The Political Thread

[sheridan]

This Father Ted* sketch is now my default image when thinking of Irish heads of state.

* which is a 1990s sitcom written by Arthur Mathews.  And only Arthur Mathews.

No love for fellow Squaxx Graham Linehan?

[sheridan]

Yeah, it's amazing how affecting even a small token can be. On my last job I shuttled colleagues to and fro down alternately muddy and icy roads from bus-stop to site in my tiny shitty car, multiple runs each day on my own time and expense, morning and evening for seven months, eventually becoming a bit resentful of the whole business.  But at the end of it all two of my passengers (out of a dozen) popped a bottle of Jameson and a DS game on my desk as a thank-you and it somehow made the whole thing worthwhile.

Good that those two showed some gratitude, though shame on the other 10!

[Steve Green]

This Father Ted* sketch is now my default image when thinking of Irish heads of state.

* which is a 1990s sitcom written by Arthur Mathews.  And only Arthur Mathews.

No love for fellow Squaxx Graham Linehan?

You've not been keeping up with his relationship with the trans community then?

[Professor Bear]

Trans community: hey, Glinner, that episode of IT Crowd was problematic but we'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Glinner: this person is not the same gender as my daughter.
Trans community: uh...
Glinner: trans people subject themselves to David Cronenberg movie-like ordeals of body horror.
Trans community: what th
Glinner: by which I mean Dead Ringers, because trans people have mental problems.
Trans community: I don't even know where to
Glinner: everyone suggesting I have said something amiss is a misogynist.
Trans community: (unfollows and blocks)
Glinner: men only pretend to be feminists so they can attack women from the left.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Well, that's disappointing. I always saw him as one of the good guys

[JOE SOAP]

You'd think no longer being stereo in the ball department would have brought him a little closer to post-op trans folk.

[TordelBack]

I think the demonisation of Glinner is a little unfair; I think he was originally approaching trans issues from a place of genuine concern for potential abuses of self identification and perceived pressures on other marginalised groups.

He was completely wrong of course, as a simple application of the 'hard cases make bad law' principle would show: such concerns are best addressed through enforcing the laws and systems that already exist, rather than dehumanising and discriminating against a vulnerable group in the old familiar way (my childhood was full of warnings of the dangers of predatory old gays looking to recruit me to the other team - but look at who we really should have been worried about). The issue is,  as it always is, those few individuals who abuse others within the system, not the system itself. Trans equality and self-identification doesn't change that,  because trans people are just people. Majority good, a few bad.

We've had self-identification in Ireland for 3.5 years now: no reported issues (thT I'm aware of).  As Glinner well knows.

Still, you can maybe see that he originally meant well, but then faced with online criticism he dug his heels in and went full-on one-note extremist, making strawman arguments saying awful hurtful things, with the resultant attacks on him and his family that give him all the justification he needs to play the heroic clear-eyed victim. It's tragic, because he's an intelligent and deeply funny guy responsible for much of my favourite TV,  and was a strong ally in many other liberal topics. TBH I feel sorry for him as much I do a deep disappointment. I hope he will see things differently one day,  and make amends.

[JayzusB.Christ]

He'll always have written Father Ted, Big Train and a fair bit of Brass Eye.  He hasn't quite veered into Frank Miller territory yet I suppose

[Funt Solo]

"I hear you're a transphobic now, father?  How did you get interested in that type of thing?"

Sometimes people drift into difficult territory without meaning to, and perhaps without having thought it through, and also perhaps whilst having many other admirable qualities.

My sister is transphobic.  I can't disown her - she's kind in many ways.  She lives in a farming community out in the countryside.  A lot of the community is casually racist & casually transphobic.  This is in Australia: and it's not uncommon for white country folk to perpetuate mythic stereotypes about aboriginals.  And it's also not uncommon for people in that area to buy into scare politics like the idea that a trans person is somehow just putting on a show so that they can assault people in public restrooms.

I abhor those sentiments, but I still have a relationship to maintain with my family.  And those people can be utterly unkind in those ways, and incredibly kind in other ways.  I still argue my corner, but I have to be a little gentle otherwise I'll just come over as sanctimonious, views will get entrenched and I'll spoil the good things we do have in common.

I only have to go back into my own past to realize how much my views have changed over time.  When I was a kid, the Chinese takeaway in town was called "The Chinkies", in Spaced they used "gay" as a derogatory term (and so did my younger sister), and I was once of the opinion that personal pronouns being changed to suit individual desires was just a load of needy nonsense.

We all have to be given room to evolve our thinking.

[TordelBack]

We all have to be given room to evolve our thinking.

Spot on there, Funt.

I do think Linehan's repeatedly doubling-down on perhaps at-least-understandable concerns until they became outright frothing prejudice is a function of his Twitter experience. Backing himself into a corner, he's just at become more and more extreme, keeping pace with his vilification which grows worse and worse, confirming to him that he's fighting the good fight against ideological extremists. And not, as is the case, using his platform to take a pop at people who just want to be able to live their lives as they want to.  If he had space and time to rethink the implications of what he's saying, instead of daily online combat, maybe things might be different.

Very much a symptom of the modern  world.

[Professor Bear]

Hey, I gave him the benefit of the doubt long after everyone else on my tl had unfollowed, and for much the same reasons - that perhaps he was simply backed into a corner by online criticism - but once he started with the "people who use the term "TERF" are virtue-signalling men who are really misogynists" shit*, it was time to call it a day - which meant I thankfully missed the delightful exchange when a woman tried to talk him off the ledge by saying her child had passed a suicidal phase after deciding to live as a girl, to which Glinner replied "I'm glad he's happy now, but--", and of course I also missed the incident for which he received a written warning from the police after trawling the social media feeds of a trans activist he'd been beefing with and posting pictures of her as a young man alongside her birth name.
I gather she wasn't blameless, but this is such a vindictively specific and calculated way to target someone that I can't really continue to entertain my initial position that he was just explaining a poorly thought-out position in a bad way.


* you will note that many prominent proponents of the term "TERF" are trans women defending themselves from mainstream feminist commentators attempting to deny them the right to self-identify, meaning Glinner's use of the term "men" in reference to them is open a far more dubious interpretation than I first assumed.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Fecking hell. I didn't know any of this.

Edit: I am drinking my way through a hangover and realise this is an utterly pointless post.

[TordelBack]

Ah look, I'm not defending him or his views, I just find it hard to believe that his views started out this way, or that he would have ended up espousing this crap if he wasn't in an unending minute-by-minute public argument with one gang calling him a rapist and a genocidal monster, and the other gang telling him he's the one true champion of women (and lesbians in particular) everywhere.

That said, the whole TERF slanging match is complicated because it involves the competing voices of multiple historically marginalised groups, and sympathies and past wrongs pull you in different directions.  Luckily the issue at its heart isn't complicated at all,  listen to what people say about their own gender identity, but the arguments around its implications are. Chuck in "won't somebody think of the children" and some pre-existing distaste or prejudice,  and you end up with a right mess.

[sheridan]

Fecking hell. I didn't know any of this.

Edit: I am drinking my way through a hangover and realise this is an utterly pointless post.

First time I'd heard any of this as well (surprised that something like this hadn't come up on the board before now - when did all this happen?)

[von Boom]

Fecking hell. I didn't know any of this.

Edit: I am drinking my way through a hangover and realise this is an utterly pointless post.

First time I'd heard any of this as well (surprised that something like this hadn't come up on the board before now - when did all this happen?)

Same here. I don't use twitter much and I wasn't aware that Glinner had been saying any of this. I was looking forward to his next series, but now I'm not so sure. Are we sure this isn't a symptom of Hairy Hands Syndrome and he just needs a spell at St. Clabbert's?