JK Rowlings UK comrade in anti-trans activism, comedy writer Graham Linehan, was arrested as he stepped off a plane in London on Monday, on suspicion of inciting anti-trans violence via social media.Among three messages posted to X was one encouraging people to punch trans women in the balls. Related JK Rowlings pro-trans nemesis Nicola Sturgeon just came out as queer If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act, the out-of-work Britcom writer-producer wrote. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.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. Graham Linehan (@Glinner) April 20, 2025 Never Miss a Beat Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights. Subscribe to our Newsletter today In a Substack post detailing his arrest and detention, Linehan called the baiting post a serious point made with a joke.The punch was a bit about the height difference between men and women, Linehan said, while admitting the joke fell flat. Were not THAT small, one of the arresting female officers told him.Another cop mentioned trans people,' Linehan wrote. I asked him what he meant by the phrase. People who feel their gender is different than what was assigned at birth.I said Assigned at birth? Our sex isnt assigned. He called it semantics, I told him he was using activist language. The damage Stonewall has done to the UK police force will take years to mend, Linehan said, referring to the LGBTQ+ group Stonewall UK, which has advocated for the marginalized community.Anti-trans and right-wing supporters including Rowling, Elon Musk, Nigel Farage, and Piers Morgan lined up in support behind Linehan, the Daily Mail reports. What the fuck has the UK become? This is totalitarianism. Utterly deplorable. https://t.co/CRl2n9rorh J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 2, 2025Like fellow writer Rowling, Linehan produced widely popular work for decades in the UK before taking up the mantle of anti-trans activism and suffering the backlash.Linehans anti-trans views first came to light in a screed in his Britcom The IT Crowd in 2008. More public pronouncements earned bans on Twitter and a public alliance with Rowling as her own anti-trans activism obscured her once-favorable reputation for writing the beloved Harry Potter book series.Linehans comedy career in the UK dried up in the ensuing years, and hes admitted his activism became an obsession overtaking his professional and personal life. His wife divorced him in 2020.In December 2024, Linehan announced plans to move to Arizona to work on a sitcom and create a production companywith fellow anti-trans activist and comedian Rob Schneider and gay Irish Brexiter activist Andrew Doyle. Linehan was on his way back from Phoenix when he was detained at Londons Heathrow airport. The Father Ted creator wrote that the detention put his health in danger.The doctors suggested the high blood pressure was stress-related, combined with long-haul travel and lack of movement, he wrote on his Substack. I feel it may also have been a contributing factor that I have now spent eight years being targeted by trans activists working in tandem with police in a dedicated, persistent harassment campaign because I refuse to believe that lesbians have c**ks.Linehan reported authorities imposed just one condition for bail: he is not to go on Twitter. While he also called police consistently decent throughout this farce, the civility of individual officers doesnt alter the fundamental reality of what happened, Linehan wrote.I was arrested at an airport like a terrorist, locked in a cell like a criminal, taken to hospital because the stress nearly killed me, and banned from speaking onlineall because I made jokes that upset some psychotic crossdressers, he wrote. To me, this proves one thing beyond doubt: the UK has become a country that is hostile to freedom of speech, hostile to women, and far too accommodating to the demands of violent, entitled, abusive men who have turned the police into their personal goon squad.Despite Linehans claims about trans women being violent, entitled, [and] abusive, the vast number of attacks on trans and non-trans people are carried out by cisgender men.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.