Graham Linehan and the case of the overly concerned TERFs
I do love a good Twitter chat where concerned exclusionary feminists try to reduce womanhood down to adult human female, and then define female as the ability to bear children. As if XY women assigned at birth and sea horses are not a thing. They constrict themselves into ever concentric circles that invariably boil down to I am wrong, they are rights and that is that. It is not my place to educate them or change their minds, well, not until I finish my PhD. A good Twitter debate is invigorating for the sinuses as the Victorians would say, a chance to stretch the old intellectual legs without patronising or stooping to Godwin’s law, though getting called delusional is worth the price of entry alone.
Graham Linehan had an appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe cancelled on 15th August 2023 and my goodness the amount of Twitter trolling and Twitter bating was glorious. Yes, Twitter or X or whatever it is when you read this may be a dying artform, but the level of glee on both sides is palpable. Linehan himself is wallowing in his own victimhood, certain that his is in the right, without reflecting on how he ended up being so vilified. Like a woodlouse chewing the decaying wood of a once beautiful house he eats the rotting matter of his own demise, his desiccated career as husk of what Father Ted once stood for. More tea? Go on then.
Twitter is not something I habitually engage with because I am not a fan of using my own personal space to impose my views on others. Yes, as a write I like to engage with my audience, but Twitter can be its own circle of hell if you dive too deep into the rabbit hole. Give me trans activists, Ukrainians dunking on Russian tanks and wholesome feminist discourse any day. Yet, occasionally I find myself drawn in like a moth to the flame, the educator in me seeking a chance to engage in a meaningful way. Which is when the concerned exclusionary feminists come out to play.
Honestly, to they have a sixth sense for it? I commented on a Peter Tatchell tweet this morning and two lovely ladies decided to educate me on the meaning of woman, female, and cis. My cardinal rule when debating or talking to others is to treat them with equity and in good faith, to never talk down or punch down. But it hardly seems like a fair discussion. They are not going to change their minds, nor are they going to see me as anything other than a trans writer as soon as I declare myself a woman with a trans history. I get paid to read, write and think about gender all day, so this is my work; for most folk it is simply an idle hobby where they can white knight ride to the aid of mythical womanhood in 240 characters.
Linehan does not need this vanguard of concerned exclusionary feminists; indeed, I doubt he is even aware they exists half the time. He is playing to the gallery, getting virtual panties thrown at him for his calling out of trans women. Linehan punches down because it grabs attention, he screams victimhood because it plays to the crowd. Like some Shakespearean actor thesping Iago to the front rows standing in the much he whispers honied lies in the full knowledge that he wants them to fund his career through his various Gofundmes. Those exclusionary feminists who buy into his rhetoric fail to see the danger until they too with become like Othello.
Now, of course, I could be completely wrong about womanhood and that there is in fact only rigid male and female. Just like I could be wrong about the spherical Earth or that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. I have an open mind. But twenty five years of lived experience and ten years of academic education make me confident that my perspective on gender is heading in the right direction. Linehan and his groupies fail to appreciate that semantic definitions of womanhood are just that, definitions. English has this wonderful ability to warp and evolve to cover concepts that ten, twenty, a hundred years ago were not associated with a given phrase or concept. Much like first wave feminists were literally fighting for their freedom from marriage chattels, fourth wave feminism is fighting to cut the cord of sex and gender being inherently entwined. Gender identity is paramount because biology is not destiny and the ability to bear children or donate sperm does not define your gendered self anymore than the clothes you wear.
Exclusionary feminists latch on to those who proclaim victimhood, seeing something virtuous in the most dubious of self-proclaimed martyrs. If winning looks like martyrdom then it is a pyric victory indeed. Overly concerned TERFs only see womanhood through the eyes of the pre-GCSE (grade 8) textbook, a reductive construct that binds them to a lesser status beneath men. Graham Linehan and his groupies cry foul, fund misogyny, and further alienate anyone who believes that woman and female are all encompassing, not just for those who view cis as an insult.
