#Only women can get pregnant

[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.

[sukibenders]

The Arcane fandom, especially on TikTok is never beating the allegations because why, now, some fans act like it's too inconceivable to imagine that Ambessa was, not only, pregnant twice but gave birth twice as well? And their reasoning for this is "She looks like the type to get a man pregnant instead" or "She's too tough for that, I just can't see someone like her going through that." There are layers to these statements because, for one, just because someone, especially a woman, is a dominant force doesn't mean that they can't get/don't want to become pregnant (do you believe overtly dominant men can't be fathers?) It's also very weird because the undertones of misogyny and misogynoir and the overt masculinization of black women are there because, not only are they viewing pregnancy and giving birth, in general, to be viewed as something "weak" (even though it's grueling hours of labor that results in tearing the body apart, sometimes even death) but also attempts to strip Ambessa of her nuance. Yes, she is strong and very dominant, but she also deeply loved her children, who she birthed, and when one was taken away from her it changed her deeply. It's very gross to view a character like her in this way because it also reflects how you view dominant women in real life, pregnancy, and childbirth as a whole. Like how are you going to praise Arcane for having such a wide and diverse ensemble of female characters, but then have misogynistic takes like this? Make it make sense.

[nightmarish-fallen-angel]

... this is incredibly hurtful and transphobic.

I shouldn't have to detransition to talk about the issues I face because I am transmasc, and implying such is fucking awful. We are not "obsessed with our status as AFABs" (those of us that are). It's not bioessentialist to state that some of us experience misogyny or bigotry relating to our bodies.

And they are literally just calling us "misguided little girls" and saying the TERFS are right (also wild to acknowledge terf rhetoric that primarily targets transmasc/some nonbinary people then... agree with it???)

[dykedvonte]

Mini rant below and in the tags, the only time I’ll talk about this and my personal take on it.

The way people talk about hypothetical male Anya on Twitter and the idea of how Mouthwashing would play out if the genders were swapped makes me remember how people still don’t take sexual assault and rape with male victims with the same gravity, especially when the perpetrator is female.

[mittysins]

I saw a post on bird app that made me angry so I'm gonna scream here about it

Pregnant transmascs are PEOPLE, not fucking mythical unicorns. Can folks stop pretending that transmascs who get pregnant are an """mpreg joke"""? Can transphobes stop saying that TMs are "ruining their child's life" simply by giving birth to them as... not a cis woman? Can transmeds stop saying that getting pregnant invalidates TMs' gender as a masculine person?

Pregnancy is not just a ""woman's experience"". Pregnancy is pregnancy. Parenthood is parenthood. These real guys are just out there creating a new person and asshats want to throw a fit.

[kithj]

the quiet place game sucks ass, they really said how many misogynistic tropes can we shove into one game? and didn't wait for an answer

[tittyinfinity]

11 years of being stalked and harassed by this man

[rebellum]

The weird thing about the "well trans men have it easier than trans women because if you completely pass and go stealth and are gender conforming then you only experience horrific discrimination in medical care!" Is that, like

You know trans women pass too, right

Like that statement is gender neutral

If any trans person, regardless of assigned gender, passes, then they are safer than any non-passing or visibly gnc person

It's like these people think trans women are doomed to never ever be able to ever pass. And it's like. Do you guys... actually talk? To other trans people? Are you part of a trans community? Like, not just reblogging or retweeting stuff, but a community where you know people's names and speak to them and they know your name and speak to you? Cause it seems like you have never spoken to another trans person before.

[stupid-elf]

Okay dandy, what is "it's not about the bread"? I recognized everything else

Ah! It's not about the bread is a phrase fairly common in marriage counseling/relationship advice circles. It comes from a popular anecdote of a husband in counseling saying his wife is always blowing up at him about petty things, like buying the wrong brand of bread. The therapist asks the wife why she's upset about the bread, and she says it's because he is chronically inattentive to her and their collective needs so she ends up carrying the slack. It's not about the bread: It's about what's manifesting through the bread

Humans are not rational creatures, we're rationalizing. It takes a lot of self awareness to be in one's own head and go "oh. I'm not upset about the bread, I'm mad because this is the third time this week and the twentieth time this month I have to come up with a new dinner plan because this idiot fucked up." However, it takes much less awareness to look at one's partner and go "hm. That was an outsized reaction. Something larger than what set this off is probably going on."

Once you've realized there's something going on, partners can begin working towards a solution. You have to pull back the rug to find what's been swept under it.

Emotions all have causes. Sometimes they're bigger than they seem like they should be, and sometimes the cause is buried deep in the unconscious parts of the brain, but there's always a reason. Part of loving someone is trying to understand them, and part of understanding them is sussing out when it's about the bread... And when you should maybe start writing a more detailed grocery list

[the-acid-pear]

people who get angry about scary symbolism in horror movies are insane to me. Sorry you got uncomfortable in the get uncomfortable movie. it was on purpose.

[chronicsheepdrawing]

KOSA Bill. In three days, the bill will either pass or be disgarded. Please reblog and sign petitions. to help stop the bill by going to the stop kosa tag so we can not let the bill pass!

The definition of not safe for work content that would be censored under KOSA is vague and would of course target the LGBT community.

[the-ash-holio]

When your boss makes you, A WOMAN, type up a piece of marketing material that says, AND I QUOTE:

"We cover stories that are designed to appeal to the ladies of the households. They look after the family and set the social calendar for the couple, and they are involved with about everything that has to do with the home.

I'm going to be physically fucking ill. What year is it?

[awesomecooperlove]

👩‍🦳👱🏽‍♀️👩🏾‍🦱

[vanilla-voyeur]

If you're a feminist who gets offended when we say stuff like pregnant people instead of women but you also say "feminism is the radical notion that women are people" perhaps reconsider one or both of those positions.

[lipstickontheglass1985]

do u ever have a seemingly normal post abt feminism on yr dash and u decide to open the notes and yr like. holy shit why are there so many t*rfs in the notes. and with a feeling of sneaking dread you open ops blog. and sure as hell it is a t*rf. hell world

[just-bible-musings]

As a Christian, I don't believe in abortion. BUT. I can actually understand it from a certain pov.

I would argue that the obvious solution is to go back to teaching abstinence before marriage (along with a lot of other unpopular topics). But not only is that extremely unlikely to happen anytime soon (which makes me sad), that won't help the women of the current age who WEREN'T taught that and don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to have sex whenever or with whoever they want.

So... the BEST option right now is that the church NEEDS TO DO IT'S FRIKKIN' JOB! Sheltering these women and supporting them and their children. And that includes getting them AWAY from their wifebeating husbands and bf's (and their parents too in many cases!).

The whole Christian church takes an attitude of "you made your bed now lie in it." Jesus NEVER said that.

To the woman taken in adultery (John 8:1-11), Jesus said only "go and sin no more"- AFTER telling off every single one of the Pharisees arguing to stone her. And Jesus only brought up the woman at the well's past (John 4) because He could see that it was plaguing her and He wanted to heal her from it. The end of the conversation went something like this (I'm paraphrasing):

"Bring your husband here and we'll talk more." "Yeah, um, I don't have a husband." "I know. You've had 5 husbands before and now you're living with a guy that you're not married to." "Huh? How did you know-? Whatever... the Messiah is coming someday, maybe He can explain a few things." "Ma'am, you're talking to Him."

The woman's response was to run back to town and tell people, "I found the Messiah! He told me everything I ever did, He HAS to be the Christ!" (Again, paraphrasing, not quoting.) Leading me to conclude that Jesus only mentioned the woman's past because it was how He intended to lead her to faith in Him.

This is how we're supposed to treat people. We're supposed to LOVE them and TAKE THEM IN, not leave them somewhere to die. Educating them on how to conduct their lives better can come AFTER we've made sure they freaking SURVIVE!!!

I have to wonder if maybe a lot more women would be less likely to get an abortion if they thought they had any other option.

The number one cause of death in pregnant women is murder. Think About That.