Graham Linehan’s arrest heaps shame upon Britain
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Graham Linehan had only just stepped back on to UK soil when he was apprehended by five armed police officers. The comedy writer – known for Father Ted , The IT Crowd and his unflinching gender-critical activism – says he was arrested, locked in a cell and interrogated by police yesterday, immediately after landing at London Heathrow.
His crime, he says, was to have spoken his mind – one of the most serious offences you can commit in the eyes of the British state. During his interrogation, he claims he was asked to explain three supposedly offensive tweets, posted back in April, mocking trans activists and their attempts to invade women’s spaces.
In one tweet, he joked: ‘If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.’ In another, he described an image of a trans-activist march as a ‘photo you can smell’. In a follow-up tweet, he said: ‘I hate them. Misogynists and homophobes. Fuck em.’
Linehan’s belief that men aren’t women is based on biological truth. It is the view of the overwhelming majority of British citizens. It has been upheld by the UK Supreme Court. It is also a protected belief in the workplace under the Equality Act. Yet none of this seems to matter to the UK’s thoughtpolice. According to Linehan’s account, a trans activist claimed offence and so the Met swooped in, acting as the personal goon squad of the mad, bad and sad.
The Kafkaesque horror of his arrest, the stress of being criminalised for his tweets, seems to have sent Linehan’s blood pressure through the roof. He was escorted from the police station to A&E, where he wrote a damning account of the experience from his hospital bed on his Substac
‘I was arrested at an airport like a terrorist, locked in a cell like a criminal, taken to hospital because the stress nearly killed me, and banned from speaking online – all because I made jokes that upset some psychotic crossdressers. To me, this proves one thing beyond doubt: the UK has become a country that is hostile to freedom of speech, hostile to women, and far too accommodating to the demands of violent, entitled, abusive men.’
He has now been released on bail, apparently on the sole condition that he does not tweet. Whoever had sought to silence him seems to have succeeded. The Met have confirmed his arrest on ‘suspicion of inciting violence’, though have said no more on whether charges will be brought.
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This is like arresting Tina Fey or Larry David for tweets Trump considers mean. Whining about authoritarianism and Trump being a dictator is a cottage industry among the left. They venomously attack Trump for profit while claiming to be persecuted.
This is what totalitarianism actually looks like. Being arrested for tweets the government doesn't like and what may have been america's fate had Harris won and packed the court.
Why are some people obsessed with transgenderism?
I think "the left" made a mistake a few years ago when they promoted pro trans activism to the extent that the subject got outsized media attention, and trans celebrities like Ru Paul would appear on all sorts of television shows. This visibility just infuriated the Christian wackos whose opinion of such people as Ru Paul is that they are going to hell.
Transgender is not a religious issue, its not even a moral issue.
Trans people will never be accepted by most of society, just as ugly people are not accepted, and IQ deficient people are not accepted , other examples of a "flaw" that is beyond repair. Trans people can be left alone though, to live their lives as they wish. Just as good looks is a product of genetics and biology, as is IQ, so is transgender.
This Irish comedian sounds like an asshole, and should not be inciting violence on twitter. Is it a crime? Probably not, but I dont know Britain's laws.
Three tweets is an obsession? By that standard....
good thing he didn't.
t, but I dont know Britain's laws.
Free speech, except you go to jail if the government disapproves of your opinion. Sort of like the progressive version of the first amendment.
From what I read he's been like this for a long time.
That's correct. Transgender is a mental health issue. The medical professionals are attempting to separate gender identity from gender dysphoria. But gender identity is the root cause of the dysphoria and the dysphoria is a mental illness requiring physical medical treatment.
That's likely true because they are abnormal. You've provided examples of other abnormalities influencing social interactions. As with virtually all abnormalities society attempts to find ways to accommodate the abnormality.
This Irish comedian is more cogent than the medical professionals and academic elite attempting to hide the obvious.
They are perceived as abnormal, just like ugly people and low IQ people are.
Do you believe that most transgender people choose to be that way , the way we choose what we are going to eat or wear? They very well may have 'abnormal' brain patterns compared to everyone else, but those patterns are neither wrong or right, they just are.
Well, he could just mind his own business. The objection to transgender seems to me to come from religious beliefs.
Doesn't change the glaring fact that transgenderism is abnormal. Doesn't change the fact that identity caused gender dysphoria is a mental illness.
Has nothing to do with religion with most people.
Demanding that society accept and bow down to a certain demographic is what turns most people off.
Liberals brought that demand upon us and now we are paying for that stupidity.
How is anyone "demanding" you "bow down" to transgendered people?
Nobody is. It goes against their "feelings" so it can't be right
Because it is a primary tool for the oppression of free speech.
Most people are not "accepted" by society. Most people are ignored by society. Most of society is quite happy to ignore trans people, provided their angry leftist "advocates" stop trying to tell us all what we can and cannot say.
It is a crime in Britain. Research a woman named Lucy Connolly.
BTW, Britain has never been a free speech nation in the way we are. About 1000 people per month are arrested in the UK for what they post online.
It's probably also not a bad idea to check out the Online Safety Act of 2023, and see how it's being used to censor news that might be detrimental to the party in power.
They have a real shitshow going on over there right now, and Ireland is having similar problems. 90% of female London Underground passengers report being sexually harassed or assaulted by migrants, but the stories are being censored under the OSA because they might "incite racial hatred".
Do you think anti-trans activists are being persecuted by various governments?
If someone said on twitter "when you see a red headed person cut in front of you in the grocery line punch them in the genitals" would that be an acceptable level of speech ?
Can you name those "progressive" politicians?
I haven't heard of any doing that
I do not support them.
Every State and school district will have its own privacy policies and in most they stay out of private issues as they should. I would feel more uneasy with a School that had some sort of Gestapo policy of prying into students' lives and reporting on relationships and gender issues to their parents.
The long and short is that for most people, transgender persons do not affect them in ANY way. Most conservatives can go their whole lives where the only time they even realize they're confronted by someone who is transgender is seeing a clip played on their rightwing media that portrays the transgender person as some blithering psychopath intent on turning all their kids trans or wanting to see their girls naked in changing rooms or bathrooms. It seems that's all conservatives can think about when they contemplate the transgender debate. It is literally the least important and most moronic issue in the debate, but that's all these sex-repressed religious bigots can think about.
Here are two links.
and
European countries are moving away any sort of medical or surgical approvals for minors. US politicians are lagging behind on this science. A person's brain is not fully developed until around 25 yo. While I support counselling and assistance with bullies (most kids are bullies in their own way) I do not support anything that can be harmful to a growing child. IMO all of this should be banned for minors.
Please see 1.1.16.
European countries are backing away from the full throated support for transgender youth as they have shown that puberty blockers and hormone therapy, the least invasive procedures, can have life-long health impacts.
I'm not against it because of any "possible" way a transgender person may affect others, I'm against it for minors because of science. A person's brain has not fully developed until the person is around 25 years of age. Think back to some of your ideas when you were 16 vs after you were 25, they change and can change dramatically.
I don't think anything that can have life-long implications should be performed on any minor. Once they have become an adult if they want to go thru the process if they desire. But it should not be done on children.
How are we defining "activists", and how are we defining "anti-trans"?
I'm sure many people here on NT probably assume I'm "anti-trans", simply because I don't identify with their political "team". I don't consider myself so, and true hard-line evangelical conservatives would consider me a flaming pro-trans heretic.
My positions on transgenderism are like most of my other positions, leaving me grumpily sitting alone with Stealer's Wheel.... clowns to the left of me and jokers to the right.
So what is "anti-trans" and what do you have to be doing to be considered an "activist"?
While we're at it, what do we mean by "persecute"? Does censoring social media count? I wouldn't call that persecution, but some people do. Imprisonment? I guess it would depend on the activity, IMO. How are you using the word?
Comparing a trans person to a redhead is highly disingenuous, for obvious reasons.
That aside, let's define "acceptable". Would I agree with tweets encouraging physical violence? Not generally, no. Would I want it censored? Also generally no. Would I want someone arrested? Almost surely not.
I also think there needs to be some latitude with regard to the actual intent of the post. If we have a problem with telling people to punch transgenders, think about how much more of a problem we should have with calling for the extinction of white men.
Whats more realistic, that someone could punch a trans person in the genitals or that white men could be made extinct ?
The idea that a school should conspire to hide these major, life altering decisions from parents is utterly insane. If they know about it, they should be required to tell the parents.
FFS, they have to tell the parents if a kid fails a geometry final. How is it possibly OK to keep gender information secret?
Well if we're going all in on stupid rationalization attempts..... What's more heinous, a person getting punched or a billion people getting exterminated?
Do you see how hypocrisy never ends well?
I don't see anything in your link that suggests any of these politicians are demanding surgery. They're asking Congress to step back and let the families decide what treatments are wanted/desired.
I'm not for gender affirming surgery until the child has reached an age where they can consider the positives/negatives of a life changing surgery. I can't say that I'm particularly crazy about drug therapies at that age. But I'm not their parents/family.
All I can say is the word demand has many synonyms including request, requirement, wish, requisition, desire, claim, ultimatum and need according to Merriam-Webster.
And from a Google Gemini AI search :
There is a good chance some one could be punched in the genitals but there is no chance a billion white men will be exterminated.
Read the words in your link
gender affirming care
I don;t care about the synonyms of the word "demand". That's not the point I'm trying to get across. And yeah, they may be asking for surgery, is it really any of our business? I just said that I think the child should become a fully functional adult before any therapies are introduced. But it's none of my business and it's not yours, either
And I agree with you in that it's their business AFTER they become an adult. Never should be done to a child. Just because a child asks for it does not mean they should get it. We don't let a 10 year old child drive a car just because they ask to, we don't give alcohol to a 12 year old just because they ask for it, we refuse such requests because they are minors. Why should this be any different?
And ignore the word demand then. But the list of politicians who support such gender affirming care for minors is listed. That's the point I was making at the start.
It's none of your business. It's against the law for a 10 year old to drink and drive a car. This gender affirming care is not illegal. And if you're asking for Congress to pass laws to ban it...isn;t that over reach? I hear so much on this forum that liberals are always asking for more laws that are "over reach"
Yes. And a man getting punched in the genitals is not considered serious. It is celebrated in movies and on TV all the time.
So pretending one threat is serious while the other is not is both stupid and hypocritical.
Seems like you completely misunderstood what I posted.
Is it the business of the politicians who try to make it legal? Is it the business of doctors and/or school administrators to all such decisions to be made by children, a decision that can have lifelong implications against health?
Uhhh, yeah!! It's against the law because of why? Because they are not mature enough to handle the responsibility. I used that as an example to point out that we already protect children from such actions even if they want to use it.
Perhaps you can go back thru my posts and tell me where I even suggested that I want Congress to pass a law to ban it. What I've done is point out the politicians who are in favor of this for minor children. It's no secret that I'm against such treatment for children but I never asked for Congress to pass a law. But it that's what it takes to protect children I would not be against it.
You stated in the very first sentence that it's none of my business. But isn't it the business of all of us to protect the children so that they can grow to become responsible adults?
So you're in favor of a nanny state now?
Isn't the mantra 'if it saves one life it's worth it'? We have all read stories about those who transitioned while children and when they grew up they realized that this was not the correct change for them. And they have life-long issues from having gone thru those procedures. I've seen stories of children who state they were talked into this by teachers, school counselors, social media, peer pressure. I would like to think I'm on the side of science on this one.
One could say we live in a nanny state now. There are many laws and rules that already exist to protect us from ourselves, under the guise of protecting society at large. You say you are against transitioning while a minor child but you don't want to help enforce it? Just leave it up to the parents decision? These same parents who are so self-absorbed that they don't know a lot of what their child is doing much less going thru? Or leave the decision up to the child who is still to immature to effectively self-govern?
As of right now, it's a patchwork law much like the abortion laws are. I think the latter is a mess and would prefer a national standard to govern it. And while I said above that I never suggested that Congress should pass a law to ban it I would not object to such a law if it were passed.
What one does as an adult is one thing but it's a very different matter when a minor child does it.
Demanding that we accept mentally ill men wanting to go into women's bathrooms and other public places show that the left demands we accept and fall to our knees in reverence.
They are putting mentally ill people in front of those who has the exclusive right to these facilities.
Also, demanding we use stupid ass pronouns to address these mentally ill people is another means of demand that we accept.
Why are you hyper focused on white men being eliminated?
Great Britain is like looking into the window of what could be if America continues to elect Progressives.
A spending addicted government that is losing inflation and facing ever higher borrowing costs but fuels the problem with ever growing number of migrants who the government literally prioritizes over it's own citizens. In court they claimed that the rights of illegal migrants outweighed those of Epping citizens who were tired of migrants being given free room and board in hotels as they terrorize the young women in town.
Waving English flags is considered offensive and the government will take them down. Criticize migrant policy? Go to jail and face more severe penalties than a migrant who rapes british girls.
It's a country on the brink, led by progressives who hate their own country and the suffering is just beginning.
This is how utterly insane the UK immigration system is
If you are a British person who wants to bring a foreign partner into the country then they will have to meet a minimum income requirement and show they can support themselves without welfare
But if you are an asylum-seeker or illegal migrant who has been allowed to stay in the UK you can bring family members into the UK who do NOT have to demonstrate they have the necessary housing or income to live in the UK without needing welfare and who do NOT even need to speak English
We are the architects of our own demise
And that's different from the USA.... how.... exactly?
The biological and genetic basis for transgender identity is a complex and evolving area of research. While no single gene or biological marker definitively determines gender identity, studies suggest that a combination of genetic, hormonal, and neurological factors may contribute to the development of a transgender identity.
🧬 Genetic Factors
Research has identified gene variants in pathways related to estrogen signaling in the brain, which may influence how the brain develops in relation to gender identity.
A 2020 study found 21 variants in 19 genes that affect how estrogen interacts with brain regions involved in gender differentiation.
These genetic differences may lead to a mismatch between brain development and physical sex characteristics, contributing to gender dysphoria.
🧠 Neurological Evidence
Neuroimaging studies have shown that certain brain structures in transgender individuals more closely resemble those of their identified gender than their assigned sex at birth.
Differences have been observed in areas like the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, which is involved in sexual behavior and identity.
🧪 Hormonal Influences
Exposure to sex hormones in utero, particularly during critical periods of brain development, may play a role.
For example, atypical timing or levels of androgen or estrogen exposure could influence whether the brain develops in a way that aligns with male or female identity.
⚠️ Important Caveats
The science is still in its early stages, and findings are often inconsistent or difficult to replicate.
Gender identity is shaped by biological, psychological, and social factors, and no single cause explains all transgender experiences.
Researchers caution against using biology to pathologize or invalidate transgender identities. The goal is understanding—not gatekeeping.
Are you trying to argue it can't be mental illness because there's a biological cause?
Are you arguing that transgender identity is inherently pathological ?
Again, do you think mental illness can't have biological causes?
Before we ask about what causes the mental illness of transgender we have to agree that it is a mental illness.
Medical professionals (and academic elite) have separated gender identity from gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is the medical justification for transition therapies (including surgical reconstruction). Gender dysphoria must be classified as a disease to be eligible for insurance coverage. Otherwise the transition therapy would be considered an elective cosmetic therapy that would not be eligible for insurance coverage.
Abnormal gender identity is the root cause for the disease of gender dysphoria that requires medical treatment covered by health insurance.
this is the big one
One of the many hilarious things about transphobes is that they are ONLY AND ALWAYS CONCERNED WITH TRANS FEMALES. That is all, it's really odd how these people are only interested in the genitalia of a certain subset of the trans community Could be a mental illness there. Might want to get checked.
Oh,and ever notice the huge disparity between, you know, the number of trans women athletes and the millions of words and articles written about literally a couple dozen people.
Sexual attraction largely depends on superficial appearance, that is why men can be sexually attracted to females they dont know and are just passing by or sitting in a restaurant or whatever.
When it turns out there is a remote possibility that who they are looking at is not biologically female the men can feel a sense of shame or embarrassment. And they are willing to lash out.
Yup, old sailor here. Heard it more than once from West Pac sailors. Not all the whores in Olongapo city are "organically female" Still doesn't make it legal to beat the shit out of them. Being wrong and being embarrassed is not an excuse. Of course drunk pissed off sailors often exercise poor judgement. One of the reasons they don't allow drinking at sea any more. :D
When was the last time you heard of a "trans man" sexually molesting little boys?