08/09/2023
The Edinburgh arts venue Leith Arches, which the Guardian newspaper notes is often host to LGBTQIA and drag events, has decided to cancel a comedy event at which the violently transphobic former scriptwriter Graham Linehan was to have appeared. The proprietors of Leith Arches noted that the event did not align with their corporate values and as such it was their right to foreclose the event - even though right wing sources such as the self confessed "gender critical" feminist MP Joanna Cherry, claimed on Elon Musk's hate site "X" (formerly Twitter), that this was silencing free speech. Ms Cherry is a lesbian, but is widely avoided by much of the wider LGBT+ movement because of her highly controversial views, and her use of the law to silence her critics - a position that has earned her the monicker "the litigious lesbian" by many in the lesbian press. Ms Cherry is a member of the Scottish National Party, but has in the past turned on the SNP party leadership for allegedly sabotaging her career. No evidence has been submitted for this assertion. Out For Independence, the SNP's LGBT+ campaigning wing, has pointed out that she does not represent the mainstream SNP position - and of the unionist parties said on 24th July, "The trans community deserves better than this. Children living in poverty deserve better than this. Scotland deserves better than this. We all deserve more than a cheap weathervane that chases polls rather than leading with vision". Meanwhile, Mr Linehan was once well known as the principal script writer for the Channel Four 1990s comedy series "Father Ted", which was criticised at the time for stereotyping Roman Catholics. Today, his main interaction with the press is via his highly acidic tweets on transgender women. As for The Leith Arches, many LGBTQIA people on social media pointed out that given supreme court rulings now allow fundamentalist Christians to deny LGBT people a service, so queer spaces like the Arches must have a concomitant right to deny homophobes and transphobes a platform. https://www.facebook.com/OutForIndy/
