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Episode 275: An LGBT Book Prize Goes Poof · Blocked and Reported

0:06
SPEAKER_01: Hello, Jesse.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: Katie,
0:07
can I just give a brief teaser about part two of our two and
0:12
possibly 12-part
0:13
SPEAKER_00: Taylor Loren series?
0:14
SPEAKER_01: Tease away.
0:15
So part one was about schools and phones and what happens when
0:21
you put one in the other.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: Is that good or bad?
0:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm particularly eloquent today.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: Taylor's of the view.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: She's skeptical of the idea that phones make class more disruptive.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: We probably heard from more listeners on this.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: than on most subjects we've spoken about in the last five years.
0:40
And I have to say there is complete unanimity from anyone who's
0:45
a parent or who's a
0:46
SPEAKER_00: teacher or has an eighth cousin who's a parent or a teacher.
0:51
It's such an outlying view to think that phones aren't at least
0:55
disruptive in class.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: So maybe I'll read a couple of the emails in part two.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: Well, what I want to hear is Taylor's email to you.
1:03
SPEAKER_01: Did you hear from her?
1:03
SPEAKER_00: I have not.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: I've not heard anything.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: And that's okay.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: I mean, she's busy.
1:08
SPEAKER_01: She's definitely busy.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: I did.
1:10
So yesterday I had to unfortunately leave my house early and I
1:14
was driving around and I passed.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: I live really close to a school.
1:16
SPEAKER_01: I passed like a lot of kids.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
1:19
SPEAKER_00: Leave your house early.
1:20
SPEAKER_01: I had to get up and go to the store in the morning.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: It was like, okay.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: I was confused.
1:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:26
SPEAKER_01: It's not like I was going to an office or anything,
1:27
but so I was driving around and there were lots of kids waiting
1:30
at various,
1:32
SPEAKER_01: are they called bus stops,
1:33
SPEAKER_01: bus stations?
1:34
What are they called when it's just like a kid or a couple of
1:36
kids waiting for the
1:38
SPEAKER_01: bus,
1:38
SPEAKER_01: the school bus?
1:39
SPEAKER_00: A bus stop?
1:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: Not a bus station?
1:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: Katie.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: OK, so I was it was like right around school hour.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: And so there were lots of kids waiting for the bus.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: Jesse,
1:50
SPEAKER_01: they were all on their phones,
1:51
SPEAKER_01: like middle school age and high school kids on their fucking phones.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: OK, sorry.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: I don't really understand.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: No offense, but like, OK, you saw some kids on their phone.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: That's the story.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: Not a single one of them was talking to a peer.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: They were acting like adults.
2:07
SPEAKER_01: This is what adults do at the bus stop.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: They stand there and wait for their phones.
2:11
SPEAKER_01: Actually, maybe this is good training for real life.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: It's good.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: They grow up so fast these days.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: They're also learning how to impulse control and stuff,
2:19
SPEAKER_00: but constantly be on their phones,
2:20
SPEAKER_00: as we've heard.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: That, I am...
2:23
SPEAKER_00: Presently slaving away.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: And I mean that term literally 24-7.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: Unpaid.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: Creating part two of that episode totally unpaid.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: In the meantime,
2:32
you've been looking into a big literary bombshell of a drama
2:37
that is the sole
2:38
SPEAKER_00: subject of this episode.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: Have you not?
2:40
SPEAKER_01: I have, yes.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: And this one is, we're going to have to detour a little bit.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: I love detours.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: But yes, this week we have another story from the world of books.
2:48
SPEAKER_01: And these tend to be pretty well liked among our audience.
2:51
But unfortunately,
2:53
this is a story from the world of British and Irish literature.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: Ew.
2:57
SPEAKER_01: Yes, that means- They have literature?
2:58
SPEAKER_01: They do.
2:59
SPEAKER_01: Jesse, accents.
3:00
SPEAKER_01: Get ready for that.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: Top of the morning to you.
3:04
SPEAKER_01: This one has to do with a scandal at a literary price,
3:07
SPEAKER_01: but before we get to that,
3:08
SPEAKER_01: the backstory.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: So our main character today is John Boyne, Irish writer.
3:14
SPEAKER_01: How would you say that in Irish, Jesse?
3:15
SPEAKER_01: Ho, Boyne!
3:18
SPEAKER_01: Ho, Boyne?
3:19
Yeah,
3:20
I can't really do accents,
3:21
so if you put a little filler utterance before it...
3:26
SPEAKER_00: Like, if it's Jewish, I can't really do a Yiddish accent.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: I'd be like, oh, boy.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: Anyway.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: Very close.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: Not my strong suit.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: So, Boyne's most famous book is from 2006.
3:35
SPEAKER_01: It's called The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: It's a runaway bestseller.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: Many of our listeners will have heard of this.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: I had not until digging into this.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: So,
3:44
SPEAKER_01: it's a kid's book about a fictional nine-year-old,
3:47
SPEAKER_01: the son of a senior Nazi official at Auschwitz,
3:49
SPEAKER_01: which is the name of a Jewish deli in lower Manhattan.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: No, it's not.
3:52
SPEAKER_01: No?
3:52
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just not like it's Auschwitz is such a famous.
3:56
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
3:56
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
3:59
The young Aryan boy befriends a Jewish prisoner of about the
4:01
same age and spoiler
4:03
SPEAKER_01: alert ends up getting gassed alongside his new pal.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: So it's a cheery book.
4:08
SPEAKER_01: It sold 11 million copies worldwide.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: So huge seller.
4:11
It was turned into a film and it's often used in classrooms on
4:15
lessons about the Holocaust.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: Jesse, have you ever heard of this?
4:17
SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: No, you have.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: It's super famous.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: I haven't read it or seen the movie, but yeah.
4:23
SPEAKER_01: Somehow never crossed.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: Among those of us who believe in the Holocaust,
4:26
SPEAKER_00: which might be why it never trickled down to you.
4:52
that all right shocking stuff yeah but the criticisms go beyond
4:56
just historians
4:57
complaining amongst themselves which is i assume what they do
5:01
at their conferences
5:01
but for instance research from university college london center
5:04
for holocaust
5:05
education suggests that using this book in schools spreads
5:09
myths about the
5:10
SPEAKER_01: holocaust and
5:11
SPEAKER_01: And some activists and scholars also,
5:13
SPEAKER_01: you know,
5:14
accused Boyne of centering the German experience and a fake
5:18
experience at that.
5:18
SPEAKER_01: And so you might think, well, yeah, it's a work of fiction.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: Who cares?
5:21
SPEAKER_01: That's kind of how I feel about it.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: But a 2009 survey,
5:25
SPEAKER_01: British survey,
5:26
SPEAKER_01: found that 70 percent of readers believe that it's based on a true story.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: And many believe that this incident led to the end of the Holocaust.
5:35
SPEAKER_01: Although to me,
5:36
that seems like more of a damning indictment of the British
5:40
education system than
5:41
SPEAKER_01: Boyne's book.
5:42
One thing that Nazis were famous for was also valuing the lives
5:46
of Germans and
5:47
SPEAKER_00: German civilians and never wanting any of them to die.
5:49
Or maybe they thought that this particular story was so
5:52
affecting the friendship
5:55
SPEAKER_01: between these two that Hitler was like,
5:56
SPEAKER_01: never mind.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: And then he killed himself.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: I think this is, like, people be dumb.
6:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, people do be dumb.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: News at 11, and, like, you can't really blame that on a book.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: But how has John Boyne reacted to the criticism?
6:06
So he's always defended his book as a work of fiction,
6:09
which is what it is.
6:09
So back in 2020,
6:11
he even got into a Twitter spat about this with the actual
6:14
Auschwitz Museum.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: Oh, God.
6:16
SPEAKER_01: Who is he?
6:16
SPEAKER_01: James Lindsay?
6:17
SPEAKER_00: James Lindsay, yeah.
6:18
SPEAKER_01: So the museum tweeted,
6:19
the boy in the striped pajamas should be avoided by anyone who
6:22
studies or teaches
6:23
SPEAKER_01: about the history of the Holocaust.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: And as you can imagine, Boyne took issue with that.
6:28
SPEAKER_01: But despite the criticism,
6:29
SPEAKER_01: he hasn't strayed away from other controversial subjects in his career.
6:33
And in fact,
6:34
he even wrote a sequel in 2020 called All the Broken Places.
6:38
SPEAKER_01: Now,
6:38
none of his other works have done quite as well as The Boy in
6:40
the Striped Pajamas,
6:42
SPEAKER_01: but he's still very prolific and very successful.
6:45
SPEAKER_01: He's written 21 novels, six novellas, one short story collection.
6:49
SPEAKER_01: Several of his books are international bestsellers.
6:51
SPEAKER_01: And many of his books deal with other big issues,
6:54
SPEAKER_01: including one that is particularly close to his heart,
6:57
SPEAKER_01: buggery.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: So he's a gay man?
6:59
SPEAKER_00: Am I stirred?
6:59
SPEAKER_01: Big old faggot.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
7:01
SPEAKER_01: So John was born in 1971.
7:04
SPEAKER_01: Homosexuality wasn't decriminalized in Ireland until 1993.
7:08
And to put that in perspective,
7:10
that's the same year that Tom Hanks starred in Philadelphia.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: And when John was young, it was still dangerous to come out.
7:17
SPEAKER_01: You know, plus there was the whole AIDS crisis thing.
7:19
So he had just a much different experience from people coming
7:22
out today when,
7:22
SPEAKER_01: like,
7:23
your mom asks what your pronouns are and posts about it on
7:25
Facebook and gets you a
7:26
SPEAKER_01: Raybo cake.
7:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:28
SPEAKER_01: Of course,
7:28
SPEAKER_01: this is highly dependent on where you live in your community,
7:30
but no one was coming out as gay for clout when John was a kid
7:33
in Ireland in the
7:34
SPEAKER_01: 1970s and 80s.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: Very, very different situation.
7:37
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
7:37
SPEAKER_01: And Ireland has changed a lot in recent years.
7:40
SPEAKER_01: But historically, it's been very conservative, at least for the West.
7:43
SPEAKER_01: So, for instance, in 1995, there was a referendum to legalize divorce.
7:48
SPEAKER_01: Yes, 1995, when you and I were 12...
7:51
SPEAKER_01: And it passed by less... Legalized divorce.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: Divorce, yes.
7:54
SPEAKER_01: And it passed by less than 1% of the vote.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: But things changed so rapidly there.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: So 1995, divorce is legalized.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: Is it true that some Irish people are Catholic?
8:04
SPEAKER_00: No.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: Not true.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: Continue.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
8:06
SPEAKER_01: No.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: And then in 2015,
8:08
SPEAKER_01: so 20 years later,
8:10
another referendum was held and 62% of voters voted to legalize
8:13
gay marriage.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: So huge shifts in public opinion in that 20 years.
8:19
SPEAKER_01: Oh,
8:19
SPEAKER_01: also in 2015,
8:21
Ireland became the fourth country in the world to introduce
8:23
self-ID for trans
8:24
SPEAKER_01: people.
8:25
SPEAKER_01: Jesse,
8:25
will you explain self-ID for anyone who has never heard this
8:27
podcast before,
8:28
SPEAKER_01: who stumbled upon it in some sort of waking nightmare?
8:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's just the idea that...
8:33
There should be as little restriction as possible in declaring
8:38
yourself to be male
8:40
SPEAKER_00: or female or something in between or beyond the binary entirely.
8:44
So it's often about like documents and what had been single sex
8:48
accommodations and
8:49
SPEAKER_00: stuff like that.
8:50
SPEAKER_01: Right.
8:50
SPEAKER_01: So self-ID actually passed before abortion was legalized in Ireland.
8:53
SPEAKER_01: Fun fact.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: And Ireland's stance on trans rights is particularly interesting.
8:58
So obviously,
8:59
Ireland's closest neighbor and frenemy is Turf Island,
9:03
England.
9:04
SPEAKER_01: But the two countries couldn't be more different in some ways.
9:06
SPEAKER_01: So mainstream Irish feminism is very proudly intersectional.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: And any whiff of turfery is usually seen as pernicious British influence.
9:15
SPEAKER_01: Which is not very welcome in Ireland for obvious historical reasons.
9:19
Jessie,
9:20
would you like to give people a 30 second lesson on Irish
9:22
history?
9:23
SPEAKER_00: Yes, there was tension due to colonization of the Irish by the British.
9:27
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: That's like the whole thing.
9:30
SPEAKER_01: That's the whole thing.
9:31
Basically,
9:32
the British invaded,
9:32
conquered,
9:33
and colonized Ireland for hundreds of years.
9:36
SPEAKER_01: And so there's some tension there.
9:38
SPEAKER_01: And some Irish people today are resentful of anything British.
9:42
SPEAKER_01: I mean, of course, there's still tons of overlap among the cultures.
9:44
SPEAKER_01: And many Irish people live in England and vice versa.
9:47
SPEAKER_01: And many people are both British and Irish.
9:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: This is part of the fighting within Ireland.
9:54
There's always been a set of Irish people who do feel affinity
9:57
to the Queen and the Crown.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: I've already said more about this than I should.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, go ahead.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: And when it comes to trans issues,
10:06
there's a very vocal group of activists who absolutely reject
10:09
UK-style terpism.
10:11
So,
10:11
for instance,
10:12
last year,
10:13
the prominent gender critical activist Kelly Jane Keene,
10:17
a.k.a.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: Posey Parker, she attended an event in Dublin.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: She was greeted by protesters with signs reading, no TERFs on our TERF.
10:25
By the way,
10:25
she was also accompanied by Ireland's most notorious homegrown
10:29
TERF,
10:29
Graham Linehan.
10:30
who was once a national treasure for his comedy writing and is
10:33
now regarded among
10:34
SPEAKER_01: the Irish largely as a national embarrassment,
10:38
SPEAKER_01: at least among Irish progressives.
10:40
SPEAKER_01: And not just because he's been an asshole to you and I,
10:42
SPEAKER_01: although I think that's probably a big part of it.
10:45
SPEAKER_01: Now,
10:45
SPEAKER_01: Graham is in the news right now,
10:47
so we are going to have to briefly pause our moratorium on
10:50
acknowledging his
10:51
SPEAKER_01: existence to discuss him.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: We're going to get to that in a little while.
10:55
But first,
10:55
I just want to get more of this John Boyne backstory out of the
10:58
way.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: Go for it.
10:59
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so Boyne grew up in Ireland.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: He has seen it change in really unbelievable ways over the years,
11:05
SPEAKER_01: and many of his books have been informed by that.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: So he wrote a book called The Hearts Invisible Furies.
11:10
SPEAKER_01: Not furries, furries.
11:12
This is a story of a gay man living in Ireland back when it was
11:15
illegal and
11:16
Another one of his texts,
11:17
A History of Loneliness,
11:18
is about abuse by Catholic priests.
11:20
Several of his works are attempts to work through his feelings
11:23
about being abused
11:24
SPEAKER_01: both by a priest and a teacher when he was a kid.
11:27
SPEAKER_01: And until recently,
11:28
John Boyne was really considered one of those sort of
11:31
right-thinking Irish
11:32
SPEAKER_01: progressives.
11:33
SPEAKER_01: But then things changed dramatically.
11:36
SPEAKER_01: So in 2019, John Boyne wrote a book for kids about trans stuff.
11:41
It's quite clear that he was coming at this from the
11:43
perspective of the good
11:45
SPEAKER_01: liberal ally,
11:46
SPEAKER_01: like a gay man who saw himself as part of the LGBTQ community.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: He wanted to be an ally to his trans comrades.
11:54
SPEAKER_01: And years later,
11:54
SPEAKER_01: he told Julie Bendel,
11:56
SPEAKER_01: quote,
11:56
SPEAKER_01: as a gay man,
11:57
SPEAKER_01: I've been on the outside,
11:58
so I was interested in trans issues and wanted to write about
12:01
it for young people.
12:02
SPEAKER_01: So it was a feel-good book about a teenage boy coming out as trans,
12:05
SPEAKER_01: and it ends with the whole family embracing their trans daughter.
12:08
SPEAKER_01: So what could possibly go wrong with that?
12:10
SPEAKER_01: Jesse, any ideas?
12:12
SPEAKER_00: No.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: No ideas yet.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: It seems like the kind of book Irish progressives would treasure.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: Here was the title.
12:19
SPEAKER_01: My Brother's Name is Jessica.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: This is –
12:24
people got mad because there's a strain of thinking that
12:26
someone who transitions
12:27
SPEAKER_00: always was the other sex.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: And to even reference the fact that they transitioned is like,
12:32
SPEAKER_00: well,
12:33
SPEAKER_00: you could reference that they transitioned,
12:35
SPEAKER_00: but if they're now your sister,
12:36
you definitely can't call them your brother without people
12:39
getting mad at you.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: Right.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: Helen wrote about this.
12:41
SPEAKER_01: Helen Lewis wrote about this in a column for Private Eye.
12:43
And she said the activists wanted it to be called,
12:46
my sister's name is Jessica.
12:48
SPEAKER_01: And that's, I think,
12:50
SPEAKER_00: Accurate.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: That would be such a good title.
12:53
SPEAKER_01: And that one, you just call it Jessica.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:55
SPEAKER_01: The tagline was, boys will be boys, except when they can't.
12:57
So,
12:57
Jesse,
12:58
please read from one of the book's many,
13:00
many one-star Goodreads reviews.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: Woo boy.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: It actually starts woo boy.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm not making that up.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: Yikes, chief.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: Read the room.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: No, it doesn't say those.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: Where do I even begin?
13:10
SPEAKER_00: Straight off seeing the title and blurb, I can see issues.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: The title deadnames the trans character...
13:16
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't actually make any sense.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: The title doesn't dead name the trans character.
13:19
SPEAKER_01: The title, Dead Brothers, the trans character?
13:23
SPEAKER_00: Wait, this is a male to female.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: It became his sister named Jessica in the book.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, there's no dead naming.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: What is the problem, you ask?
13:31
SPEAKER_00: Fact check.
13:32
Because it makes it seem like the story is about a boy
13:34
realizing he's a girl.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: This perpetuates the usage of incorrect language that does real harm.
13:38
Would you like it if people called you by the wrong name and
13:40
gender because it's catchy?
13:42
SPEAKER_00: Cringe?
13:42
SPEAKER_00: No, that is wrong.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: Even if no one knows yet because they are not out,
13:46
SPEAKER_00: trans girls are girls because girls are girls.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: Sam's sister is neither a he nor Jason.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: She never was.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: His sister's name is Jessica.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: She was always a girl.
13:58
The dead naming and the reference to the character as his
14:00
brother fails to respect
14:01
SPEAKER_00: that Jessica is a woman.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: Well, a girl, right?
14:04
SPEAKER_00: Literally any other title would have been more respectful.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:06
SPEAKER_01: You know what would have been better?
14:07
SPEAKER_01: My struggle.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: That would have been really good.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: My struggle with my brother's sister named Jessica Jason.
14:15
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so there was more.
14:18
John's book was told from the perspective of the trans
14:20
character's younger brother.
14:22
So it's essentially the story of a boy who hero worships his
14:25
older brother and
14:26
SPEAKER_01: struggles to come to terms when his brother announces his transition.
14:29
SPEAKER_01: In the end, everyone comes around like it's a happy ending.
14:32
SPEAKER_01: But please read, Jesse, this other one-star Goodreads review.
14:36
Everything about the outside of this book is a huge red flag
14:39
for trans readers.
14:39
The title and the blurb scream that this is yet another story
14:42
that uses our lives
14:43
and struggles as the backdrop to talk about how hard it is for
14:47
the cis people in
14:48
SPEAKER_00: our lives to deal with us.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: This is like a style – this is from March 2019.
14:52
This is a style of literary criticism where you could find out
14:55
everything you need
14:56
SPEAKER_00: to know about the plot from like –
14:58
SPEAKER_00: the title and just get mad about it.
15:00
I'm sick and tired of stories about disabled people that are
15:02
centered around the
15:02
SPEAKER_00: ableds around them,
15:03
SPEAKER_00: stories about POC that are centered around the white people around them,
15:06
and stories about trans people that are centered around the cis
15:08
people around them.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: This is like peak 2019.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: You know, I agree with this.
15:13
SPEAKER_01: I've read so many stories about a kid in a wheelchair,
15:16
and the story is actually about how sick the mom is of pushing
15:18
the wheelchair.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: Happens all the time.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: It's a trope at this point.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: Stop doing this.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: It's been done a million times.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: We don't need your... Okay, that's enough.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: This is sort of the...
15:27
SPEAKER_00: This was what online literary quote unquote criticism was in 2019.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: Right.
15:33
So the criticism is that John was writing outside of his lane
15:37
and this incredibly
15:38
SPEAKER_01: common a few years ago.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
15:40
SPEAKER_00: there was this idea of hashtag own voices,
15:42
which is like people books about characters from certain
15:46
identity groups should be
15:47
SPEAKER_00: written by people from those identity groups.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:49
SPEAKER_01: Right.
15:49
And it kind of makes sense if you squint a little bit,
15:52
although I probably shouldn't say squint.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure that's racist somehow.
15:55
But if you think like...
15:56
I don't think...
15:56
I mean,
15:56
I don't...
15:57
I'm not sure it makes sense.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: It depends a lot on the context.
16:00
Well,
16:00
I mean,
16:00
in the sense of like,
16:01
giving people the space to write these stories,
16:05
that's fine.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: The problem,
16:06
SPEAKER_01: however,
16:07
SPEAKER_01: is that own voices sort of transmutated,
16:09
SPEAKER_01: or maybe this was always the intention,
16:11
SPEAKER_01: to mean that only people can write those stories.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: Only black people can write black stories.
16:17
SPEAKER_01: Only gay people can write gay stories.
16:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, right.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: But also just like fundamentally, I don't know.
16:23
I really liked American fiction and that's based on the novel,
16:28
Orature,
16:28
which I haven't read.
16:29
But it's about this like really smart black intellectual living
16:33
in Boston.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: And he can't really be recognized,
16:38
SPEAKER_00: if I remember the plot correctly,
16:39
he can't really be recognized for just being like a smart
16:41
literary critic.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: So he writes a book from like –
16:45
like a sort of a memoir from a ghetto dwelling black man called
16:49
my pathology.
16:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: And that gets him attention.
16:52
I think that gets to some of the problems here is just like
16:54
really essentialist
16:55
SPEAKER_00: notions of like who gets to tell what stories.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not sure the point is here,
16:59
like just cause you're black or white or anything else doesn't
17:02
mean you necessarily
17:03
SPEAKER_00: have a particular perspective.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: So I,
17:05
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
17:05
SPEAKER_00: there's like a kernel of a fair point there,
17:07
especially if there was like a lot of bad character caricature
17:10
and going on,
17:11
SPEAKER_00: but as is often the case,
17:12
SPEAKER_00: it's more complicated.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:14
All right,
17:14
I want to read one more Goodreads review just so we read this.
17:16
SPEAKER_01: This is a top review on Goodreads.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: The title,
17:18
SPEAKER_00: synopsis,
17:19
and entire concept of this book are so damaging and revealing
17:22
of the damage it will
17:23
do to me as a trans person that I refuse to read this and put
17:26
myself through
17:27
SPEAKER_00: something I know will harm me.
17:28
SPEAKER_01: So didn't read it, left one star.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: You know,
17:30
it's like a huge amount of energy was spent on protecting trans
17:37
people from things
17:38
SPEAKER_00: like books or liberal journalists.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: And it's almost like there were like bigger...
17:43
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm just spitballing here.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there were actual bigger threats.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
17:47
SPEAKER_01: You know what?
17:48
SPEAKER_01: Now there definitely are.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: Did you see what Elon tweeted today?
17:50
SPEAKER_00: I didn't see what Elon tweeted.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is – sorry.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, what did Elon tweet?
17:55
He's trying to start a movement to ban adult transition,
17:59
like make cross-sex hormones illegal.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:02
SPEAKER_01: Like force people into detransition.
18:04
And the White House is leaking to like the worst conservative
18:06
outlets that they're –
18:08
SPEAKER_00: I guess,
18:09
flirting with the idea of trying to make it so trans people
18:11
can't have guns,
18:12
SPEAKER_00: which is so bizarre.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
18:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
18:13
SPEAKER_00: I was obviously being flip,
18:15
SPEAKER_00: but the point is,
18:16
SPEAKER_00: no,
18:17
SPEAKER_00: my brother's name is Jessica does not harm.
18:20
It does symbolic violence,
18:21
I guess,
18:22
if you have very specific notions of identity stuff.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: But I think in retrospect,
18:27
SPEAKER_00: maybe calling things like this harmful,
18:30
SPEAKER_00: maybe people are a little distracted,
18:31
SPEAKER_00: but I don't know.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: Well,
18:32
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
18:33
SPEAKER_01: not only that,
18:33
if this is the sort of rhetoric that makes people turn away
18:36
from progressives and
18:37
SPEAKER_01: vote for people like Donald fucking Trump,
18:39
SPEAKER_01: then you are sort of indirectly,
18:40
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
18:41
SPEAKER_01: maybe I'm making a leap here,
18:42
SPEAKER_01: but ushering in actual harm to trans people.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: Trans people not being able to get fucking hormones.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my point is just like, this wasn't just...
18:50
random goodreads reviews this was how like a whole educated
18:53
class of people talk
18:54
they really they would they would you and i you and i were
18:57
harmful or it was
18:59
violent we were enabling genocide and that leaves you
19:01
absolutely no room to talk
19:02
about the sorts of people who for example would try to ban
19:05
adult transition or i
19:07
don't the gun thing is so bizarre i don't even know how to
19:10
understand anyway let's
19:11
SPEAKER_00: continue with this story
19:12
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
19:12
SPEAKER_01: So in John's case,
19:14
SPEAKER_01: this book,
19:14
this book that was intended to be sympathetic to trans people
19:18
was widely panned as
19:19
SPEAKER_01: transphobic.
19:20
And I think it is fair to say that John Boyne was completely
19:23
unprepared for the
19:24
SPEAKER_01: massive pile on that followed.
19:25
SPEAKER_01: And I do mean massive.
19:27
SPEAKER_01: He was absolutely dogpiled online.
19:29
And of course,
19:30
trans activists and allies promised to boycott the book as
19:33
well.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: Right.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he was like trying to be a good ally with it.
19:36
It's not like the book actually had hidden like gender critical
19:39
messaging,
19:39
right?
19:40
SPEAKER_00: Like he was trying to be like fit in and be a good soldier.
19:43
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
19:43
he acknowledged that some people might struggle with their
19:47
brother transitioning
19:48
SPEAKER_01: and that trans people are born the opposite sex.
19:51
You know,
19:51
it's I guess that was like gender critical,
19:54
but it was unintentional.
19:56
SPEAKER_01: But around the same time the book was published,
19:58
he wrote a column for the Irish Times called Why Support Trans
20:01
Rights But Reject
20:02
SPEAKER_01: the Word Cis.
20:04
I think that headline does a bit of a disservice to John
20:07
because that's not
20:08
SPEAKER_01: actually what the column is about.
20:10
The column is about why he wrote this book,
20:12
and it's very sympathetic to trans people.
20:15
SPEAKER_01: The cis thing is really just one small paragraph.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: And his point is basically like, I think trans women are women.
20:20
SPEAKER_01: I think trans men are men.
20:21
SPEAKER_01: I just don't like the term cis for myself.
20:25
And quote,
20:25
I reject the notion that someone can force an unwanted term
20:28
onto another.
20:29
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
20:30
I assume the headline was chosen because it was the most likely
20:32
to get attention.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: But the piece itself is pretty nuanced.
20:35
Like he writes about his own limitations on the subject as
20:37
someone coming from the outside.
20:39
SPEAKER_01: He's humble, admitting that he needed to do the work.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: Gotta do the work.
20:42
SPEAKER_01: Gotta do the work.
20:43
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
20:43
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
20:44
And I'm worried that I haven't even started doing the work that
20:48
would be required
20:48
SPEAKER_00: for me to fully understand how much work I have to do.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: That's so much work.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: It's like a double doing the work situation.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: And Boyne also got in a little dig at Graham Linehan.
20:58
SPEAKER_01: So he's making a clear distinction between his views and Glynner's views.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: Glitter being his nickname.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: So Jesse, I want you to read this part.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: This is what he wrote about Graham Linehan.
21:08
Many of these debates are being played out in the murky and
21:10
discourteous world of
21:11
SPEAKER_00: Twitter,
21:12
SPEAKER_00: a place where adults go to scream at each other.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: Much attention has been given of late to the antics of Graham Linehan,
21:17
SPEAKER_00: co-creator Father Ted,
21:18
SPEAKER_00: who spends an inordinate amount of time tweeting on the subject.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: At best,
21:21
SPEAKER_00: he seems like one of his own creations,
21:22
SPEAKER_00: roaring down with this sort of thing to anyone who'll listen,
21:25
while at worst he comes across as someone masking intolerance
21:27
by promoting himself
21:28
SPEAKER_00: as a champion of women.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: And look,
21:30
SPEAKER_00: I may not be the world's greatest authority on the ladder,
21:32
but one thing I know for sure is that women can look after
21:34
themselves just fine and
21:35
SPEAKER_00: they don't need a man to do the job for them.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: Oh, so he's telling women that they can look after themselves?
21:41
SPEAKER_00: That's patronizing.
21:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, male hero.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, good male feminist.
21:46
SPEAKER_01: So and this was not the only time he took shots at Graham.
21:49
Graham is truly a very polarizing figure,
21:51
even within the gender critical ecosystem.
21:53
SPEAKER_01: We're going to come back to that shortly.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: But John later posted this on Twitter.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: This is in response to Graham.
21:58
SPEAKER_01: Graham, to be clear, I agree with you on absolutely nothing.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely nothing.
22:02
SPEAKER_01: To repeat that there's no confusion.
22:04
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely nothing.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: And there's some all caps words in there.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:07
SPEAKER_01: So this was back in 2019.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: Boyne, you know, he's very clear.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: He's in no way Team Glynner.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: He's pro-trans.
22:14
SPEAKER_01: But making this distinction, you know, I'm not like him.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: I respect trans rights.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: It really did not help his case with the trans side.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: He was still considered the enemy.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: So after the book came out,
22:24
SPEAKER_01: John was on a panel at the Hay Literary Festival in England,
22:28
SPEAKER_01: and he addressed the criticism of him and
22:30
SPEAKER_00: Wait, is this a gay, like, hey?
22:32
SPEAKER_01: Hey, yeah, it's a gay, it's the gay hey.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: And he took a direct shot at hashtag own voices.
22:37
So you mentioned this,
22:38
this is the idea that people should write within their
22:40
demographic.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: And he talked about how he'd written books about the Holocaust,
22:44
SPEAKER_01: about the Russian Revolution,
22:46
SPEAKER_01: and no one was like,
22:46
SPEAKER_01: you can't do that,
22:47
SPEAKER_01: you're not a Bolshevik.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: He was like,
22:49
SPEAKER_00: I've written books about the Holocaust that are 100% accurate,
22:52
SPEAKER_00: and I'm not even Jewish.
22:54
SPEAKER_01: So quoting here from a Guardian report on this,
22:56
SPEAKER_01: he said,
22:56
I've always said the worst advice you can give young writers is
22:59
to write about what
22:59
SPEAKER_01: you know,
23:00
SPEAKER_01: he said.
23:01
SPEAKER_01: Write about what you don't know.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: If we only write about what we know, it's all biography.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: There's this awful thing,
23:06
SPEAKER_01: in my opinion,
23:06
SPEAKER_01: an awful thing,
23:07
SPEAKER_01: hashtag own voices,
23:09
which says that people can only write about their own
23:11
experience and stories.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: And my experience as a reader and a writer are the opposite to that.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: So he's like,
23:17
this is the worst place to be stuck in where clearly he has
23:22
nuanced views on this,
23:23
SPEAKER_00: but it's still very important to him to be seen as an ally.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: But on the other hand,
23:28
SPEAKER_00: he can't get on a stage without like this,
23:29
this burgeoning resentment because this is 2019 starting to
23:33
leak out his pores.
23:34
SPEAKER_01: He's edging.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: He's edging.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: He's edging.
23:37
So there was another little blip about that,
23:39
but the furor over the book died down.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: John stopped discussing the book so much.
23:44
And as I said,
23:45
he's extremely prolific,
23:46
and he had already moved on to his next work.
23:48
But he would occasionally stick his head above the wall and
23:52
show signs that he was
23:52
SPEAKER_01: still interested in,
23:54
SPEAKER_01: let's say,
23:54
SPEAKER_01: touchy subjects.
23:56
So in 2020,
23:57
he tweeted in support of the Harper's Letter,
23:58
which is,
23:59
I'm sure you all know,
24:00
remember was this very common sense open letter about free
24:04
speech signed by
24:05
SPEAKER_01: luminaries like Salman Rushdie,
24:07
SPEAKER_01: Noam Chomsky,
24:08
SPEAKER_01: J.K.
24:08
SPEAKER_01: Rowling, Jesse Single, Katie Herzog, and especially Jeet Heer.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: Jeet loved that letter.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, John.
24:17
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that.
24:18
SPEAKER_01: But of course, this was just more evidence of his wrong thinking.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: So who's actually getting mad at him here?
24:24
SPEAKER_01: So,
24:24
SPEAKER_01: you know,
24:25
SPEAKER_01: a lot of people online,
24:26
SPEAKER_01: there were some random furry avatars,
24:28
SPEAKER_01: but also people who were more prominent.
24:30
SPEAKER_01: So one of his most vocal critics is Aiden Comerford.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: Do you know that name, Jesse?
24:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I just know him as a very annoying online presence on gender stuff.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: I actually don't know much about him.
24:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's an Irish comedian, although that's the surprise me to learn.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't come across as funny.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: No.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: More scoldy.
24:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's very prominent on trans Twitter.
24:47
SPEAKER_01: I actually thought that he was trans because he tweets so much about it.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: Did you know that he's not trans?
24:52
SPEAKER_00: I did know that he was not trans.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: So he's big in the witch hunt scene,
24:56
SPEAKER_01: and he tweeted about John Boyne relentlessly,
24:58
SPEAKER_01: like over a thousand times.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: Wait, really?
25:00
SPEAKER_00: A thousand times?
25:01
SPEAKER_01: Over a thousand times, yes.
25:03
At one point,
25:04
he accused Boyne of creating sock puppet accounts to tweet
25:07
support it himself.
25:09
Comerford actually ended up publicly apologizing for making
25:12
false claims about
25:13
SPEAKER_01: Boyne in 2020,
25:14
SPEAKER_01: and I wonder if there was some kind of legal threat that prompted this,
25:17
SPEAKER_01: and I have no inside knowledge about that,
25:21
SPEAKER_01: but...
25:21
An unforced apology just seems out of character for Aidan
25:24
Comerford based on my own
25:26
SPEAKER_01: observations.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sounds like maybe there's a legal threat in there.
25:29
SPEAKER_01: But we don't know.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: It's like pure speculation.
25:31
SPEAKER_01: He just seems very sure of his own moral superiority.
25:34
SPEAKER_01: Let's just put it that way.
25:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:36
SPEAKER_01: up again later.
25:38
But whether it was forced or not,
25:39
Boyne did graciously accept his apology.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: And Boyne largely kept low that year, just working on his books.
25:46
SPEAKER_01: So the next year in 2020, he released a novel called The Echo Chamber.
25:50
SPEAKER_01: This was a farce based around social media addiction.
25:53
SPEAKER_01: It was probably about Taylor Lorenz.
25:55
So it's a story about a family of social media addicts and what
25:57
happens when the
25:58
SPEAKER_01: dad,
25:58
SPEAKER_01: the dad in the book is a famous BBC host.
26:01
SPEAKER_01: The dad misgenders a trans person online.
26:03
SPEAKER_01: Chaos ensues.
26:05
SPEAKER_01: And Boyan himself said this in the Irish Independent.
26:07
I've written the echo chamber to understand what it is that
26:10
makes people tap
26:10
obsessively at a little blue icon on their smartphones and
26:14
scream abuse at complete
26:15
SPEAKER_01: strangers.
26:16
SPEAKER_01: Great question.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, still unanswered.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: Okay,
26:19
let's fast forward to 2023 and we get John Boyne's first
26:22
explicit foray into public
26:24
SPEAKER_01: terpism.
26:25
SPEAKER_01: So that year,
26:26
the Irish singer Roisin Murphy was widely attacked for comments
26:30
she made on
26:31
SPEAKER_01: Facebook.
26:32
SPEAKER_01: She wrote,
26:32
SPEAKER_01: puberty blockers are fucked,
26:34
SPEAKER_01: absolutely desolate,
26:36
SPEAKER_01: big pharma laughing all the way to the bank.
26:38
SPEAKER_01: Little mixed up kids are vulnerable and need to be protected.
26:41
SPEAKER_01: That's just true.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: Do you remember this, Jesse?
26:43
SPEAKER_00: I don't.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: I don't remember the Roisin Murphy controversy, to be honest.
26:47
SPEAKER_01: So huge backlash.
26:48
SPEAKER_01: She had an album coming out right after this,
26:50
SPEAKER_01: and the Guardian reviewer loved the album,
26:52
SPEAKER_01: gave it five stars,
26:53
SPEAKER_01: but said it was masterful with a stain.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: And the reviewer seemed sort of upset that she liked it so much,
26:58
SPEAKER_01: considering Murphy's very problematic statements on Facebook.
27:02
So Murphy's record label after this stopped promoting her album
27:05
and said they would
27:06
SPEAKER_01: donate the proceeds from sales to trans charities.
27:09
SPEAKER_01: The BBC pulled the album from a Radio 6 program.
27:12
They later denied it was because of her comments,
27:14
but it was a giant shitstorm.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:17
SPEAKER_01: And she did get some public support, including from John Boyne.
27:21
SPEAKER_01: The thread has since been deleted, but Forbes reported on this.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: So we can see a bit of what John posted.
27:26
Forbes wrote,
27:27
author John Boyne criticized Murphy's treatment by the usual
27:30
rabid online thugs.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: That's a quote,
27:32
stating her only crime is to say that vulnerable children need
27:35
to be protected from
27:36
SPEAKER_01: harm and suggesting that the backlash she faced was misogynistic.
27:40
Quote,
27:40
I stand with Roisin Murphy as misogynist and men's rights
27:44
activists tried to divert
27:45
SPEAKER_01: tried to destroy her career.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: Boyne said in a separate post,
27:48
SPEAKER_01: claiming,
27:49
SPEAKER_01: quote,
27:49
SPEAKER_01: the culture of fear is at its most extreme since the McCarthy era.
27:53
SPEAKER_01: God, I miss those days.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: Now everyone is like, quack, quack, quack, adult human female.
27:58
It's not even considered brave anymore to say that trans women
28:01
shouldn't be on the
28:01
SPEAKER_01: volleyball team.
28:02
SPEAKER_01: We've gone mainstream, Jesse.
28:04
SPEAKER_01: I hate it.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: Sorry to hear that, Katie.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: I know this has been rough for you.
28:07
SPEAKER_01: It has, yes.
28:08
SPEAKER_01: Anyway,
28:08
the Murphy incident led John Boyne to extend an olive branch to
28:12
Graham Linehan,
28:13
SPEAKER_01: so he posted this.
28:15
Bye.
28:16
SPEAKER_01: Graham Linehan,
28:16
SPEAKER_01: who is without question one of our best screenwriters,
28:19
SPEAKER_01: has sacrificed enormous amounts in his support of women,
28:22
SPEAKER_01: children,
28:23
SPEAKER_01: gay men,
28:23
SPEAKER_01: and lesbians.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: He's experienced trauma in his personal life,
28:26
SPEAKER_01: been vilified for his views online,
28:28
SPEAKER_01: in newspapers,
28:28
SPEAKER_01: and on television.
28:29
SPEAKER_01: He is currently unable to work in the industry he loves.
28:32
SPEAKER_01: There is no legal reason for me to post this message.
28:35
SPEAKER_01: In fact,
28:35
SPEAKER_01: Graham will be as surprised by its appearance as anyone,
28:37
but I've given a lot of thought to this and realized that all I
28:40
did in that piece
28:41
SPEAKER_01: five years ago,
28:42
SPEAKER_01: that's the one that he wrote,
28:44
SPEAKER_01: distancing himself from Graham,
28:46
That's going to – yeah,
28:46
Graham has been for a long time under the impression that –
29:05
SPEAKER_00: Just about everyone owes him an apology.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: In this case, it's someone who I guess did like.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: Anyway.
29:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
29:11
SPEAKER_01: So Glynner accepted this apology, of course.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: Now, Jesse, it is time for our little detour into Linna land.
29:19
SPEAKER_01: So Graham Linehan is in the news right now because he was arrested for,
29:22
SPEAKER_01: according to him,
29:23
SPEAKER_01: three tweets.
29:25
This was not the first time he has gotten in trouble with the
29:27
law over his post.
29:28
SPEAKER_01: And I do see some parallels between Glynner's arc and Boyne's.
29:33
SPEAKER_01: So both started out as basically good,
29:36
SPEAKER_01: like good libs,
29:37
SPEAKER_01: pretty normie politics,
29:38
SPEAKER_01: supportive of trans rights,
29:39
SPEAKER_01: basically.
29:40
SPEAKER_01: And then something happened and they got dogpiled online.
29:43
SPEAKER_01: So in Graham's case, it goes back to an episode of The IT Crowd.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: This was a comedy that he created.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: In 2008, they did an episode where
29:50
SPEAKER_01: where a character discovers that a woman he's dating is trans.
29:53
SPEAKER_01: He reacts with disgust.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: Ha ha ha.
29:55
SPEAKER_01: Very typical 2008-style humor.
29:58
SPEAKER_01: Like, this is well before the trans tipping point.
30:00
SPEAKER_01: There would not have been any sort of backlash in 2008.
30:03
SPEAKER_01: Years later...
30:06
SPEAKER_01: trans activists or SJWs or whoever,
30:08
SPEAKER_01: people online,
30:09
SPEAKER_01: resurface this episode and start criticizing Graham for it.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: And Graham, he does not like being criticized.
30:15
SPEAKER_01: And this is the seed that turns into a full-blown obsession.
30:20
SPEAKER_01: He starts tweeting and talking about trans issues incessantly.
30:24
SPEAKER_01: Like, you think we talk about it a lot?
30:26
SPEAKER_01: We don't talk about it a lot compared to Graham Linehan.
30:29
SPEAKER_01: It becomes this single-minded focus
30:32
SPEAKER_01: much to the detriment of his personal and professional life.
30:34
SPEAKER_01: So he loses job opportunities.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: He's kicked off of Twitter for a time, although Elon brought him back.
30:39
SPEAKER_01: He loses his wife,
30:40
SPEAKER_01: his family,
30:41
SPEAKER_01: many friends,
30:42
SPEAKER_01: and he gets visits from the police due to his tweets,
30:44
SPEAKER_01: which is where I first met him.
30:46
SPEAKER_01: So in 2008,
30:47
I interviewed Graham for The Stranger after the UK police came
30:50
to his house.
30:51
SPEAKER_01: He was over tweets.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: He was, of course, adamant that this was complete overreach.
30:54
SPEAKER_01: This was fascism, just appalling use of law enforcement.
30:57
SPEAKER_01: And I agreed.
30:59
But Graham,
30:59
as I pointed out in the piece,
31:01
was inconsistent on the speech issue.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: So a couple of years before,
31:05
SPEAKER_01: after the Scottish comic Count Dankula was arrested,
31:08
convicted and fined 800 euro for posting a video of a dog doing
31:12
a Heil Hitler
31:13
SPEAKER_01: salute,
31:14
SPEAKER_01: Graham supported that.
31:16
SPEAKER_01: And when I interviewed him,
31:17
SPEAKER_01: I asked him about this because it seems like a contradiction,
31:19
SPEAKER_01: right?
31:20
SPEAKER_01: The cops are fascist when they knock on my door,
31:22
SPEAKER_01: but it's fine when they knock on my neighbor's door.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: And at the time, Graham was still adamant that Count Dankula deserved it.
31:29
SPEAKER_01: Now,
31:29
SPEAKER_01: to his credit,
31:29
SPEAKER_01: he did later apologize to Count Dankula,
31:31
SPEAKER_01: but he still does occasionally threaten to sue his own critics,
31:35
SPEAKER_01: which I consider,
31:36
SPEAKER_01: I don't think that's the most free speech stance in the world.
31:39
SPEAKER_01: But we should talk about this recent arrest.
31:41
SPEAKER_01: So, Jesse, do you know the basic story?
31:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so Graham Linehan was arrested at Heathrow over tweets.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: He did over three tweets.
31:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he was arrested by five cops.
31:50
And this complaint was apparently made the complaint to the
31:54
police by a trans woman
31:56
SPEAKER_01: named Lindsay Watson,
31:58
SPEAKER_01: who happens to be a former cop.
31:59
Although this person was fired for gross misconduct in October
32:03
2023 after sending
32:05
SPEAKER_01: another gender critical cop,
32:07
SPEAKER_01: a former cop,
32:08
SPEAKER_01: over twelve hundred harassing messages.
32:11
So the British press is reporting that this Watson person
32:15
reported Graham over
32:16
SPEAKER_01: these three tweets.
32:17
SPEAKER_01: So Jesse, please describe these tweets.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: One is a photo you can smell.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: It's just like a shot of what looks, I would assume, London.
32:26
Just like this sort of triangle-shaped plaza with a lot of
32:29
trans activists.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: He's saying the elements... Sorry to misgender you, Graham.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: He's saying the activists are smelly.
32:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
32:34
SPEAKER_01: and I mean,
32:34
SPEAKER_01: you can't actually tell that they're trans,
32:36
SPEAKER_01: but there's a lot of people,
32:37
SPEAKER_01: and it's Graham Linehan,
32:39
SPEAKER_01: so it's probably...
32:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm seeing a few trans colors.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't even know without context.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to say.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: But it's Graham.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:47
SPEAKER_00: So that's probably just being a tweet by Graham.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: That's what it's about.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: We're going to get so many fucking annoying emails.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: Why did you do this?
32:54
SPEAKER_01: I'm not the one who got fucking arrested.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: He was asking for it.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: Another one of his tweets.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: I hate them.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: Misogynists and homophobes.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: Fuck them.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: Similarly, I don't understand how that can be arrest worthy.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: And then this other one.
33:07
I guess these are all from April of this year,
33:10
or I can't tell with the first screenshot.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: This last one is April 20th, 2025.
33:14
If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space,
33:17
he is committing a violent,
33:18
abusive act.
33:19
Make a scene,
33:19
call the cops,
33:20
and if all else fails,
33:21
punch him in the balls.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: Now,
33:23
this one in a country like England that is not very good at
33:27
free speech stuff,
33:27
SPEAKER_00: this is the kind of tweet that will get you arrested.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: That being said,
33:31
I'm guessing the Kill Terps crowd have not had a lot of arrests
33:35
for saying Kill
33:35
SPEAKER_00: Terps,
33:36
SPEAKER_00: but I don't know.
33:37
SPEAKER_01: I don't know about that.
33:38
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
33:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
33:39
SPEAKER_01: Now,
33:39
SPEAKER_01: Graham is allegedly a comedy writer,
33:42
SPEAKER_01: and I suspect that last tweet was an attempt at humor,
33:45
SPEAKER_01: not an actual threat,
33:46
SPEAKER_01: although it's hard to tell.
33:48
But this was apparently such a threat to the police that it
33:50
required five cops to arrest him.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, the police... Can I just...
33:57
SPEAKER_00: It took five cops and they were armed, which is another thing.
34:00
I do think sometimes with policing,
34:02
people take these little irrelevant details.
34:05
The example you often see in the States is someone will get
34:07
shot by police.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: They were shot 30 times.
34:10
And that's because you don't think it's excessive to send five
34:13
cops to arrest
34:14
SPEAKER_01: Graham fucking Lineham at an airport.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: Everything police do is excessive.
34:17
Like they often you will see four police gathered around a
34:20
scene involving like nothing.
34:22
SPEAKER_01: So you do think it's excessive.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: I like I don't know.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: I think it could literally be the cops had nothing else going on.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: They're like, we have to go pick up this guy.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: I just I think both side like I don't know.
34:33
I don't think the people saying it was the excessive thing was
34:35
him being arrested.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: That's my point here.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: Arguably.
34:38
Surely someone was grooming someone somewhere that they could
34:41
have refocused their attention.
34:43
SPEAKER_01: Regardless,
34:44
SPEAKER_01: the police not only arrested Graham,
34:46
SPEAKER_01: they banned him from tweeting,
34:48
SPEAKER_01: which for Graham wouldn't do that.
34:49
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, but he's banned from tweeting or he says he is.
34:52
SPEAKER_01: And I think for him, this is probably worse than prison.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: Much worse.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: Not even close.
34:55
SPEAKER_01: All right, Jesse, are you in the mood for a rant?
34:58
SPEAKER_00: Do I have a choice?
34:59
SPEAKER_01: No.
35:00
SPEAKER_01: OK,
35:00
so I mentioned before that we had a moratorium on mentioning
35:04
the name G star star
35:06
SPEAKER_01: star star 13 stars in.
35:08
And the reason for this is because Graham is going to listen to
35:11
this podcast and
35:12
SPEAKER_01: write maybe 10,
35:14
SPEAKER_01: maybe 12 subsec posts about how unfair we are.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: He will probably send a few emails as well.
35:20
SPEAKER_01: This is what Graham does.
35:22
SPEAKER_01: He's a cry bully who takes even the slightest,
35:26
most good faith critique so personally that he will spend years
35:30
of his life trying
35:31
SPEAKER_01: to wound or ruin the person who made it.
35:34
If you're really lucky,
35:34
he'll threaten to sue you or he'll have his lawyer write you.
35:38
The beef between us started in,
35:40
I can't remember,
35:40
it was like 2021,
35:42
2022 maybe.
35:43
SPEAKER_01: We criticized this stunt he pulled by joining a lesbian dating app.
35:46
Well,
35:47
and just to be,
35:48
so people know the context,
35:49
and sort of posting photos of himself.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to get there.
35:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:53
So we didn't say he should be kicked off of social media or
35:55
arrested or lose his
35:56
SPEAKER_01: job or anything like that.
35:58
SPEAKER_01: In fact, we defended his right to be an asshole.
36:00
SPEAKER_01: But what happened is that he got on his dating app.
36:02
SPEAKER_01: He posted photos of himself like in a wig or whatever.
36:06
He also found photos of trans women and started posting those
36:09
photos to his subsec
36:11
SPEAKER_01: to humiliate the people on the app.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: But the thing is,
36:14
SPEAKER_01: the women,
36:15
so the adult human females who own that dating app allowed
36:20
trans women on their
36:21
SPEAKER_01: app.
36:22
SPEAKER_01: It was within their terms of service.
36:24
SPEAKER_01: They were fine having trans women on the app.
36:27
SPEAKER_01: And so to have this bloke not just publicly shaming the users of the app,
36:32
SPEAKER_01: who have every right to be there,
36:33
SPEAKER_01: according to the people who built the fucking thing,
36:35
but to try to force his version of what this app should be onto
36:40
the female owners
36:41
SPEAKER_01: of the company,
36:41
SPEAKER_01: I found it
36:43
SPEAKER_01: egregious and so, so typical of Graham Linehan.
36:46
SPEAKER_01: He knows what's best for women.
36:48
SPEAKER_01: It's insulting.
36:49
SPEAKER_01: And when we said this on our episode a couple years ago,
36:52
SPEAKER_01: more gently than I'm saying it now,
36:54
SPEAKER_01: you would have thought that we left him at the altar,
36:57
SPEAKER_01: which frankly his ex-wife probably wishes that she'd done.
37:00
SPEAKER_01: And he has kept up this campaign against us,
37:03
SPEAKER_01: almost completely one-sided now because we don't talk about him,
37:06
SPEAKER_01: for like five years.
37:07
SPEAKER_01: Same with Helen Lewis and Hadley Freeman.
37:09
SPEAKER_01: Graham accuses us all of being careerist.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: Like,
37:12
the only reason we could possibly disagree with him is because
37:15
we are cowards who
37:17
care more about being invited to London or New York dinner
37:20
parties than we do about
37:22
SPEAKER_01: protecting women or whatever he thinks he's doing.
37:25
SPEAKER_01: Well, joke's on you, Graham.
37:26
SPEAKER_01: I don't even like dinner parties.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: I think they're like...
37:29
The tendency to constantly feel aggrieved by people who often
37:34
don't even disagree
37:35
SPEAKER_00: with him on that much.
37:36
SPEAKER_00: Like the disagreements are sometimes overemphasis or like tactical.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: But like, I don't want to speak for other people.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: I definitely don't want to speak for women, which you're not allowed to.
37:45
SPEAKER_00: He is a grievance nurturer.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: He's like far to the end of the bell curve on that personality.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:52
characteristic and that explains a lot of this and he's sort of
37:55
like over time by
37:56
SPEAKER_00: being such a grievance nurturer he's built up this sort of
38:01
coterie of of of you know followers who see him as this wounded
38:06
he's their jesus
38:07
martyr yeah it's strange and i would not i would not want
38:11
readers or listeners who
38:12
viewed me in such a light because it's not it's not quite human
38:14
he has such a
38:15
singular focus on his own woundedness and on on trans i i it
38:22
makes me think that he
38:23
SPEAKER_01: might actually be autistic and trans is his trains
38:26
SPEAKER_00: Do you think he just got confused?
38:28
SPEAKER_00: Like he misspelled it once?
38:30
SPEAKER_01: Hyper-focused.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: You're going well beyond.
38:33
SPEAKER_01: I'm not done.
38:33
SPEAKER_01: I'm not done.
38:34
The other thing is Graham Lineham doesn't seem to understand
38:38
the difference between
38:39
SPEAKER_01: activism and journalism.
38:40
So he thinks that because you and Helen and Hadley and I all
38:44
know what a woman is,
38:45
SPEAKER_01: we owe him some sort of deference.
38:47
SPEAKER_01: Like we're teammates –
38:48
SPEAKER_01: We don't and we aren't.
38:49
There's a word for journalists to ignore wrongdoing when it's
38:52
coming from political allies.
38:54
SPEAKER_01: Hacks.
38:55
SPEAKER_01: Graham doesn't want us to do our jobs.
38:57
SPEAKER_01: He wants us to praise him for his sacrifice.
38:59
SPEAKER_01: And we don't do it.
39:00
SPEAKER_01: And so he whines and whines and whines.
39:02
SPEAKER_01: All this is to say,
39:02
I think Graham dug his own grave and that his only real
39:06
contribution to the gender
39:07
SPEAKER_01: critical movement is to be such a prick that by comparison,
39:10
SPEAKER_01: everyone else looks normal.
39:12
SPEAKER_01: And yet, despite my feelings about him,
39:15
I will easily say that he should not have been arrested for
39:18
these tweets.
39:18
SPEAKER_01: And basically everyone agrees.
39:21
SPEAKER_01: Even the people who don't like him,
39:22
SPEAKER_01: like us,
39:23
SPEAKER_01: like Helen,
39:23
SPEAKER_01: like Janice Turner,
39:24
SPEAKER_01: even the Guardian columnist Owen Jones,
39:27
SPEAKER_01: who is a trans rights extremist himself,
39:30
all of us have said that this is an abuse of state power and
39:33
this never should have
39:33
SPEAKER_01: happened.
39:34
SPEAKER_01: The only people who were cheering this,
39:36
SPEAKER_01: as far as I can tell,
39:37
SPEAKER_01: are like random trans people on Twitter and free speech haters like Aiden
39:43
SPEAKER_01: Comerford,
39:43
SPEAKER_01: Popat,
39:44
SPEAKER_01: and all of Blue Sky.
39:45
SPEAKER_00: The Popat thing is particularly interesting because Popat is Ken White,
39:48
who was for a long time a really good sort of
39:53
libertarian-minded legal writer who's
39:55
SPEAKER_00: gone batshit insane,
39:57
SPEAKER_00: unfortunately,
39:58
SPEAKER_00: I think,
39:58
SPEAKER_00: between a combination of Trump and Trump too and the pandemic.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: I had some emails with him that were just – he doesn't like me.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: Now, the interesting thing is –
40:08
SPEAKER_01: Well, let's say specifically what he said.
40:10
SPEAKER_01: Will you read this, what he posted on Blue Sky?
40:13
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: So Graham Linehan, he does an image of the punch in the ball thing.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: And then Ken White says,
40:21
the UK's approach to prosecutions for social media content is
40:24
quite different than
40:24
SPEAKER_00: ours in ways I've criticized.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: This one is within shouting distance of prosecutable in the US.
40:29
The relevant question is whether it's sufficiently imminent to
40:31
meet our incitement standard.
40:33
SPEAKER_00: This would very plausibly get charged in the U.S.,
40:35
SPEAKER_00: particularly if it were about a group subject to less prejudice.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: It's not clear the prosecution would succeed,
40:40
SPEAKER_00: but it's quite possible this would get you arrested here,
40:42
SPEAKER_00: particularly by state authorities.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: Also,
40:45
SPEAKER_00: it should be obvious,
40:46
SPEAKER_00: but in case not,
40:46
SPEAKER_00: this illustrates that the aims of the anti-trans movement are legitimate.
40:50
Part of what's interesting about this is Popat himself engaged
40:54
in a little bit of
40:54
SPEAKER_00: light incitement.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: Are you aware of this?
40:56
SPEAKER_00: No.
40:56
SPEAKER_00: He basically said – let me find the exact quote.
40:58
SPEAKER_00: Did he punch him in the balls?
40:59
So he did this long skeet storm just about how bad he thinks
41:03
things are getting at.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: Violence, rapes, non-white Trump supporters getting beaten and killed –
41:09
SPEAKER_00: And then it's all happening.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
41:11
SPEAKER_01: He mentions fucking MAGA rape gangs are sick.
41:15
SPEAKER_00: No, but I just like that.
41:17
This is the problem with Polpat is is the shit Trump has done
41:21
with mass deportations.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: Terrible is often not legal.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: Like we should want Pope hats who are sane to explain this to us.
41:28
SPEAKER_00: Anyway,
41:28
SPEAKER_00: he eventually says that – he mentions the Heritage Society,
41:33
SPEAKER_00: the Federalist Society going along with this.
41:35
And then here's the punchline of the skeet storm,
41:37
Katie,
41:38
or the money shot.
41:38
SPEAKER_01: At some point,
41:39
SPEAKER_01: in my opinion,
41:39
violence against not just the government doing it and the
41:41
private people joining
41:42
SPEAKER_01: the violence,
41:43
but the soft target think tank media and academic apparatus
41:47
that empowered it
41:48
SPEAKER_01: becomes morally and philosophically justified.
41:52
SPEAKER_01: Punch him in the balls.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: So this was more than a year ago in July of 2024.
41:54
SPEAKER_00: And he's now in prison.
41:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
42:00
SPEAKER_00: and again,
42:00
SPEAKER_00: maybe legally this is less actionable,
42:02
but he's literally saying at some point violence against people
42:05
who work for
42:06
SPEAKER_00: heritage becomes justified.
42:08
SPEAKER_00: So it was sort of striking.
42:10
SPEAKER_00: Now,
42:11
I can't really speak to his claim that you could get arrested
42:15
in the States for
42:16
saying punch someone in the ball for coming in what you view as
42:19
the wrong place.
42:20
SPEAKER_00: Locker room?
42:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm not aware of any such cases, but he could be wrong.
42:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm not aware of it, but I did check with an expert.
42:27
SPEAKER_01: So I emailed Eugene Volok,
42:29
SPEAKER_01: First Amendment lawyer,
42:30
SPEAKER_01: Stanford professor,
42:31
SPEAKER_01: contributor to Reason Magazine,
42:32
SPEAKER_01: friend of the pod,
42:33
SPEAKER_01: all-around authority on free speech.
42:35
SPEAKER_01: I sent him Ken's post about Graham, and I asked what he thought.
42:39
And he said,
42:40
basically,
42:41
this is not likely to meet the incitement to commit violence
42:44
standard.
42:44
SPEAKER_01: OK, so for our non-American listeners, we do have a First Amendment here.
42:49
SPEAKER_01: We do have free speech, but there are limitations to free speech.
42:51
SPEAKER_01: And one of those is the incitement to commit violence.
42:53
SPEAKER_01: So that's pretty self-explanatory.
42:56
So that's what Ken is saying Graham was doing with this punch
42:58
when the balls come on.
43:00
SPEAKER_01: And Eugene said,
43:00
SPEAKER_01: this is why statements such as punch a Nazi,
43:03
SPEAKER_01: snitches get stitches are generally constitutionally protected,
43:06
SPEAKER_01: absent advocacy of imminent violence or a specific target.
43:09
SPEAKER_01: So I think Popat is wish casting here.
43:13
SPEAKER_01: And frankly,
43:14
if the police started arresting people who tweet vague
43:18
endorsements of hypothetical
43:20
SPEAKER_01: violence,
43:20
SPEAKER_01: that is all they would do.
43:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:22
SPEAKER_01: Social media is awash in this shit.
43:24
SPEAKER_01: Punch Nazis.
43:25
SPEAKER_01: My God, everyone fucking says shit like that.
43:28
SPEAKER_01: It is not an actual threat.
43:30
SPEAKER_01: It is a slogan.
43:31
SPEAKER_01: And in fact,
43:32
SPEAKER_01: the UK police actually,
43:33
SPEAKER_01: they do waste a tremendous amount of time on this kind of shit.
43:36
SPEAKER_01: So Greg Lukianoff from FIRE,
43:37
he posted that 10,000 Brits have been arrested every year for
43:41
offensive speech
43:42
SPEAKER_01: since 2021.
43:43
SPEAKER_01: And not just TERFs,
43:46
SPEAKER_01: they've arrested anti-Israel activists,
43:48
SPEAKER_01: anti-immigration activists,
43:49
SPEAKER_01: the whole breadth of posters online.
43:51
SPEAKER_00: So that all of which would suggest that what happened to Linehan,
43:55
SPEAKER_00: while I think objectively bad,
43:57
is not unusual because they are collapsing into this just
44:04
unbelievably anti-free
44:06
SPEAKER_00: speech,
44:07
huge drain on resources of arresting anyone who tweets
44:09
something questionable.
44:10
SPEAKER_01: Yes, they do that there.
44:12
SPEAKER_01: OK, last thing about Graham before we get back to John Boyne.
44:16
I think Graham getting arrested was maybe the best thing to
44:19
happen to him.
44:20
So he apparently did go to the hospital because at the moment
44:23
his blood pressure spiked.
44:24
SPEAKER_01: But he's now been on the cover of every major newspaper in the UK.
44:27
SPEAKER_01: The U.S.
44:28
SPEAKER_01: media has also picked this up.
44:29
SPEAKER_01: He is getting what he seems to crave most, adulation and sympathy.
44:34
And the timing could not possibly have been better for Graham
44:37
because just this
44:38
SPEAKER_01: week,
44:38
SPEAKER_01: Jesse,
44:39
SPEAKER_01: he was in court for another offense.
44:41
SPEAKER_01: This time it was harassing a then 17-year-old trans woman.
44:45
SPEAKER_01: Did you follow?
44:45
SPEAKER_01: Have you followed this?
44:46
SPEAKER_00: Not really.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: So what's the accuser of having done?
44:48
SPEAKER_01: OK, so the accuser is Sophia Brooks.
44:52
SPEAKER_01: This is a trans woman, a biological male.
44:55
SPEAKER_01: Now,
44:55
SPEAKER_01: if you search Twitter for the name Sophia Brooks,
44:58
SPEAKER_01: you will see allegations that Brooks is basically a serial harasser.
45:02
SPEAKER_01: that she has repeatedly she calls people,
45:05
SPEAKER_01: she makes like on the phone,
45:06
SPEAKER_01: she makes sock puppet accounts to harass them.
45:08
You'll see allegations that she's fake screenshots to make
45:11
TERFs look bad and that
45:13
SPEAKER_01: she went to some Kelly J.
45:15
Keene event with a speaker and played audio of a trans woman
45:18
who was a convicted
45:19
SPEAKER_01: kidnapper and torturer threatening TERFs like over the loudspeaker.
45:23
And you'll see allegations that Baker faked being D-trans in
45:27
order to infiltrate
45:28
SPEAKER_01: gender critical groups and feed information to other activists.
45:32
SPEAKER_01: Those last two claims are true.
45:34
SPEAKER_01: I have seen videos.
45:36
SPEAKER_01: And at one LGB Alliance event,
45:37
SPEAKER_01: so this is an activist group in the UK,
45:40
some trans activists released grasshoppers into the event in
45:44
this dumb attempt to
45:45
SPEAKER_01: disrupt it.
45:46
SPEAKER_01: Linehan accused Brooks of being one of them.
45:49
SPEAKER_01: But as far as I can tell,
45:50
SPEAKER_01: that was incorrect,
45:51
SPEAKER_01: or at least there's no evidence that Brooks was wrong.
45:54
SPEAKER_01: a grasshopper releaser.
45:56
SPEAKER_01: Regardless,
45:57
Graham thought it was Sophia Brooks and posted a photo of
46:00
Brooks to his half
46:01
SPEAKER_01: million followers on Twitter,
46:03
SPEAKER_01: and he later called her a groomer,
46:04
SPEAKER_01: an incel,
46:05
SPEAKER_01: a deeply disturbed sociopath,
46:07
SPEAKER_01: a malignant narcissist,
46:08
SPEAKER_01: and a sissy porn-watching scumbag.
46:10
SPEAKER_01: This is super normal stuff for a grown man to call a teenager.
46:14
SPEAKER_01: Oh, and he knocked her phone out of her hand at another event.
46:18
SPEAKER_01: She was there filming TERFs.
46:20
SPEAKER_01: And Graham,
46:21
SPEAKER_01: after this,
46:22
SPEAKER_01: he knocks her phone out of her hand,
46:23
SPEAKER_01: throws it,
46:24
SPEAKER_01: and then posts,
46:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm quite proud that I grabbed his phone and threw it across the road.
46:27
SPEAKER_01: This is exactly what you want in the leader of a woman's movement,
46:31
SPEAKER_01: is a man with poor impulse control and a temper.
46:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's not good at being online.
46:38
SPEAKER_01: So as of this recording, they're on day true of that trial.
46:42
SPEAKER_01: Again, this is unrelated to his recent arrest.
46:45
SPEAKER_01: And from what I've seen,
46:46
SPEAKER_01: it sounds like a bit of a circus,
46:47
although the media reports and the posts from gender critical
46:51
Twitter paint very
46:51
SPEAKER_01: different portraits of who's in the lead,
46:54
SPEAKER_01: who's winning.
46:55
SPEAKER_01: But that's going on as we speak.
46:57
And Jesse,
46:57
I want you to check out these photos of what Graham wore
47:01
outside the court.
47:02
SPEAKER_01: This was on his way into court yesterday.
47:05
SPEAKER_00: They're wearing a placard that says,
47:07
SPEAKER_00: keep men out of women's sports on one side,
47:09
SPEAKER_00: and there's no such thing as a transgender child on the other.
47:12
SPEAKER_01: And he's grinning.
47:12
SPEAKER_01: He seems to be very much enjoying himself.
47:15
SPEAKER_00: I think he's happy this happened.
47:20
SPEAKER_00: I don't actually blame him for that.
47:21
SPEAKER_00: If I got...
47:23
arrested for a tweet he's totally but this this let's just i
47:27
mean there are two
47:28
separate issues like he's not in court right now for the tweets
47:32
he's in court right
47:32
now for swatting the phone out of a teenager's hand and
47:37
throwing it across the road
47:38
SPEAKER_01: that's grim on him yeah all right so let's do housekeeping
47:42
SPEAKER_00: We are a podcast.
47:43
SPEAKER_00: You can find us at blockterimporter.org.
47:46
SPEAKER_00: You can become a premium subscriber if you want to support us,
47:49
SPEAKER_00: and that gives you access to extra content,
47:51
SPEAKER_00: including parts one and soon two of the Taylor Lorenz whatever it is.
47:57
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what to call it.
47:59
SPEAKER_00: Katie?
47:59
SPEAKER_01: The reality TV show.
48:00
SPEAKER_01: Jana was listening to it the other day.
48:02
SPEAKER_01: She quite enjoyed it,
48:03
SPEAKER_01: and she said,
48:04
SPEAKER_01: you're not going to like to hear this,
48:05
SPEAKER_01: but you guys,
48:06
SPEAKER_01: you're bravo.
48:07
SPEAKER_00: We're bravo.
48:08
SPEAKER_00: We're bravo for online bullshit.
48:09
SPEAKER_00: And Katie, you have a book coming out on September 30th.
48:12
SPEAKER_01: I do.
48:12
SPEAKER_01: Please buy my book.
48:13
SPEAKER_00: What's it called?
48:14
SPEAKER_00: Just buy it.
48:14
SPEAKER_00: Help people buy it.
48:15
SPEAKER_00: Put a fucking link in the show notes.
48:16
SPEAKER_00: I'll put a link.
48:17
SPEAKER_00: I'll put a link in the show notes.
48:18
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ, Katie.
48:19
SPEAKER_00: Help them help you.
48:20
SPEAKER_01: You could go to your local bookstore and demand that they get 100 copies.
48:24
SPEAKER_01: That would also be helpful.
48:25
I'm the last person to give advice on selling books because my
48:28
book did not sell.
48:28
But my understanding is that you can also ask your local
48:31
library to order copies of
48:32
SPEAKER_00: it,
48:32
SPEAKER_00: which I believe –
48:33
SPEAKER_00: I think contributes to sales, but I don't know.
48:35
SPEAKER_01: I don't know about that.
48:35
SPEAKER_01: That seems like... You should still do it.
48:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:37
SPEAKER_01: You should buy it.
48:38
SPEAKER_01: It's cheap.
48:38
SPEAKER_01: You know what?
48:39
SPEAKER_00: We chose... Buy it and just send an email to your library.
48:42
SPEAKER_00: Libraries have websites where you can request them to get books.
48:44
SPEAKER_00: That's how they know what books to get.
48:45
SPEAKER_01: It's in paperback.
48:46
SPEAKER_01: It's priced low.
48:47
I did this on purpose because I wanted as many people to have
48:49
access to this book as possible.
48:51
SPEAKER_01: Please support me in this endeavor.
48:53
SPEAKER_01: Anything else, Jesse?
48:53
SPEAKER_01: No.
48:54
SPEAKER_01: All right.
48:54
SPEAKER_00: Let's get back to it.
48:54
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
48:55
SPEAKER_01: Back to John Boyne.
48:56
SPEAKER_01: So, in some ways...
48:58
SPEAKER_01: John Boyne's arc is similar to Graham's.
49:00
SPEAKER_01: They both started out as well-meaning allies.
49:03
SPEAKER_01: They got burned,
49:04
SPEAKER_01: in Graham's case,
49:05
SPEAKER_01: because of the IT Crowd episode,
49:07
SPEAKER_01: in Boyne's case,
49:07
SPEAKER_01: because of the trans book.
49:09
SPEAKER_01: And gradually, they became more and more radical on this issue.
49:12
SPEAKER_01: And this is a really common arc.
49:14
SPEAKER_01: You say one wrong thing,
49:16
SPEAKER_01: oftentimes because you don't even realize that it's wrong,
49:18
SPEAKER_01: you get canceled.
49:19
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, fuck you, I'm done.
49:20
And when I was at The Stranger,
49:22
I would argue with my colleagues about this.
49:25
SPEAKER_01: Because to me,
49:26
it's like if you're a political operative or an activist or
49:28
even someone who just
49:29
SPEAKER_01: cares about an issue,
49:30
alienating people who violate some norm within your group is a
49:33
really effective way
49:35
SPEAKER_01: of driving them to the other side.
49:37
SPEAKER_01: And I would say this at a stranger and my colleagues would be like,
49:39
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
49:40
SPEAKER_01: driving someone to fascism over mean tweets,
49:42
SPEAKER_01: LaMau.
49:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's how they it's so dumb.
49:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
49:45
SPEAKER_01: And I'd be like, yes.
49:46
SPEAKER_01: Are you familiar with human beings?
49:47
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever met one?
49:48
SPEAKER_01: This is how people work.
49:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
49:50
SPEAKER_01: Not that being gender critical is fascist.
49:52
SPEAKER_01: I obviously don't believe this.
49:53
SPEAKER_01: But people who are alienated naturally find other allies.
49:57
SPEAKER_01: So John moves further into turfism.
50:00
SPEAKER_01: In 2024, he was on Julie Bindle's podcast.
50:02
SPEAKER_01: It's an interesting listen.
50:04
And he talks about how the criticism of the boy in the straight
50:06
pajamas took on
50:08
SPEAKER_01: another like a new life after my brother's name is Jessica came out.
50:12
SPEAKER_01: It was as though his critics were looking for more reasons to cancel him.
50:15
And he comes across as very sympathetic in that interview,
50:18
at least to me.
50:18
SPEAKER_01: He talks about how hard it was growing up as gay.
50:20
SPEAKER_01: And he just he comes across as a very kind,
50:23
SPEAKER_01: well-meaning man who is capable of admitting mistakes.
50:26
SPEAKER_01: But of course,
50:27
SPEAKER_01: once you have the mark of the turf upon you,
50:29
the only way to get it off is to claim that you are brainwashed
50:32
by the gender
50:33
SPEAKER_01: critical cult and then retransition.
50:35
SPEAKER_01: And
50:37
SPEAKER_01: And that even doesn't always work.
50:38
SPEAKER_01: Like, it's very hard to get out of the trans book of the damned.
50:41
SPEAKER_01: And more and more, John's attitude seems to be, fuck it.
50:44
SPEAKER_01: Fast forward to July this year.
50:46
SPEAKER_01: As any dedicated transphobe knows, J.K.
50:49
SPEAKER_01: Rowling's birthday is July 31st.
50:51
SPEAKER_01: Jesse, is it on your calendar?
50:52
SPEAKER_00: Of course, naturally.
50:53
To commemorate Rowling turning 60,
50:55
John Boyne wrote a piece for the Irish Independent.
50:58
Most of the article is a celebration of Rowling's work and
51:01
accomplishments.
51:02
SPEAKER_01: But towards the end, he comes out fighting.
51:04
SPEAKER_01: Jesse, please read this.
51:06
SPEAKER_00: As a writer, I'm in awe of her achievements.
51:07
SPEAKER_00: As a reader, I love her work.
51:09
SPEAKER_00: As someone who's had the privilege of meeting her, I enjoy her company.
51:11
SPEAKER_00: And as a fellow TERF,
51:14
the term men's rights activists use to denigrate those of us
51:16
who believe that
51:17
feminism is about ensuring that women can live their lives
51:19
without fear of sexual
51:20
SPEAKER_00: assault,
51:21
SPEAKER_00: I stand four square behind her.
51:23
SPEAKER_00: That's not going to go well.
51:24
SPEAKER_01: No.
51:25
SPEAKER_01: He also said this about the women who don't stand four square behind her.
51:28
SPEAKER_01: For every Commander Waterford,
51:30
SPEAKER_01: there's a Serena Joy standing behind him,
51:32
SPEAKER_01: ready to pin a handmaiden down as her husband rapes her.
51:36
SPEAKER_00: Jesus fucking Christ.
51:37
SPEAKER_00: Wait.
51:38
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
51:38
SPEAKER_00: So, okay.
51:40
SPEAKER_00: That's very harsh language.
51:42
SPEAKER_00: Good to do.
51:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we can now see that his transformation has gone a full 180.
51:47
SPEAKER_01: You know, well-meaning ally, trans rights or rights.
51:50
SPEAKER_01: Now he's a full-on self-described TERF.
51:53
SPEAKER_01: And it's pretty clear that this isn't just about the issues.
51:55
SPEAKER_01: It's also about how he was treated.
51:58
SPEAKER_01: Again, common theme.
51:59
SPEAKER_01: And Jesse,
51:59
this brings us to the most recent incident and the reason we
52:03
are gathered here
52:04
SPEAKER_01: today,
52:04
SPEAKER_01: the Polari Prize.
52:06
SPEAKER_01: Are you familiar?
52:07
SPEAKER_01: Have you won?
52:07
SPEAKER_00: I have not, to my knowledge, won because I don't know what it is.
52:12
SPEAKER_01: It's a British LGBT book prize.
52:14
SPEAKER_01: Polari itself,
52:15
that was the name of a coded language used by British gay men
52:19
in the mid 20th
52:20
SPEAKER_01: century before homosexuality was legalized.
52:22
SPEAKER_01: And it's pretty fascinating.
52:23
SPEAKER_01: So it's got tinges of Romani, Yiddish, Cockney and like sailor slang.
52:27
SPEAKER_01: So Jesse, read the sentence.
52:28
SPEAKER_01: I pasted this here in our notes.
52:30
SPEAKER_01: Use your best British twink accent.
52:31
SPEAKER_00: Vada the bona omi with the fantabulosa lallies.
52:35
SPEAKER_00: I'd zoosh her lally.
52:36
SPEAKER_00: Oh, this seems problematic.
52:38
I'd zoosh her lally's naughty problem if she'd let me trolley
52:40
her choppering omi in the cottage.
52:43
SPEAKER_00: What did you just make me read?
52:44
SPEAKER_01: Look at the gorgeous man with the fabulous legs.
52:46
I'd happily spread his legs if he'd let me play with his
52:49
equipment in the loo.
52:50
SPEAKER_00: Nice.
52:50
SPEAKER_00: So they call guys her in this dialect.
52:54
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting.
52:55
SPEAKER_01: Yes, and that's extremely common even today.
52:59
SPEAKER_01: Polari died off as buggery was legalized,
53:01
SPEAKER_01: and you could use English to arrange your tryst in the park,
53:04
SPEAKER_01: but gay men calling each other cis,
53:06
SPEAKER_01: so with an S,
53:07
SPEAKER_01: and girl.
53:08
SPEAKER_01: This isn't a secret code.
53:09
SPEAKER_01: It's a way of in-group signaling.
53:10
SPEAKER_01: Lots of other groups have this, but anyway...
53:12
The Polari Prize started out in 2011 as a prize for first-time
53:16
authors from the UK or Ireland.
53:18
SPEAKER_01: It has since expanded into two separate prizes,
53:21
SPEAKER_01: so one for first-time author and the other for Book of the Year.
53:24
SPEAKER_01: It's not exactly the Booker Prize,
53:26
like the Book of the Year winner gets £2,000 and the first book
53:29
winner gets £1,000.
53:30
SPEAKER_01: You know,
53:31
SPEAKER_01: you won't get many poppers or bottles of lube at 2025 prices,
53:35
SPEAKER_01: but this year,
53:36
John Boyne's book Latest Earth was included in the long list of
53:39
nominees for Book
53:40
SPEAKER_01: of the Year.
53:41
SPEAKER_00: And is it like an LGBT-themed book?
53:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
53:43
SPEAKER_01: So Earth, this is part of John's Element series.
53:46
This is four interconnected novellas,
53:48
all based around the subject of abuse.
53:51
And one tells the story of a closeted gay soccer player on
53:54
trial for sexual assault.
53:56
SPEAKER_01: Reviews were good.
53:57
But as soon as the long list was announced on August 5th,
54:00
people freaked out.
54:01
So last year's first book prize winner is now one of the judges
54:04
on the panel.
54:05
SPEAKER_01: Her name is Nicola Dinan.
54:07
SPEAKER_01: And she's a trans woman.
54:08
SPEAKER_01: And she immediately stepped on in protest.
54:10
SPEAKER_01: So the Polari Prize soon issued a statement to address this.
54:14
SPEAKER_01: Here's the most relevant passage.
54:16
SPEAKER_01: Jesse, will you read this?
54:17
SPEAKER_00: It is inevitable,
54:18
given the challenges we face and the diversity of the lived
54:20
experience we now
54:21
SPEAKER_00: represent under the LGBTQ plus Polari umbrella,
54:24
SPEAKER_00: that even within our community,
54:25
SPEAKER_00: we can at times hold radically different positions on substantive issues.
54:28
SPEAKER_00: This is one of those times.
54:29
John Boynton's novel Earth was included on the Polari Prize
54:32
longlist on merit as
54:33
SPEAKER_00: judged by our jury following the process and principles stated above.
54:36
SPEAKER_00: While we do not eliminate books based on the wider views of a writer,
54:39
SPEAKER_00: we regret the upset and hurt this has caused.
54:41
SPEAKER_00: Polari is committed to inclusion, not exclusion.
54:44
The resignation of our valued judge and former first book prize
54:47
winner Nicola Dinan
54:48
SPEAKER_00: causes great sadness.
54:49
SPEAKER_00: Nonetheless, we completely understand and respect your decision.
54:52
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
54:52
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
54:53
SPEAKER_01: So you can guess how well this went down.
54:55
SPEAKER_01: So here, for instance, this is the YA author Patrick Ness on Blue Sky.
55:00
The Polari Prize issued a statement saying it believes its long
55:03
listees can hold
55:04
SPEAKER_01: different positions on substantive issues.
55:06
This is like long listing a racist with authors of color and
55:10
then telling anyone
55:11
SPEAKER_01: it's a mere different position on a substantive issue.
55:14
SPEAKER_01: Trans people are, in fact, not an issue.
55:17
SPEAKER_01: Soon, another judge stepped down.
55:19
SPEAKER_01: So in all,
55:19
SPEAKER_01: 16 nominees,
55:20
SPEAKER_01: so that's two-thirds of the nominees,
55:22
SPEAKER_01: withdrew their names for consideration.
55:24
SPEAKER_01: There was also a petition organized by two writers,
55:26
SPEAKER_01: Emma Van Stratton and Niamh,
55:28
SPEAKER_01: this was so Irish,
55:29
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to butcher this,
55:30
SPEAKER_01: Nivuelan.
55:31
SPEAKER_01: Does that sound right?
55:32
SPEAKER_01: This is like fucking elfish.
55:34
SPEAKER_01: It's M-H-A-O-L-E-O-I-N.
55:37
SPEAKER_01: So that petition calls on the Polari Prize to,
55:39
SPEAKER_01: quote,
55:40
SPEAKER_01: formally remove Mr.
55:41
Boyne from the long list to restore the integrity of this prize
55:44
as a safe,
55:45
SPEAKER_01: inclusive and celebratory space for the LGBTQ plus community.
55:49
SPEAKER_01: It got 800 signatures.
55:51
The Guardian reported that the signatories were writers and
55:54
publishing workers,
55:55
SPEAKER_01: but it's a Google Doc and the signatories weren't publicly named.
55:58
So we can't really say whether we're talking about like Stephen
56:01
King or Frady's
56:02
SPEAKER_01: Moon or a stock boy at Waterstones and Piccadilly.
56:05
SPEAKER_01: But the petition made headlines,
56:07
SPEAKER_01: and it caused the incident to attract a lot more attention,
56:10
SPEAKER_01: including from J.K.
56:11
SPEAKER_01: Rowling, who tweeted, Oh, fuck off.
56:13
SPEAKER_01: I hope everybody buys twice as many John Boyne books,
56:16
SPEAKER_01: A,
56:16
SPEAKER_01: because he's brilliant,
56:17
SPEAKER_01: and B,
56:18
SPEAKER_01: to piss off the gendered Taliban.
56:20
SPEAKER_01: And this, of course, amplified things even more.
56:23
SPEAKER_01: So YouTubers started making videos.
56:25
SPEAKER_01: British BookTok was dissecting it.
56:26
SPEAKER_01: The whole thing was just snowballing.
56:28
SPEAKER_00: Did Polari respond further?
56:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they released another statement.
56:31
SPEAKER_01: They apologized to everyone who feels hurt.
56:34
We accept and respect the decisions of those writers and judges
56:37
who have withdrawn.
56:38
SPEAKER_01: And then they say,
56:40
SPEAKER_01: despite these events,
56:40
SPEAKER_01: we are committed to going forward with the prize this year.
56:43
SPEAKER_01: However,
56:43
SPEAKER_01: we will be undertaking a full review of the prize processes,
56:47
SPEAKER_01: consulting representatives from across the community,
56:49
SPEAKER_01: ahead of next year's awards.
56:51
SPEAKER_00: So how did Boyne respond to this?
56:52
So at this point,
56:53
Boyne himself,
56:54
he'd been silent through this whole ordeal.
56:56
SPEAKER_01: He finally issued a statement.
56:58
SPEAKER_01: This has since been deleted, but he just reiterates his views.
57:02
He says,
57:02
my views on trans rights have never changed,
57:04
and they're quite simple.
57:05
SPEAKER_01: All human beings should have the same rights,
57:07
but when the rights of trans women come into conflict with the
57:09
rights of what you
57:10
SPEAKER_01: call cis women,
57:10
SPEAKER_01: then the latter must take precedence.
57:12
SPEAKER_01: And he also says that he has enough prizes at home,
57:14
SPEAKER_01: and if all the debut authors return to the long list,
57:16
SPEAKER_01: he'll request that his book doesn't make the short list.
57:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure that worked.
57:20
SPEAKER_01: No, it didn't work.
57:21
SPEAKER_01: So John Boyne is a bit like J.K.
57:23
SPEAKER_01: Rowling in that he's too big to cancel.
57:25
SPEAKER_01: He's not only very prolific, he's an international bestseller.
57:28
SPEAKER_01: His publisher isn't going to drop him because of this.
57:32
SPEAKER_01: So if he couldn't get taken down,
57:33
SPEAKER_01: some of his online critics turn their attention to Paul Burstyn.
57:37
SPEAKER_01: He's the actual founder of the Polari Prize.
57:39
SPEAKER_01: He's a Welsh author, a longtime gay activist.
57:42
And Jesse,
57:43
remember that name I mentioned earlier,
57:44
Aidan Comerford,
57:46
the comic who
57:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
57:47
So this is the comic who tweets pro-trans shit so much I
57:50
thought he was trans.
57:51
SPEAKER_01: Turns out he's a straight guy.
57:52
So he starts digging into Burstyn and he posts a thread with
57:55
his findings.
57:55
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of it is guilt by association,
57:58
SPEAKER_01: but he's trying to demonstrate that Burstyn himself is also a TERF.
58:01
And his evidence is basically that Burstyn interacted with
58:03
other gender criticals
58:04
SPEAKER_01: on Twitter,
58:05
SPEAKER_01: although it was mostly in the context of this particular fight.
58:08
SPEAKER_01: So...
58:09
Some gender critical person will tweet,
58:11
you know,
58:11
don't let the bastards get you down.
58:13
SPEAKER_01: And Burson responds, thanks.
58:15
SPEAKER_01: The evidence is pretty thin.
58:17
SPEAKER_01: But I mean,
58:18
I would guess that Burson is probably somewhat gender critical
58:20
because most human
58:22
SPEAKER_01: beings are somewhat gender critical.
58:23
SPEAKER_01: Like people who genuinely think trans women are women.
58:27
And their comfort should be prioritized over the safety and
58:29
preferences of actual females.
58:32
I mean,
58:32
big picture,
58:33
the rate of people who think that is vanishingly small.
58:36
There's a reason why they're losing this fight over self-ID
58:39
sports and kids.
58:39
SPEAKER_01: Like most people don't like this shit.
58:42
And I would guess the 60 year old gay dude is probably in the
58:45
majority here.
58:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it seems safe to reason.
58:48
Yeah,
58:48
so while all this is going on,
58:50
Polari Prize issues their third statement.
58:53
SPEAKER_01: They condemn all forms of transphobia.
58:55
SPEAKER_01: They apologize to all they have hurt.
58:57
SPEAKER_01: And then they write this.
58:59
SPEAKER_01: Jesse, please read.
59:00
SPEAKER_00: We've decided as a result to pause the prize this year while we increase
59:04
representation of trans and gender nonconforming judges on the
59:07
panels for all the
59:08
awards and undertake a governance and management review to
59:11
include our aims and
59:12
SPEAKER_00: values.
59:14
And work to better support everyone within our LGBTQ plus
59:16
Polari community.
59:17
SPEAKER_00: It's like it's 2019 all over again.
59:19
SPEAKER_00: I know.
59:19
We've already secured strong representation for next year,
59:22
which we will build on.
59:23
SPEAKER_01: I wonder if they've got Sophie Brooks.
59:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is not – I'm guessing this did not go well either.
59:27
SPEAKER_01: It did not.
59:28
SPEAKER_01: So both trans and TERFs are now pissed at them.
59:30
So I'm just going to read you a few of the responses from the
59:33
gender critical crowd.
59:34
SPEAKER_01: This is on Twitter.
59:36
Bev Jackson says,
59:38
no decent writer will ever want to be associated with you
59:40
again.
59:41
SPEAKER_01: Asia, the Empress, you are a bunch of homophobic cowards.
59:44
SPEAKER_01: Shame on you.
59:45
SPEAKER_01: Another, well, you seem to have picked the homophobic side of this issue.
59:48
And then you might think that this satisfied trans Twitter,
59:52
but absolutely you did not.
59:53
SPEAKER_01: So Aiden Comerford,
59:54
SPEAKER_01: he said,
59:55
their most recent statement that they're going to become sort
59:57
of super trans
59:58
SPEAKER_01: supporting org with Paul Burstyn still involved is utterly risable.
1:00:02
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, the Polari name is utterly sullied at this point.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_01: And John Boyne actually responded to Aiden.
1:00:09
SPEAKER_01: Jesse, read his quote tweet.
1:00:10
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps at AidenC tweets, you total fruitcake.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_00: Oh, there is no such thing as LGBTQ+.
1:00:17
SPEAKER_00: There are just individual men and women,
1:00:18
SPEAKER_00: each one knowing who they're attracted to and living their lives.
1:00:20
SPEAKER_00: No, wait, sorry.
1:00:21
Obviously,
1:00:22
a supposedly straight man understands the gay world better than
1:00:24
me.
1:00:25
SPEAKER_00: Slap hand forehead emoji.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_01: Boyne also wrote an op-ed in The Telegraph, and it is a fantastic read.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_01: It begins with this.
1:00:34
SPEAKER_01: Literary scandals are a little like orgies.
1:00:36
Great fun for everyone involved,
1:00:38
but rather distasteful from anyone watching from the outside.
1:00:42
SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
1:00:43
SPEAKER_01: So at this point, he has no fucks left to give.
1:00:46
SPEAKER_01: He's critical of the cancelers.
1:00:48
SPEAKER_01: He's critical of the Polari Prize.
1:00:50
He says that no one from the organization bothered to reach out
1:00:52
to him at all.
1:00:54
SPEAKER_01: So where does this leave us?
1:00:55
SPEAKER_01: Well, the Polari Prize is probably fucked either way.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_01: The brand has been sullied.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_01: Aidan Comerford was correct about that.
1:01:02
SPEAKER_01: First,
1:01:02
SPEAKER_01: they pissed off the queer community,
1:01:04
and then they pissed off the gays and lesbians who hate the
1:01:07
term the queer
1:01:07
SPEAKER_01: community.
1:01:08
And in many ways,
1:01:09
I think this is a story about a clash of generations,
1:01:12
right?
1:01:13
There's this conflict between the older British and Irish gays
1:01:16
and their younger
1:01:17
SPEAKER_01: rainbow-haired counterparts who think that because clownfish change sex,
1:01:20
SPEAKER_01: humans do too.
1:01:22
SPEAKER_01: And...
1:01:24
SPEAKER_01: The real losers here are the writers.
1:01:25
SPEAKER_01: So the Polari Prize,
1:01:26
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:01:26
SPEAKER_01: it's not an enormous deal,
1:01:27
SPEAKER_01: but it still gets some media attention.
1:01:29
SPEAKER_01: It impresses publishers.
1:01:30
And authors can say,
1:01:31
you know,
1:01:31
they were longlisted or shortlisted for this prize.
1:01:34
SPEAKER_01: New authors are particularly desperate to stand out,
1:01:37
SPEAKER_01: and they've just lost an opportunity to do that.
1:01:39
SPEAKER_01: And so as I see it, the only winner here is John Boyne.
1:01:42
SPEAKER_01: Like,
1:01:43
SPEAKER_01: as the dust settled,
1:01:44
he tweeted that the sales of his Element series of novellas
1:01:47
have suddenly shot up.
1:01:49
And so at the end of the day,
1:01:50
this one looks like a victory for Team Turf.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_01: And Boyne,
1:01:53
SPEAKER_01: by the way,
1:01:54
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:01:54
SPEAKER_01: Glynner's old critic,
1:01:55
SPEAKER_01: he's now publicly rallying in support of him.
1:01:58
SPEAKER_01: So after Graham was arrested,
1:02:00
SPEAKER_01: Boyne tweeted,
1:02:01
SPEAKER_01: following Graham's arrest,
1:02:02
SPEAKER_01: it is worth being totally clear.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_01: And if I get arrested too, so be it.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_01: Women need safe spaces.
1:02:08
SPEAKER_01: Children shouldn't be subjected to medical experimentation.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_01: Lesbians aren't bigots for not shagging men.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_01: Hashtag lock me up.
1:02:16
SPEAKER_01: Hashtag I stand with Glynner.
1:02:18
SPEAKER_01: So he is completely unapologetic about his beliefs at this point.
1:02:22
Although he doesn't really seem like the type to slap phones
1:02:25
out of a teenager's
1:02:25
SPEAKER_01: hands or call them groomers.
1:02:27
SPEAKER_01: So hopefully he stays out of the court.
1:02:29
SPEAKER_01: And also hopefully he doesn't lose his own mind.
1:02:32
SPEAKER_00: What a trajectory for this guy.
1:02:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:02:35
SPEAKER_01: Lots going on in the UK.
1:02:37
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for that, Katie.
1:02:38
SPEAKER_01: You're welcome.
1:02:39
SPEAKER_01: Any questions?
1:02:40
SPEAKER_00: No.
1:02:41
SPEAKER_00: I have a lot.
1:02:42
SPEAKER_01: You want to say anything about Graham?
1:02:43
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I said a lot about Graham.
1:02:44
SPEAKER_01: You didn't say that much about Graham.
1:02:45
SPEAKER_00: This has been Blocked and Reported.
1:02:47
SPEAKER_00: As always, we are produced with help from Jessica in the 80s, maybe.
1:02:51
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
1:02:52
SPEAKER_00: Bye.
1:02:53
SPEAKER_00: Bye.