lcommunity.co.uk 

Any form of support you can offer is immensely appreciated as we work towards making this a reality.  

We can do this. So let’s do it!

[mysharona1987]

But you have to do something really bad to get banned from Elon Musk’s Twitter. Oh, right. Embracing white nationalism.

Crazy. I remember listening to him years ago on some of the Father Ted DVD commentaries and he sounded so…well, normal.

He made legitimate criticisms of the Catholic Church and sounded like a disaffected Catholic school boy who was more moderate now. Perhaps not liberal, but questioning a lot. He believed in women’s rights and hated racism.

Then he got weirdly obsessed with Trans people and turned into a right wing maniac.

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: Back in the Fold

[mysterious circle of robed figures] JK Rowling: hello children Rowling: sssay hello to graham lineham Linehan [wearing tinfoil hat]: freemasons run the country Jesse Singal: but mommy Rowling: i know we were all pretending he didn't exisst for a while Rowling: that changes now

Rowling: sssee hiss extreme levelsss of divorcednesss usssed to be a liability to our hate movement Rowling: but now that being extremely divorced hassss gone mainssstream Rowling: he'sss an asssset! Elon Musk: eyyy you know da jews, they maka my wife leave me

Rowling: to think that only a few yearsss ago, cccyberssstalking, death threatsss and appearing drunk on live televisssion were consssidered gouache Rowling: but today, there'sss no bottom! Rowling: and itsss all thankss to your tirelesssss effortsss! Rowling: well done, graham!

Linehan: don't worry, i have a new plan against the trans Rowling: yesss? Linehan: i'm going to rally father ted fans Linehan: see, if you liked a sit com back in the 90s, then you're obligated to join my hate movement Linehan: there's no better way to connect with today's youth

Linehan: Father Ted fans will flock to my aid Linehan: there's no one more likely to be on board with hating queers than someone who liked a comedy that made fun of catholicism

Linehan: after all, think of the success that you had turning all your harry potter fans into loyal terfs Rowling: uhhhh Linehan: i mean, they did all fall in line right? Rowling: Rowling: Rowling:

Rowling: look, i don't need harry potter fansss Rowling: i have new fanss Rowling: fanss of me Rowling: the adoration of the world'sss children meansss nothing to me compared to the adoration of 12 mumsssnet possstersss named rossemary

Rowling: i might have given up the love of the world'ss children but look what i gained Maya Forstater: i'm gonna get that cartoon alien one of these days, i promise dark lord!! just watch! Julie Bindel: [red tape across mouth] mmm Rowling: yeah i Rowling: i really gained a lot

Allison Bailey: [sweating, desperately clutching briefcase] i won't drop it... i won't drop it Tatsuya Ishida: i'm drawing communist lesbian joe biden with a huge dick Elon Musk: mama mia dissa post issa banned for not being racist! oh!! Rowling: yeah Rowling: really gained a lot

[coochiequeens]

Personally, I don't want to live in a world where little boys playing with dolls and little girls who don't like wearing pink are subjected to lifelong medical intervention because lunatics think these kids are in the wrong body. If that's the right side of history, then history can go f**k itself." - Graham Linehan

Stretched out on a hospital trolley after a surgeon had removed my cancer-riddled testicle, waiting for a doctor to give me the all-clear to go home, I lazily opened Twitter.

This was five years ago and, at this point, I had not quite nailed my colours to the gender-critical mast. I had defended women being smeared with the slur 'Terf' (for 'trans-exclusionary radical feminist') and was being monitored by trans activists as a result. This made me nervous, though I wasn't quite sure why.

I'd had an inkling of what I was up against when my wife Helen and I played a small part in repealing Ireland's draconian abortion laws. Working with Amnesty International, we appeared in a video in which Helen spoke of terminating a pregnancy because the foetus she was carrying had an abnormality which would have resulted in death moments after birth.

We tried to attend every protest and, at one event, I remember some strange person with a bullhorn bellowing out this nonsense: 'We want the state to pay for abortions!' [general cheering] '...and surgeries for trans people' [puzzled mumbling].

I felt uneasy. Sure, let's talk about trans rights, but first things first. We hadn't yet won the fight on abortion.

In retrospect, this was the first sign I had of the sleight of hand that would allow a sinister movement to attach itself to progressive causes and wrap itself in their stolen banners.

Then, when Ireland voted to overturn the abortion ban, Amnesty Ireland tweeted that this was a victory for 'pregnant people'. I was enraged.

My wife wasn't a 'pregnant person'. She was a woman, and a mother.

But these were only the first ripples of a gathering tsunami of madness. Online, people had started to go dangerously insane. It was such a slow process that I didn't notice it at first, but now, as I lay in hospital, I was collecting my thoughts on the subject.

I knew my positions were thought-through and sound, and I was sure that once people saw I was arguing in good faith, they'd see the problems with gender ideology and we could have a sensible, grown-up conversation about it.

I also told myself that, as co-writer of well-loved television sitcoms Father Ted and The IT Crowd, I had an audience out there who would listen to me. So I sent a few tweets carefully outlining my argument.

Meanwhile, I was in intense pain from the wound under my bandage and, when I was finally told I could go home, I couldn't stand up. A bed was found for me and I lay there, enjoying a bit of peace until the morphine wore off.

The visitors had gone and all was quiet. I decided to have a look at Twitter (now X).

My careful explanation of my position had certainly had an impact.

A trans activist and journalist called Parker Molloy, who identifies as a woman and is enraged if anyone disagrees, had sent me a number of increasingly frenzied direct messages.

After the third or fourth time telling Molloy I was in hospital, I ended the conversation. Meanwhile, another tweeter hopped into my replies to say, 'I wish the cancer had won'.

My ordeal had begun. Cast adrift, I was about to lose everything — my career, my marriage, my reputation.

A little bit after my brush with cancer, I brushed with something almost worse. A biological male, now going by the name Stephanie Hayden, was determined to wreck the life of anyone who flouted trans dogma.

A woman was arrested at home in front of her two young children and put in a prison cell for seven hours after she referred to Hayden on Twitter as a man.

When I made a public accusation about Hayden on X, Hayden didn't challenge it.

Instead, I was accused of breaking confidentiality by publicising Hayden's former male identities.

Hayden reported me to the police. The Guardian, whose editors seemed to have given up any pretence of being even-handed on this issue, published an article headlined 'Graham Linehan given police warning after complaint by transgender activist'.

It claimed I had been given a 'verbal harassment warning' by police acting on Hayden's complaint. This was untrue. I'd been phoned by a policeman who seemed confused when I told him that I'd blocked Hayden on Twitter months ago, so could hardly be accused of harassment.

The policeman then said something like 'stay away from her, awright?' and rang off.

For a national newspaper to headline this as a 'harassment warning' — a formal document that needs to be delivered in writing — was disgraceful, but typical of how many journalists liked to frame things that involved feminists and their allies.

After seven months of wrangling, the paper eventually removed the word 'harassment', which was too little, too late.

By then, the 'police warning' had morphed on social media into 'police caution' — which is issued where a crime has been committed and requires an admission of guilt, neither of which had happened. The false claim that I received a police caution for transphobia is constantly repeated to friends and colleagues to justify my cancellation. It was even presented to my publisher as a reason not to publish this book from which you are reading an extract. I found it grimly funny that the police and media were acting as reputation managers for a character like Hayden, but my wife Helen was terrified at being targeted in this way.

Hayden and Adrian Harrop, a Liverpool-based GP who was temporarily suspended from practising medicine as punishment for his aggression towards women on Twitter, trolled a Catholic journalist called Caroline Farrow, live-tweeting a visit to her home in a way that seemed designed to frighten and intimidate her.

She was about to travel to the U.S., but her visa was withdrawn. Harrop tweeted that he'd just visited the U.S. embassy in London: 'Consular staff very efficient at dealing with my important diplomatic business,' he wrote, with a wink emoji.

In a tweet, I called Harrop 'Doctor Do-Much-Harm'. The next morning, the police turned up at my door. I told them I wouldn't be changing my online behaviour one iota, and that Harrop bullied women online.

The policeman nodded, said something about free speech, and left. However, that visit wore heavily on my wife.

But the likes of Hayden and Harrop could not have had such success without accomplices in the police and the Press. It was surreal how swiftly they gained such power over society.

As for my career as a successful television scriptwriter, that proved to be over before the stitches from my cancer operation had healed.

Around this time, I received a letter from Sonia Friedman, one of the biggest theatre producers in London's West End, about me writing a new companion piece for the late Peter Shaffer's classic one-act farce Black Comedy.

I was apparently 'top of our dream list' to pen it.

Black Comedy is possibly the most ingenious farce ever written. I'd seen it years before with David Tennant in the lead and it left me giddy and envious. Now, going from lowly sitcom writer to being considered worthy of pairing with Shaffer had me floating.

Not for long, though. Only a few days later, Shaffer's estate decided on the late playwright's behalf that they 'didn't want to get involved' by 'taking one side or the other'.

More jobs began to fall away. A tour to Australia to teach comedy was cancelled because the company claimed it 'wouldn't be able to afford the security'. I discovered later this was a standard excuse given to those of us declared unclean by the new sacred class.

I'm also the person who worked with comedians Steve Martin and Martin Short for the shortest period of time. Five minutes, I think it was. A producer invited me to develop a comedy-drama TV series in which both would star. I had a flat-out offer and then, within minutes, an email from the same producer rescinding it, I suspect after a Twitter user in his office told him I was a bigot.

Even what I thought would be my pension was taken away from me. There were plans to make a musical of Father Ted, written and directed by me, which I was certain would be a huge hit, perhaps even make my fortune if I could get it right.

I hadn't reckoned how resolute the forces against me actually were, and how quiet my colleagues would be in the face of their onslaught. Sonia Friedman, the producer, told me I was 'on the wrong side of history' and advised me to 'stop talking'.

I suddenly found myself in a raging argument with this powerful woman who held my musical in her hands. But hearing one of these copy-and-pasted, thought-terminating clichés from the mouth of a colleague was more than I could bear.

Personally, I don't want to live in a world where little boys playing with dolls and little girls who don't like wearing pink are subjected to lifelong medical intervention because lunatics think these kids are in the wrong body. If that's the right side of history, then history can go f**k itself.

The meeting ended with each of us trying not to catch the other's eye in case it kicked off again.

I thought at least that Jimmy Mulville, the head of Hat Trick Productions, was on my side.

As the original producer of Father Ted, the company had a big stake in this new venture. But now the Hat Trick people began to go the other way.

I had another meeting around the supposed problem of my defending women and girls, in which, as always, no one could locate the flaw in my analysis as I explained over and over again: 'Children are being hurt. Women are losing their sports, their language, their privacy.'

Finally, I referred to the violent, terroristic nature of trans rights activism. Casually, off-handedly, Jimmy said: 'Well, there's bad behaviour on both sides.'

'Both sides' is a poisonous smear. No one on my side of the argument insists that people should be shunned by polite society. No one on our side wears T-shirts with slogans such as 'Kill all Terfs' and 'Die Terf Scum'.

I was told by one acquaintance: 'Some of the things you've done have been questionable.' 'Give me an example,' I replied. Long pause. 'All right, well maybe not.'

The final act was a meeting in the Hat Trick offices in which Jimmy told me I was to remove my name from Father Ted The Musical or he would not make the show — my show, which I had been tending, rewriting and refining for the best part of half a decade.

Once again, I asked what I was being accused of.

Jimmy rolled his eyes, as if it was self- evident. Desperately, I tried to explain what was happening to women's rights, and to the young girls mutilating themselves because of — 'I DON'T CARE!' Jimmy shouted. I left.

Later, I heard from my agent that in return for declaring me an unperson, Hat Trick was suggesting an up-front payment of £200,000 as an advance on my royalties. Initially, I agreed to go along with it, because I needed the money. But then I changed my mind.

I saw an interview with the mother of one of the women competitors who found themselves up against the trans swimmer Lia Thomas.

Lia was still physically intact and all the girls worked out how many towels to take into the locker room to cover themselves up completely as they changed.

'I asked my daughter what she would do if Lia was changing in there,' said the mother. 'And she said resignedly, 'I'm not sure I'd have a choice.' I still can't believe I had to tell my adult-age daughter that you always have a choice about whether you undress in front of a man.'

What messages have these girls been receiving?

My heart was ripped apart. I closed the door for ever on making any kind of deal with Hat Trick. I was prepared to betray myself for £200,000, but I couldn't abandon my daughter.

BEFORE the gender hoopla, I only knew people in the media. Now I had been so effectively cancelled that virtually no one in the media would return my calls. But I began to count as friends social workers, police officers, solicitors, barristers, doctors, nurses and academics who sided with me or shared my experience.

One of the few people I still know in the creative arts is the choreographer Rosie Kay.

At a party at her home in Birmingham for her company of young dancers — some of whom went by 'preferred' pronouns — the conversation turned to her plan for an adaptation of Virginia Woolf's gender-bending Orlando.

The discussion turned heated as she explained that she strongly believed in the reality of sex because she and her son had both almost died while she was in labour.

During that ordeal, her womanhood was literally a matter of life and death for her.

Her husband would never know that experience, and that difference between them meant something.

To the little sparrows of the Church of Gender, this was all high heresy, and could not be tolerated. The dancers harangued Rosie to such an extent that she hid in her own bathroom, then they formally complained about her to the company chiefs.

'They cancelled Orlando and then were making efforts to re-educate me, to stop me from centring women's rights in my future work,' Rosie told me. 'I had to resign from the company I founded.'

Then there's the children's author Rachel Rooney, who wrote a picture book called My Body Is Me. Its message was that children should be happy with their body.

But trans rights activists dislike any mention of being happy with your body as it undermines their message that being trans is a thrilling and transformative lifestyle choice.

Tweets called the book terrorist propaganda and likened Rachel to a white supremacist.

The author's 'trade union', the Society of Authors, declined to offer support. So devastating was the experience that Rachel stopped writing books for children and has now taken on a part-time care job.

But what did Rachel do to deserve cancellation? She wrote a beautiful, kind, responsible book for children, and she got the same treatment I received: they tried to destroy her life. Trans activists mostly target women for disagreeing with them, but I'm not the only man to have suffered. Some 30 years after we'd first worked together, I crossed paths once more with the comic actor James Dreyfus (Constable Kevin in The Thin Blue Line).

I persuaded him to sign a letter asking Stonewall, the former lesbian and gay rights charity which has altered its remit and done more than any other institution in the UK to promote extreme gender ideology, to reconsider its stance.

James agreed without hesitation. The letter argued that Stonewall was 'seeking to prevent public debate of these issues by branding as transphobic anyone who questions [its] current trans policies'. It asked the charity to 'commit to fostering an atmosphere of respectful debate'.

Stonewall refused. Even asking the question was painted as a moral failing. Five years later, James is still being hounded by trans rights activists and he has had difficulty finding work.

In 2021, the company Big Finish released Masterful, a celebration of 50 years of Doctor Who's arch-enemy, The Master, who James had played on its audio productions.

The credits featured every living actor who had taken the iconic role… except James. When the history of these years is written, it's not only the extremist activists who will be recalled with revulsion, but also the spineless corporate figures who never made an attempt to resist them. Their inaction contributed to the ruin of James's livelihood.

A brilliant comic actor, a gay man, was abandoned by the very people who should have had his back, because the celebrity class is more interested in looking like they're doing the right thing than actually doing it.

Meanwhile, a chasm was opening up between me and my wife as she watched me lose jobs and opportunities.

Helen was looking for normality, and I was perpetually dismayed and angry. She asked me to cease operations, which she was perfectly within her rights to do to protect our family.

But I couldn't do it. I knew what everyone who's in this fight knows — the Gender Stasi never forgive.

I could never be confident of a having a job again until the entire gender ideology movement, which has caused so much misery, was burnt to ashes.

Even if I had been prepared to recant or keep my mouth shut, it wouldn't do any good because my heresy was out there and would never be forgiven.

I could never be confident of a having a job again until the entire gender ideology movement, which has caused so much misery, was burnt to ashes.

Even if I had been prepared to recant or keep my mouth shut, it wouldn't do any good because my heresy was out there and would never be forgiven.

I was fighting for women and children, sure, but also for my reputation and my ability to make a living.

With my marriage now over, I left the family home and moved into a modest flat. It had a nursing home for old people to one side and an overgrown, neglected graveyard behind it — which is a little too symbolic of my situation for comfort.

Adapted from Tough Crowd by Graham Linehan (Eye Books, £19.99) to be published October 12. © Graham Linehan 2023. To order a copy for £17.99 (offer valid to 15/10/2023; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.

[useless-englandfacts]

Now I'm scared that Matt Berry is going to come out of the woodwork as a transphobe too because he was also on IT Crowd…

don’t worry! matt berry’s already addressed this:

(referring to s3e4 of the it crowd, and ‘the writer’ being linehan)

[rebellious-sardine]

Honestly Graham linehan shows being consistently cancelled by venues makes me incredibly happy.

Poor guy has not been allowed to perform comedy for five years. My heart weeps.