Le Freak, C'est Bleak: Graham Linehan Is Still a Transphobe

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Former comedy writer Graham Linehan has traded his career for ranting about trans people on the Internet.

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Unofficial thread theme song


For continuing analysis of the alleged Father Ted writer's exceptionally public breakdown and subsequent deterioration

The following is a brief summary of how Graham Linehan transformed from beloved comedy writer into cunt gone bananas. To see the last iteration of the timeline of events, click here.

In The Beginning
Graham Linehan was an early celebrity adopter of Twitter, and loved to wade in on one side or another of various Twitter spats, including Gamergate (he was opposed to the harassment of women, in case you're interested). He generally behaved like a nasty cunt, magnified by the fact that most of the people he fought with were ordinary people and not celebrities with massive followings. His aggressive behaviour on the Bird App earned him the moniker "Twitter policeman", coined right here on CaB.
 
It was on Twitter that some random user would criticise an episode of The IT Crowd (created by Linehan) which relied heavily on transphobia for its plot and comedy. Although Graham appeared to take the criticism well at the time, it seems to have been the inciting incident that sparked his descent into bigotry and bananadom.

The Descent
After beating testicular cancer, Graham went full transphobe. He devoted all hours of the day and night (no that is not an exaggeration) to arguing with trans people and their allies on Twitter, calling them "groomers" and "beards", and engaging in various forms of online harassment, resulting in at least one of his targets calling the Old Bill on him. Keep this in mind going forward – after beating cancer, this is what Graham chose to do with the remainder of his precious life on this earth. At some point between 2018 and 2020, his marriage broke down. The first indication of the marital breakdown came when he was spotted in a supermarket, buying not only the ingredients for carbonara, but the equipment and utensils to make it too.

A notable incident from this era was when Graham attempted to have lottery funding pulled from Mermaids, a charity which provides various services to trans and gender non-conforming children, by rallying Mumsnet users to mount a harassment campaign against the National Lottery. This prompted YouTuber Hbomberguy to host a charity livestream, wherein he attempted to complete Donkey Kong 64, with all proceeds going to Mermaids. The livestream was a huge success and Mermaids got the lottery funding anyway.

Graham was finally banned from Twitter in 2020 for harassing people and calling them paedophiles, back when Twitter actually cared about such things. Graham would go on to lie/feign ignorance about why he was banned until Elon Musk finally let him back on the site in the dying days of 2022.

Twitter Ban
Without Twitter, Graham set up his own microblogging site, Glindr (still up though gathering dust); a paid Substack (increasingly ghostwritten by a woman known as 'JL'); a Patreon (which somehow still has five patrons despite them getting nothing for their money); and a YouTube show (The Mess We're In, co-hosted with Helen Stanisland and Arty Morty). His content across all of these platforms consists of transphobic misinformation, self-pitying rants, desperate attempts to get far more infamous transphobe JK Rowling to notice him, semi-regular pleas for money, and libel. The list of former colleagues and friends Graham has libelled on social media and in print is too long to include, and encompasses almost everyone he's ever worked with unless they agree that trans folk and their allies are the devil incarnate. Disappointingly, so far none of them have sued him. However, in mid-2024 he was forced to apologise and recant some slander he'd uttered on some shitty right-wing podcast.
 
He made a number of media appearances during this time, including one on Newsnight where he compared trans healthcare to Nazi medical experiments, several appearances on GB News, and one on Stephen Nolan's show where he cried about how trans rights activists "took [his] family from [him]". Shortly after this, he recorded an episode of his YouTube show on his birthday, while ignoring his son who was visiting him.
 
He also engaged in a ridiculous stunt wherein he signed up for membership of the trans inclusive lesbian dating app Her, invading women's spaces to show how easy it is for men to invade women's spaces, which is bad, except when he does it.

Father Ted: The Musical
Glinner's increasingly deranged transphobia, in particular his pet rants comparing trans healthcare to mutilation, eventually led to Jimmy Mulville and Hat Trick offering him £200,000 as an advance on his royalties to walk away from Father Ted: The Musical in the early pre-pandemic days of 2020. Graham refused the money and has gone on to blame Mulville and Hat Trick for "killing" the musical, even though his own behaviour has made him a nightmare to work with.

Comedy
Graham's ongoing crusade against trans folk trying to live their lives has resulted in him falling out with or attacking several fellow comedians and comedy writers for not being obsessed with women's toilets like he is, including Our Lord and Saviour Chris Morris. The full list is too long to include, but here are some of the comedians who have referenced him in their work:
-   Stewart Lee ("In The Pedal Bin" list, 2021)
-   Simon Hanselmann (Cameo, Crisis Zone comicbook, 2021)
-   Michael Legge (Grim Night audio drama, Halloween 2022)
-   Paul Mone (Graham Linehan Walks Into A Bar, 2023)

Speaking of comedy, in 2023 Glinner attempted to start a stand-up comedy career, getting on the bill at Comedy Unleashed, a shitty "anti-woke" comedy event. Audio and video of some of his sets have made it online, and unsurprisingly they're all fucking dreadful.

Twitter Return and Beyond
Following Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, Glinner's account was reinstated and he gleefully returned to his favourite activity – typing transphobic abuse at former friends and colleagues, trans folk and their supporters/allies, and random teenagers at all hours of the day and night. And this is one reason why we are no longer maintaining a list of all the transphobic shit he's said and done. One look at his Twitter account is all anyone needs to see his bigotry in all its cuntish glory. Or if you prefer, you can read his horrible book, Tough Crowd, released in 2023 – one-third about his career in comedy, two-thirds about how the evil trans cabal turned his family against him and killed his musical.

His memoir/manifesto didn't sell well, despite being serialised in two major newspapers, and naturally this is because of evil trans rights activists refusing to stock it in bookshops etc. Undeterred, Glinner went on an Australian tour to promote the thing, hilariously turning up late to his own book launch because he just had to rant about woke Doctor Who online for half an hour.

Lurch to the Right
As he's spiralled down the transphobic whirlpool, Graham has increasingly begun to cosy up to various people with despicable views, such as "journalist" Andy Ngo (embeds himself with right wing terror groups and writes fawning pieces about them), "Nazi pug guy" Count Dankula, and Fergus Power, a nasty racist cunt who, among other things, assaulted our Glebe. He's not alone in this, as many transphobes/"gender-critical" folk tolerate misogynists, racists and other assorted cunts as long as they agree that trans people are evil. However in Graham's case he seems to view anyone who agrees with him, listens to him and poses for pictures with him, as a true friend, no matter what abhorrent beliefs they hold. Meanwhile his actual friends, colleagues and even in-laws who desperately tried to pull him out of the bigotry vortex have all been driven away by Graham's behaviour. And this is where he is today – guesting on right-wing podcasts and at events funded by hate groups, necking anti-anxiety medication, and constantly tweeting out abuse while running on four hours' sleep. His legacy as a comedy writer and creator of perhaps the most iconic sitcom in Irish history lies in ruins. And he did it to himself.

TL; DR:

Further Reading/Watching
A Look At The Conduct of Graham Linehan and Others on Twitter, Richard H. Cooper (2012, blog post; covers Graham's early Twitter career and behaviour)

, Pintman (2021, video 1hr 6 min; provides an overview of Graham's transphobia, the wider gender critical movement, and additional cultural context)

, Brigette Empire feat. The Leftist Cooks (2024, video 1hr 15 min; discussion of Tough Crowd in particular and Graham's transphobia in general)

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Guide to Glinner threads originally posted by Ambient Sheep

Prequel threads:

Graham Linetransexclusionary (2018/03/08 - 2018/07/22, 52 pages)

Twitter policeman Graham Linehan given warning by police about Twitter (2018/10/06 - 2018/10/19, 21 pages)

What happened to Adam Buxton and Graham Linehan's sci-fi sitcom 'The Cloud'? (2018/12/17 - 2019/01/01, five pages, despite the title it's mainly about the trans issue)


Main ~100-page threads: (spoilered for length)

Spoiler alert

Charity stream hosted to spite transphobic tosser Graham Linehan (2019/01/20 - 2019/08/02)

The all-new "Graham Linehan's a transphobic cunt" thread (2019/08/01 - 2020/02/11)

Graham Linehan's Beard Weekends: Transphobia III: The Sorceror (2020/02/11 - 2020/05/12)

Glinner Posts Mortem: Dying on Transphobia Hill 4: The (g)Room(er) (2020/05/11 - 2020/06/22)

Glinner V: The Dream(ed up) Child (molestors): A New Carbon-era (2020/06/22 - 2020/07/21)

Glinner Six Not Gender: Beyond Twitterdome: Racecar, backwards (2020/07/21 - 2020/12/27)

GVIINNER: cunt's gone bananas (2020/12/27 - 2021/03/15)

Glinner: Arty Morty and the Glinfinite Transness: The Hateful 8th (2021/03/15 - 2021/06/05)

Glin's Slide No. 9 - TransIXclusionary (2021/06/05 - 2021/08/07)

GLINTENDO GC: Bananac*nt Cis Tory X: You can't spell MUMSNET without TEN (2021/08/07 - 2021/09/07)

G11nner's erosion eleven: TERF speedrun (career/family skip, any%) (2021/09/07 - 2021/10/04)

Glinner 12: Angry Men Won't Wheest: Onward Cistern Soldiers: A bonkers dozen (2021/10/04 - 2021/11/03)

Glinna sadda defeata: 13 going on TERFy: How do you 13eat 13eaver 13other
2021/11/03 - 2021/12/19

Glinner XIV: CALOOH! CALLAY! IT'S GC COMING OUT DAY!!! 2021/12/19 - 2022/1/16

15 Glinutes of Shame: Lying in the Gettr Looking at the TRAs 2022/1/16 - 22/2/21

16 Handles: Glinner's Age of Descent 2022/2/21 - 2022/3/28

Wheesht 17: Alt-right, Alt-right, Glinner's Nearly Alt-Right (Deep Deep Down) 2022/3/28 - 2022/5/3

Graham Linehan Episode XVIII: Help Me Elon Muskenobi, You're My Only Hope 2022/5/3 - 2022/6/3

Greybum Muchtransanger - the continuing TERFery of Graham Linehan 2022/6/3 – 2022/7/19

The Continuing Transphobia of Graham Linehan: "The Father Ted Musical was my pension" 2022/7/19 - 2022/9/5

Graham Linehan's Exxtreme Transphobia 2022/9/5 - 2022/10/15

Graham Linehan's Transphobia - The Banana C(o)untinues 2022/10/15 – 2022/12/06

Yet Another Graham Linehan Transphobia Thread 2022/12/06 – 2023/01/10

The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Graham Linehan 2023/01/10 -2023/02/05

Last Train to Transphobia 2023/02/05 – 2023/03/17

Ok Grimmer 2023/03/17 – 2023/04/15

Further TERF 2023/04/15 – 2023/05/24

Shouting Into A Computer 2023/05/24 – 2023/07/28

Cisyphus 2023-07-28 – 2023-09-08

Fringe Beliefs 2023-09-08 – 2023-10-15

TERF Crowd 2023-10-15 – 2023-11-25

Shouting in Barns 2023-11-25 – 2024-01-20

Defied Comedy 2024-01-20 – 2024-03-22

Trans Mania 2024-03-22 – 2024-05-20

Lurch to the Right  2024-05-20 – 2024-07-31

Le Freak, C'est Bleak  - You're reading it!

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Also related: (spoilered for length)

Spoiler alert

Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews (2009/12/13 - 2009/12/15, one page)

Graham Linehan points out the absolute turdness of Jack Whitehall (2011/03/21 - 2011/03/27, two pages)

Comedians inciting their followers/fans to savage their critics (2012/06/18 - 2012/09/28, 50 pages)

Graham Linehan wants you to work for him for no money (2013/06/18 - 2013/06/22, three pages)

The Walshes on BBC4/RTE, by Diet of Worms & Graham Linehan (2014/03/17 - 2015/01/22, one page)

Graham LOLnehan (2015/04/20 - 2018/10/09, six pages)

Pope Ted: The Father Ted Musical (2018/06/02 - 2018/06/10, four pages)

Limmy vs Linehan (2020/01/20 - 2020/01/23, one page)

Going apeshit at unisex bogs (2020/02/06 - 2020/02/09, five pages)

JK Rowling TERFing her legacy into the bin (2020/06/07 - 2022/04/14)

GC Rowling's Battlefield TERF, Part 2: Fantastic Wheests and Where To Find Them (2022/04/14 – 2023/08/05)

GC Rowling's Icky Bog Adventures, part 3: The Prisoners of Trans Cabal (2023/08/05 - ???)

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Glinner: thread for backseat moderators and hand-wringing (2020/06/20 - ???)


A little light relief - H.S. Art threads

What's Graham Linehan up to? (2019/05/29 - 2019/06/10, one page)

Imagine if Graham Linehan (2019/11/12 - 2019/11/13, one page)

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Notes on the thread:
No more timeline. It's too long and unwieldy and frankly I can't be arsed maintaining it any longer. Hence an 'oral retelling' of Glinner's transformation from comedy writer to cunt gone bananas.

"But Poirot what about 'Happy Birthday FROM GLINNER', what about the cum-stained pants, what about the time he went to the House of Lords" I know. I know. It's too much to keep track of every little thing he's done. The highlights (lowlights?) are enough to give any newcomers an overview of how, why, and to what extent he's lost his mind. Besides which, at this point it's all the same. Tweet, curse, stream, repeat. All that's left is him getting properly sued, getting arrested, or a Road to Damascus moment. You want to see who he's trying to fight with now, or what horrible filth he's saying, look at his Twitter.

Having said that, I am open to feedback about the new format so please feel free to let me know what you think.

[Kankurette]

Anyway, the timeline is in the other linked threads.

Good work, Poirot.

[Egyptian Feast]

Superb thread title and it's given me an earworm, so cheers Poirot!

[extraordinary walnuts]

Thank you for your service @Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse

[idunnosomename]

Yes it's much better like that. More than he deserves!

The House of Lords thing is I think significant because not only is it one of the funniest things broadcast on the internet, it was the first time he confirmed he had separated (even though it was blatantly obvious from the carbonara spectacular and his videos showing he moved out of the family home)

Don't bother editing it in though.

[king_tubby]

I'm beginning to think this guy Linehan is a real jerk.

[Cold Meat Platter]

"They've started another thread about me *CHECKS NOTES* Helen and ..Arty? Morty! This just proves how obsessed they are with me! Not how much of a massive delusional wanker I am! Look at me! DON'T LOOK AT ME!"

[phes]

I'm listening to the doc The Brainwashing of my Dad. Content aside, the testimonies of people who had apolitical or moderately political dads who got hooked on talk radio and evolved from fairly unremarkable family men to unremittingly furious and confrontational berks, angry men persistently spamming friends and family with garbage propaganda until eventually family accept the person they knew has gone. Well.

[McDead]

Delighted to have "called it" re the thread title. It's the little things.

[DreadedScotsman]

Yeah I think the new thread intro works well given you've linked back to the previous threads anyway. Cheers @Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse

[KevinCoed]

Cann's a massive Tory. Like, actively campaigns for them kind of Tory. He canvassed for Shaun Bailey, so he's only racist against the Japanese, not the blacks. He wrote an article for The Conservative Woman entitled "The woke tragedy of RADA", so he's one of the PC gone mad lot.

I still love him in Jam.

I read an interview with him years ago where he described himself as an anarchist, so that's very disappointing to hear.

[Better Midlands]

Thanks for the new thread P.

[Better Midlands]

Did I mention Katharine Birbalsingh is black?

Also he's the one calling a black woman "uppity" in the final tweet.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Now watch as Glinner calls any woman who disagrees with him a "handmaiden".

[BennyHedgehog]

Bananatronics(tm) aside, Birbalsingh's initial tweet is an absolute disgrace and characterises the riots in Southport as working-class people making their voices heard while dismissing any idea that this was instigated by the far-right as a lefty fever dream.

As you can see above, there was a lot of pushback, but rather than revisiting her original statement, she doubled down with passive-aggressive "just asking questions" and reposting the tweet that'd kicked it off.

She used the tweet as an excuse to push her incoherent talk about the failures of multiculturalism at an Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference (WATCH: "All Countries should listen to what I am suggesting!" lol)

An absolute shitshow by a thick culture warrior leveraging a tragic event to promote their hot takes filmed for these cunts these cunts

That said, I quite liked the sideshow bob style YT thumbnail.

[greencalx]

The new potted history is great, informative even for old hands. The one thing I might add is his insistence he's been #cancelled despite having become a gobshite who's never off the air.

[Oosp]

Whenever someone mentions Jonathan Ross, I always think of how creepy he was around female guests in the 2000s. Like, I recall how visibly uncomfortable Nicole Kidman was around him.

Will never forget him saying to Gwyneth Paltrow on his chat show, "I'd fuck you"

IIRC David Cann had an account on here back in caveman times, was pretty racist about Japanese people and got chased off.

Does anyone know what his username was? Any idea, @Barry Admin?

[kalowski]

When I was watching the people from Southport helping to rebuild the damaged mosque and tidy up after the EDL rioters I wanted Birbalsingh to be there and to spout her nonsense to the real, ordinary, multicultural people of Southport.
But she was at a right wing conference instead.

[PlanktonSideburns]

V good thread title whoever came up with that

[BennyHedgehog]

When I was watching the people from Southport helping to rebuild the damaged mosque and tidy up after the EDL rioters I wanted Birbalsingh to be there and to spout her nonsense to the real, ordinary, multicultural people of Southport.
But she was at a right wing conference instead.

Come on now, she took the time to chat with Mike Graham on Talk TV!

[king_tubby]

Does anyone know what his username was? Any idea, Barry Admin?

https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?action=profile;u=3533

[The Bees]

I've only read half a page of that post history and I've already learnt a whole new slur.

[Kankurette]

The only one mentioning Birbalsingh being black is you, Graham. They're not going after her because she's black, it's because she's a thick arrogant gobshite who believes kids think they're pasta. And her defending the fash is pathetic, like they wouldn't turn on her too.

Also, Michaela has a large black/Asian contingent and not all pupils there speak English so if she thinks multiculturalism is evil, what does she think about her pupils and their families?

Also, she does know Southport is predominantly white? Yes? And the stabber WASN'T FROM THERE?

[Sonny_Jim]

Rowling Lunch

[Kankurette]

Funny how Linehan only cares about racism when it's someone he agrees with.

[Better Midlands]

[Kankurette]

What colour are you again, Graham? Why don't you go to Southport and talk to the mothers of the dead girls if you care so much?

Odd how he's more upset about people being mean to Birbalsingh than the actual murders. Or the fact that a teenage boy felt the need to target an event where the audience were little girls. But it's not about them, is it, Graham?

[Oosp]

https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?action=profile;u=3533

Thanks. I've read all the posts but can't find anything that definitively identifies the poster as Cann (although it does seem to fit). The username, one short post about Jam, a mountain of Tory stuff, a few mentions of his parents in WWII (which he has in fairness brought up in interviews), one vague comment about TV production, that seems to be about it, unless I'm missing something? All this circumstantial stuff points to him, but hard to find the smoking gun, unless maybe he mentioned CaB elsewhere.

I thought the comment about being made governor of a primary school might help, but Google hasn't thrown anything up and as far as I can see he didn't mention it in interviews around that time. Was there a deleted post where he said outright By the way, I'm David Cann?

I'm missing something, yes?

Back on topic: Graham's a racist