site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   996 thread views

Transnational Thursday for September 4, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

You may be familiar with Graham Linehan, an Irish TV writer best known for co-creating Ireland's single most beloved sitcom Father Ted and also for creating two other well-regarded sitcoms, Black Books and The IT Crowd. In recent years he's pivoted away from TV towards political activism and has become well-known for his aggressive opposition to transactivism, about which his ceaseless pontifications on Twitter earned him a ban (which was reversed following the Musk buyout). By his own admission his obsessive dedication to this cause has cost him professional opportunities, his marriage, and left him financially destitute. I believe his gender-critical Substack is now his primary source of income.

On Monday he returned to the UK from the states to find five armed police officers waiting for him over three tweets he'd posted to X in April. He understandably found the experience so stressful that he was taken to hospital because of his elevated blood pressure. Certain of the officers who interviewed him alluded to the ongoing Sandie Peggie* case in what struck him as sympathetic terms, suggesting they thought they were wasting their time by arresting him.

For two of the offending tweets, no reasonable person could argue that any kind of criminal offense had been committed: the first depicts a photo of a trans protest which he describes as "a photo you can smell", while the second consists of Linehan asserting he hates trans activists because they're homophobic and misogynistic. For the third, one could in theory argue that it constitutes incitement to violence:

If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.

But let's be honest: trans activists using Twitter to urge their allies to assault TERFs (however broadly defined) is as common as dirt. Have any of them been arrested for so doing? Have they fuck. Funnily enough, even various Labour figures (such as health secretary Wes Streeting) are acknowledging they went too far in this instance, as has the Met Police chief.

From the Irish perspective, I find the hypocrisy appalling. The Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap were charged in the UK for, among other things, urging attendees to their gigs to go out and "murder their local MP". Just about everyone I've spoke to thinks this was an outrageous infringement on their freedom of expression and a sign of how hostile the UK has become to same: after all, no reasonable person could interpret their statement as intended literally. But all of the people who were up in arms about Kneecap's being charged with a criminal offense are crowing over Linehan's arrest and calling him a "drama queen" for complaining about his elevated blood pressure. Look at this thread over on /r/ireland, for which the comments were initially set to "approved users only" owing to "far-right brigading" (read: don't interrupt the circlejerk) and have since been locked.

I'm reminded of something I saw in response to the Sydney Sweeney jeans/genes ad. If people keep abusing the "Nazi" epithet to the point that being attracted to slim, pretty blondes with big tits makes one a "Nazi", eventually people are just going to shrug their shoulders and say "guess I'm a Nazi so". By the same token, if objecting to the presence of male sex pests** in women's changing rooms, or thinking that someone shouldn't be arrested for expressing gender-critical opinions makes one "far-right" - eventually I'll simply have no choice but to say that's what I am.

*A nurse in Scotland nurse who objected to the presence of a trans-identified male doctor in the female changing rooms of the hospital where she worked, for which she was subjected to an 18-month internal investigation.

**I'm emphatically not asserting that all trans women/trans-identified males are sex pests, but I don't think it's open to debate anymore that short-sighted self-ID legislation enables sex pests.

There's so many of these news nowadays that I would have seen as prime CWR material a few years ago, things that half of our subreddit swore up and down would never happen, happening, but honestly it hardly raises an eyebrow at this point. What can even be said about this?

One encouraging thing is that this seems to have backfired badly. The tide has turned on the trans issue, arresting people for tweets is retarded, and they picked a target with a lot of media connections, so it's literal frontpage news in British media. I honestly want to send a thank you note to the genious in the Police that gave the order.

The tide has turned on the trans issue

Do you mean in the US or in the UK? Because I don't see any tide turning anywhere in the UK. Maybe I'm ignorant but I see they are merrily arresting people for tweets as they did before, and show no signs of wanting to stop. Yes, media talks about it, so what. Media talks about a lot of things. Is something actually changing?

Is something actually changing?

The UK Supreme Court ruling and the NHS roll back of gender identity treatment are concrete changes.

"NHS England no longer routinely prescribes puberty blockers for people under 18 and has halted access to them outside of specific clinical trials, following a review by Dr. Hilary Cass, due to a lack of evidence for their safety and efficacy in this age group"

"In an “interim update” on how the ruling should be interpreted, the Equality and Human Rights Commission said on Friday that in workplaces and services open to the public, such as hospitals or cafes, “trans women (biological men) should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities and trans men (biological women) should not be permitted to use the men’s facilities.”"

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/12040/13358660/gender-policy-in-sport-what-are-the-rules-in-football-cricket-boxing-netball-and-others-after-supreme-court-ruling

The current position is basically that trans-women are not women with all that entails for sports, bathrooms and laws, but also don't be a dick about it, because that is not the done thing and they're still a protected group.

OK, I see your point. I guess there is some turning afoot. Makes me feel doubly weird though - first time because I'm not used to UK policies being less insane than US ones, usually it goes the other way in my experience. The second time because the stance of "trans women are men, but you go to jail if you say it without government approval" is still completely insane, just in a different way - now we have a choice between the clown would where a man can become a woman just by saying it, and the clown world where a man can force you to say he's a woman, under the threat of government prosecution, even though the same government does not think it's true - so you are officially forced to lie.

Generally only if you do it in a way which contravenes another law. To demonstrate, If you stand outside a convicted rapists house and yell over and over Bob Smith is a rapist for days on end you might be charged with harrassment. The truth value of your statement isn't what the law is taking issue with. They agree with you hes a rapist, but how, when and how often you say it is the issue.

The trans part isn't really the issue, its just the UK in general is less bothered about restrictions of free speech than the US, especially when it comes to maintaining the peace (charitably put, not rocking the boat if less so) so our harrassment and other speech statutes are fairly broad.

As an anecdote I was back home recently and at a public event a man was (as my mum put it) carrying on about the Good Friday Agreement. He wasn't being threatening, but the police rolled up and hauled him away anyway, with the assistance and full support of the public. Were his free speech rights abrogated? Probably. But it made the event a lot more enjoyable.

If you stand outside a convicted rapists house and yell over and over Bob Smith is a rapist for days on end

But that's not what is happening. I mean yes, if you stand near someone house and yell anything for days on end, that'd be harassment, even if you yell the multiplication table. But nobody camps under trans people homes and yells for days. At least not any of the prominent prosecuted cases did that. The prosecution clearly is done for the contents of the message, not for the form it's expressed in. People get arrested for tweets, and not even for directed tweets. That's about the easiest form of speech to ignore of all possible forms. You can't say it's about "how" - it's all about precluding the possibility of discussing certain topics.

I, of course, exaggerated a bit when I pretended it makes no sense. It makes a lot of sense, if only you let go of the premise that the government is the representative of the people and wants to do what's best for them (or at least wants to align in the general direction of interests of the people). If you face the reality - that the government is a parasite which seeks control over the population and is hostile to anything that threatens this control - then it all makes perfect sense. It doesn't matter whether the government agrees with you or not on the truth value - the mere fact that it told you not to speak that and you did is what must be shut down (you rocked the boat!). That's why in Russia people who say Putin goes too easy on Ukrainians can get jailed as much as people who oppose the war - the problem with both is that they allow themselves to think something Putin didn't think first. That's the offense. UK is not there yet, but they are already on the rails that lead there.

the UK in general is less bothered about restrictions of free speech than the US

I know. UK never had freedom of speech, not even before the Great Awokening, though the abuses usually concentrated along the lines of sleazy lawyers exploiting the system, not governmental censorship per se. Now the government is leading it, hard. Of course they claim it's for "maintaining the peace", though how it makes more peaceful to allow Hamas banners but jail people for English banners, it's a bit hard to understand, unless in the terms of most base cowardice. It's not that rocking the boat is not allowed, it's that some people are allowed to rock the boat, and some aren't.

The current position is basically that trans-women are not women with all that entails for sports, bathrooms and laws, but also don't be a dick about it, because that is not the done thing and they're still a protected group.

"... oh, and don't forget that we'll arrest you for mean-posting about them on Twitter..."

Seems like a bit of a mixed bag tbh

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats