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Graham fucking Linehan Getty.jpg

Don't Let the British Media Rehabilitate Graham Linehan

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Popular | October 4, 2023 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Popular | October 4, 2023 |

Graham fucking Linehan Getty.jpg

Transphobia has utterly engulfed Britain. It’s been stomach-churning to watch as hard-right anti-trans rhetoric has been so thoroughly embraced by all levels of the political spectrum, as well as various celebrities, a ton of newspapers, and a bunch of nobodies who won’t shut the hell up. It’s hard to read any publication and not be barraged with bad-faith claims about trans kids being preyed upon by charities or outright lies regarding the Gender Recognition Act. It’s only gotten worse in recent months, and this week, the Conservative government revealed a proposal to ban transgender women from being treated in female hospital wards in England. So, in hindsight, it’s really no surprise that former TV writer and full-time divorced transphobe Graham Linehan has been given an open door to return to the forefront of the British press.



Linehan has a book coming out where he laments that his ‘protecting of women’ against trans people has ruined his life and career. It’s getting far more press coverage than his smearing of actor David Tennant as a groomer for wearing a t-shirt declaring his support of trans children’s safety. The emphasis has been on spinning Linehan as a misunderstood activist, a man who truly cares about women’s rights. Anyone who has ever spent longer than 16 seconds on the man’s Twitter account would know that this is complete bullshit. Linehan is actually more concerned with smearing trans people, invading dating apps, creeping over photographs of young people, and, as said above, calling anyone who disagrees with him a groomer. None of that is brought up in interviews, or course, or excerpts of his screed where he calls Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson ungrateful for not licking J.K. Rowling’s boots. Watching him be welcomed back into British media with open arms is queasy, but I can’t say it’s a shock, not necessarily. This was always going to happen, and we were always going to need to put a stop to it.

Even when he was mostly ostracised from so-called proper media, Linehan always served a function as the useful idiot of mainstream bigotry. Part of what makes the various hate-spewing talking-heads of the press so effective is that they achingly construct rhetoric of supposed reason to get across ideas that are anything but. They tend to operate from a false centre, this hallowed and near-delusional place where ‘just asking questions’ and ‘being open to all ideas’ are conflated with a blind swallowing of propagandistic bile. There’s little critical thinking to someone, for example, ‘just asking questions’ about whether Black Lives Matter protests are equivalent to hate parades. They’re obviously not, but so much of the media relies on a mutated idea of unbiased coverage, which typically translates to elevating pure unfettered cruelty to the status of ‘the other side of a debate.’ One of the reasons this works is because the columnists, presenters, and mouth-frothing so-called experts cannot help but seem less unhinged in comparison to the worst voices out there. Of course, anyone could sound reasonably decent next to Graham Linehan. It’s not that hard.

So, what happens when people like Linehan are welcomed back into the fold? The British press sure is working overtime to grease the wheels for Linehan’s return to the spotlight, offering unchallenged interviews and a shoulder to cry on as he claims that trans people have never made any great art. Hadley Freeman, a former journalist who now spends her day ranting about trans people and defending Woody Allen, tried to play the fake middle ground in claiming that Linehan had some good ideas and decent intent, but was just led astray by bad-faith figures and his own fury. The centre has moved so far to the right that it now plays catch-up with those it previously dismissed as going too far. Now, there’s real money in swerving into alt-right pseudo-fascistic rhetoric. They want a piece of that.

I wrote in my piece about Laurence Fox and Dan Wootton’s suspension from GB News that those who elevate such vileness to the level of political debate are doomed to be bitten by the hand that feeds them. You cannot expect to pay vast sums of money to racists, sexist, homophobes, transphobes, and Christian theocrats, and not eventually find yourself in legal or ethical trouble when they keep saying what they’ve always said. Nobody was surprised when Fox said what he did about that journalist, just as nobody is surprised that Linehan keeps referring to trans people and their allies as child groomers. The only way that people like Camilla Tominey and the Daily Telegraph, who gave him a fawning profile recently. can circumnavigate this problem is by downplaying it or pretending it doesn’t exist. See, Linehan just had disagreements with people, and who could get mad at someone for sharing their opinion? Just don’t pay attention to the fact that said ‘opinion’ could get him sued because baselessly accusing David Tennant of grooming children is not equivalent to a minor tiff over your favourite film.



None of Linehan’s cruelties are hidden. They’ve been extensively documented for years. Calling someone a groomer is only one of many vices he’s spent so long spewing online and off. This is literally all he does. He doesn’t write for TV anymore. Most of his former colleagues want nothing to do with him. He lost his TV agent for attacking Tennant. Anyone claiming ignorance is an outright liar or has spent the past decade living in a cave. When you platform him, you endorse him, simple as that. It’s why so many people felt disheartened when Richard Ayoade offered a positive cover quote to Linehan’s self-absorbed attempt as memoir (seriously, he compared Linehan to the works of Sam Fuller, which is insulting as well as culturally illiterate.) And the British press is endorsing him. They’re echoing his hatred, albeit with slightly less libellous terms.



It’s all leading to the same route of dictatorial fury, the same dehumanization of an already-attacked minority who have become the punching bag for a generation in need of a distraction and target. You do not platform a noted bigot who is using fascistic rhetoric over and over again unless you want that message to spread without pushback. You don’t offer more sympathy to the bigot than his victims if you truly care about journalism or humanity. There is no bravery in simply repeating decades of transphobia with cruder language and the 4chan buzzwords of the moment. It’s the least challenging or challenged thing on the planet.

We have to stop this crap, to make hatred toxic again (although I question if it ever was in a for-profit media market and Tory-driven socio-economic atmosphere.) We know what happens when people start stripping a minority of their humanity, healthcare, education, and right to safety. This isn’t a game and worms like Graham Linehan are not reasonable additions to a toxic culture. They are propagandists and foot soldiers for stochastic terrorism.

Trans rights forever.