How Graham Linehan’s gender activism led to career armageddon

What began as a nasty Twitter spat seven years ago has led to a peculiar metamorphosis for the comedy writer

To his supporters, Graham Linehan is a brave warrior, whose relentless campaigning. Others see monomania and, at times, cruelty. File photo: Ben Whitley/PA

It was as he was lying on a hospital trolley, after surgery to treat testicular cancer in 2018, that Graham Linehan picked up his phone and first definitively waded into the issue of trans rights.

According to his memoir, Tough Crowd: How I Made and Lost a Career in Comedy, and subsequent media interviews, the Irish comedian could not remember quite what he wrote in those groggy early tweets but it nailed “my colours to the gender-critical mast”.