Father Ted creator Graham Linehan on trans rights - BBC Newsnight

well Graham Linehan is with me now and you're at peace in the papers at the weekend you say you've been vilified on social media and that you've even lost work as a result of speaking out in this trans debate why have you got yourself mired in this you're not a trans person you're not a woman why have you made this your issue well the main reason is that women can't speak about this women like I I'll admit I'm not a great person to be in this conversation I'm a comedy writer and I'm very blunt but the thing is there's a lot of women like Kathleen stock Jane Claire Jones academics who who are very compassionate but they protect their boundaries and the boundaries of young lesbians and and and women in general and they do so in a very respectful quiet way but whenever they're asked to speak there's protests they get shut down Kathleen stock had a Freedom of Information request about her emails you know it's insane the abuse and harassment they face so I thought I'd step in and you know I don't have I don't have a boss as such stepping in may the debate any better I mean a lot of people said that the language you've used some of the dismissive terms that you've bandied about have actually increase the toxicity of this can you give me an example yes you can you give you several if you want so what about comparing people in the trans debate to speaking out against Nazis I mean that's pretty extreme well there's a couple of parallels one is that at the moment children are basically being experimented on with puberty blockers for instance oh come on you're not seriously trying to say that children going to the doctor and saying that they're worried about their gender is akin to children being experimented on in that because Lupron which is which is a drug that's supposed to be meant for end-stage cancer treat prostate cancer treatment is being given to younger face it has never been tested on girls it has never been tested on women couple of issues here one of one of them is these are doctors who are doing this you don't have any medical training to know about this but the other is that they are doing it by choice it is deeply offensive to compare this to Nazi concentration camps oh no no don't get me wrong I'm not comparing it to Nazi concentration camps that's that's that's basically what you said was they experimenting on children is what the Nazis did and what doctors are doing today well essentially if you look at the Tavistock thirty-five psychologists have quit the Tavistock in three years disaster that's one of the centers which deals specifically with people who think that they wanted to change their gender yes that's 35 over three years do you think that sounds like a healthy environment for children I have no idea what the reason why people might be leaving up issues that they feel and it's entirely up to them whether or not what they want to do that nobody's forcing any I'm sorry you don't tell children that they were born in the wrong body because they're children and they will believe you that's the but these are I've seen kids during reports from the Tavistock the children as young as four were brought in these are children you know children as are still believing in Santa when they're 10 you know it's ridiculous it's absurd and it's and what surprises me do you think you know I mean whatever does do you have that young children are being told they are born into the wrong body just because we're having a debate about self-identification doesn't mean that young children who still believe in Santa are being told that they have to change their gender that's ridiculous no that's not well one of the other things that Tavistock whistleblowers reported was that homophobic parents were bringing in their gender non-conforming kids and telling them to fix them you know there was a dark joke that went around the Tavistock where they said that in in a couple of years to be no gay people left you know but that's why I compared it to eugenics programs and things like that it is extremely serious it success and all I'm asking for all I'm asking for is that people like me and the women that I support are not attacked their meetings aren't protested they aren't abused on Twitter I've been sued I've been I've been reported to the police my wife my wife's address has been published online Oh Trane's the basic right talking about eugenics and comparing trans activists and Nazis is not going to make this debate less toxic what you're doing is Fanning the flames you're throwing threatened the feminist I support with rape and death threats okay so so the idea that there's an equivalence between these two I am absolutely happy to step out of this conversation completely once women like Kathleen stock and Jane Claire Jones women think that they can speak for themselves thank you they don't necessarily need gremlin we're coming into a well the women I support are valued by support and are glad that I'm amplifying their voices and amplify the toxicity of a debate these women are not toxic these women I'm not saying this your comparison's tonight that are pretty toxic coming in here and talking about Nancy's if you want to have a reasonable debate about what's going on with gender identity in this country would count talked about nuts I think the thing about that Nancy comment was was what I was trying to get across was that this is a hinge moment in history just like just like during the Nazis and we always ask ourselves the same questions we ask ourselves what would I have done would I have bowed down would have what I have done done everything I was told to do or whatever would I have resisted would I have stood up and would I stood up alongside people who were trying to do the right thing that's what I'm trying to do at the moment and it's being made very very difficult look you know two years ago we wrote to Stonewall way before I compared trans trans rights activists to Nazis and he said and we said could we please bring down the toxicity of this conversation could we could we please just look at some of these issues some of these points where women's rights conflict with trans rights and just talk about it and within the day Stonewall said no so they said to us today we invited them to come on the program and instead they gave us a statement saying trans people trans people in Britain face huge levels of abuse in all areas of their life they quote statistics showing that hate crimes against trans people have increased 37 percent in the last year and say they're proud of their work towards trans equality yes but the reason hate crimes have increased is because everything is now transphobic including saying statements like men aren't women these are considered transphobic statements so so so the reason that these hate crimes are going up is because the bar has been set so low for what is and isn't transphobic there has to be a conversation about this it is absolutely crucial children but that's all the time we have for this conversation tonight okay fairly confident it will continue on social media Graham Linehan thank you for that

Channel: BBC Newsnight

Views: 422,848

Keywords: graham linehan, trans, transgender, rights, trans activists, sarah smith, hbomberguy, children, nazi, comparison, argument, debate, kathleen stock, mermaids, hate speech, criticism, latest, father ted, creator, writer, comedy, free speech, glinner, twitter, posting, sarah smith interviews, graham linehan interview, graham linehan newsnight, graham linehan trans, trans debate, bbc, bbc news, bbc newsnight, bbc interview, newsnight, interview

Id: e79k6LILL1I

Length: 6min 55sec (415 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 11 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/here2dare]

The man can hold a grudge. That's for sure

[u/[deleted]]

The point he is trying to make is quite important. I don't think he's trans-phobic at all. The nazi comparison is really stupid from him, that's never going to go down well. The interviewer has jumped on that and is joining in on trying to smear him as an evil transgender-phobe. I totally agree with him that any decisions made about children before they are adults in regards to their gender identity needs to be dealt with very carefully.

[u/Kelly_Clarkson_]

He's right.

[u/Debeefed]

Interesting when he gets a word in.

[u/Tadhg]

It’s from February 1st...?