gender identity Archives - Index on Censorship

The arrest of Graham Linehan is a cop and ball story

3 Sep 2025 | News and features, United Kingdom

There have been two stories this past week which could be read as incitement to hitting men in the bollocks. One of the perpetrators was met with five armed officers at Heathrow Airport, the other was lauded as a have-a-go hero. One involved the comedian Graham Linehan, and the other involved the Queen. Only one of them actually carried out the act (admittedly several decades ago), but she wasn’t the one who found herself in a police cell.

The story about a teenage Camilla Shand who, in her own words “whacked a man in the nuts” when he groped her on a train, is told in a new biography of the Queen. It has been used to explain why the Queen became an advocate for women’s rights in later life. Linehan, the creator of the acclaimed series Father Ted, The IT Crowd and Black Books is also a campaigner. As the introduction to his articles on the blogging platform Substack states: “I write about the current all-out assault on woman’s rights.” While Camilla’s campaigning has only served to burnish her reputation, Linehan was cancelled after his gender-critical views brought him into direct conflict with the trans rights movement.

In December he announced he was moving to Arizona as a result of this cancellation. But on Sunday he returned to the UK, only to be arrested, held in a prison cell for hours and questioned about his posts, as he documents in his Substack. While the Met police have not named Linehan, they have confirmed his account of events.

Which brings us to the offending posts. According to Linehan, they are as follows. One, posted on 19 April, shows an image of a trans-rights protest with the comment “A photo you can smell”. This is followed up with “I hate them. Misogynists and homophobes. Fuck em”. These are indeed offensive and intended to be so. But it is difficult to see how they could be interpreted as incitement to violence. The third tweet posted the next day is more problematic. But only the second half has been quoted in most of the media coverage of the arrest. The whole tweet reads: “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.”

Whether or not you agree with his definition of an abusive act he is making precisely the same argument as the cheerleaders for the young Camilla, although she whacked her groper in the nuts before she called the cops.

This is not Graham Linehan’s first run-in with the police over his anti-trans stance. On Thursday he will appear at Westminster magistrates court accused of the online harassment of 18-year-old transgender activist Sophia Brooks and damaging her phone at a public event last year. He denies all charges.

Linehan’s arrest is further evidence of a faultline in the free speech landscape where the trans debate is concerned. As Helen Lewis writes in The Atlantic, there have been several instances of trans allies calling openly for violence against those whose views they disagree with and who have not been dealt with in this way. A genuinely pluralistic society cannot have two-tier justice in this area.

Linehan’s case raises serious questions about how we police speech online. We know there are consequences when posts go viral and incitement to violence is a reality. But in many cases there are no consequences except to the author of the posts. We may not approve of Linehan’s call to vigilante action against abuse of women’s spaces, if that is what it was. But the suppression of his free expression rights may be more damaging in the long run.

Index on Censorship was founded as a response to the repression of writers and academics behind the Iron Curtain. Advocacy for dissidents remains the priority of the organisation. Some would argue that Linehan is a dissident. It is questionable whether it is ever possible to be a dissident in a country where freedom of speech has genuine legal protections – it is a strange kind of police state where ministers intervene to suggest officers have been too heavy-handed. The real concern is whether Linehan’s arrest is evidence of the erosion of those protections. JK Rowling condemned the action as “totalitarian”, while commentator Piers Morgan said “Britain’s turning into North Korea.” Although this is perhaps overstating it, what happened to Linehan at Heathrow airport this week certainly looks like police overreach. It also seems odd that Linehan has been instructed not to post on X while on bail, surely an unnecessary restriction of his rights.

It is tempting to see this as a comedy arrest by bumbling cops. But a genuinely open society does not police speech with the tactics of an authoritarian state.

Statement on the Maya Forstater judgement

10 Jun 2021 | News and features, United Kingdom

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”110741″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]In intervening in Maya Forstater’s tribunal, the focus was – as always – on the core principle of free expression and protecting free speech in law.

As has been made clear from the outset, this case was not about the right to be hateful and cruel. Rather, it was about protecting in law the right to hold certain beliefs. We are pleased that the Judge has recognised this and upheld the appeal.

Index on Censorship exists to ensure everyone’s right to free expression. But we know that the toxic nature of the current conversation on sex and gender is doing little to resolve the issues at its centre. The answer is not to shut down the conversation or attempt to silence those people who hold beliefs on any side of the argument.

Rather, we should seek to provide a platform and space for considered discussion and engagement – and that’s something Index on Censorship will continue to do following today’s decision.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

We need to end the abuse around discussions of feminism and trans rights

9 Oct 2020 | Opinion, Ruth's blog

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Free speech is difficult. It should be difficult. After all it protects our right to say things contrary to popular opinion. It protects the minority view. It facilitates debate. It provides the legal framework for protest. It allows people to tell their own stories. Most importantly it moves society on.

It’s why we so desperately need to protect our right to free speech, to cherish it and fight for everybody to be able to use it.

Index was founded to do just that. To cherish the concept of free speech. To expose repressive regimes who were censoring their citizenry and, when necessary, stand up against restrictive practices in our own countries. And for the last 50 years that’s exactly what we’ve done.

What we weren’t established to do was to pick a side on any individual issue that is currently being debated in society. It will surprise none of you that I have quite strong personal opinions on most issues and so does every member of our team, but Index’s job is solely to make sure that other people’s voices can and should be heard if they are being silenced. In the words of Stephen Spender, one of our co-founders, to be a voice for the persecuted.

Which brings me to the current discourse on gender and trans rights. I think we can all agree that this has become increasingly toxic. There is limited constructive dialogue, a huge amount of hate and little meeting in the middle ground to discuss practical ways to come together. Far too many exchanges are now less about the issues themselves, and more about whose side you are on – or even worse, about who has the right to participate in the conversation. The discussion has now switched from one embracing free speech to one of informal censorship.

When we talk about a chilling effect in the public space it is embodied by this issue. Some are genuinely scared to engage in any of the issues for fear of abuse. Members of the trans community, who face daily intimidation and persecution, are rarely being heard at all, as others silence them by claiming to speak for them. This is helping no one.

Index will be launching a new work stream in 2021 to build spaces for dialogue on this subject and others so that people can come together to air issues and find constructive ways forward. But in the interim I want to make it clear what our position is.

All women, whether a successful novelist like JK Rowling or a struggling blogger expressing their gender identity, have a right to their opinions and a right to have those opinions heard.

Death threats, online bullying and attempts to undermine people’s careers are unacceptable. We stand against this censorship. We stand in solidarity with the targets of this abuse and we will fight for their right to be heard.

Trans people face daily persecution and are subject to some of the most appalling abuse in society. Their voices, apart from a few limited exceptions, are not being heard. They have stories to tell but they are being largely censored. We stand in solidarity with them and we will ensure they too have a platform.

These positions aren’t contradictory and they shouldn’t be controversial in the UK in the twenty-first century. As ever Index does and will always stand against censorship.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You might also like to read” category_id=”581″][/vc_column][/vc_row]