Father Ted writer Graham Linehan compares trans activism to Nazism
Graham Linehan performed on a street after his feature in a comedy show was axed in Edinburgh due to complaints. (Creative Commons/re:publica from Germany)
Father Ted and The IT Crowd writer Graham Linehan is under fire after likening transgender activists to Nazis.
The TV writer made the comments in an interview with internet radio show Derrick Jensen Resistance Radio.
Linehan, who has come under fire for his outspoken views on trans issues on Twitter, said that he would not stop talking about the issue.
Graham Linehan linked trans issues to Nazi Germany
Speaking on the radio show, Linehan: “People do get very nervous… it’s like putting your hand on a flamethrower. The opposition is so extreme and so frightening that eventually everyone is asking you to stop.
“My feeling is I can’t, because it’s too important. It’s too important to the women in my life and it’s too important to me.
“I’m now in a position where I can now answer the question honestly of, if you were around the time of something terrible happening like Nazism, would you be one of the people who said, ‘This is wrong,’ despite being opposed?
“I feel happy in myself that I’ve been one of the people saying up and saying, ‘No, this is wrong,’ despite everyone telling me not to do it.”
Writer and director Graham Linehan (Andrew H. Walker/Getty)
The writer continued: “When things are wrong, you should be allowed to point out that they’re wrong.
“If you don’t point it out now when they’re affecting other people, you won’t have a chance against it when it happens to you. The thing I can easily see happening, because I’ve had experience with these type of people already, is someone in a changing room, a man walks in, absolutely no indication he’s a woman.
“The woman challenges it, the man says, ‘No, I’m sorry, I’m a woman, this is my female beard, this is my female penis, and you’re guilty of hate speech.’
“If you don’t think that’s going to happen, I don’t know what world you’re living in because it’s already happened.”
LGBT+ people on Twitter slammed Linehan over the interview, with one writing: “It sounds like you’re comparing trans people to nazis, and we both know that would be f**king absurd.”
Dr Adrian Harrop wrote: “Making a comparison between the actions or members of any group and those of the Nazi Party is, at the very least, a controversial tactic. But to make such comparisons in relation to a group of people who were themselves victims of Nazi genocide is simply indefensible and wrong.”
Graham Linehan says he’s ‘fighting against patriarchy’
In a statement to PinkNews about his comments, Linehan said: “When a magazine purportedly for gay people, collaborates in homosexual erasure by indulging the straight fantasy that men can be lesbians, something has gone deeply wrong.
“As I said in the interview, I’m proud to be on the side of the many gay, trans and female people who are fighting against this latest onslaught by the patriarchy.”
Linehan was given a warning by police in October after a harassment complaint from a transgender activist.
The writer was warned to stop contacting transgender woman Stephanie Hayden, who he had deadnamed and referred to using male pronouns.
