Irish Comedian Recounts Shocking Arrest Over Anti-Trans Social Media Posts

Irish comedian Graham Linehan said he was arrested in London on Monday over social media posts deemed “transphobic.”

The 57-year-old celeb, who is best known for appearances in popular British comedies like “The IT Crowd” and “Father Ted,” said he was rushed to the hospital after being taken to jail due to high blood pressure likely caused by stress.

Linehan said he was greeted by law enforcement after he stepped off a flight from Arizona to London. 

“The moment I stepped off the plane at Heathrow, five armed police officers were waiting. They escorted me to a private area and told me I was under arrest for three posts on X,” he wrote in an op-ed for The Free Press. “In a country where pedophiles escape prison, where knife crime is out of control, the state had mobilized five armed officers to arrest a comedy writer for these three posts.”

Linehan said many law enforcement officers he encountered during the ordeal exhibited “bafflement” and seemed to have “absolutely no idea” what his alleged crime was.

But then, during an interview with one of the officers, the tone changed.

“He asked about each of the posts in turn, with the sort of earnest intensity usually reserved for discussing something serious like. . . oh, I don’t know—crime?” Linehan wrote.

“I explained that the post about punching a trans-identified man in a female-only space was a serious point made with a joke. Men who enter women’s spaces are abusers, and they need to be challenged every time.”

“The officer mentioned the term trans people. I asked him what he meant by the phrase. ‘People who feel their gender is different than what was assigned at birth,’” he continued. “‘Assigned at birth?’ I responded. ‘Our sex isn’t assigned.’ He called it semantics. I told him he was using activist language.”

The Irish comedian said a nurse checked his blood pressure, and it was in “stroke territory.” He was transported to the hospital and was put under observation. Linehan said the arresting officers offered him bail on the condition that he stop posting on X.

“I was arrested at an airport like a terrorist, locked in a cell like a criminal, taken to the hospital because the stress nearly killed me, and banned from speaking online—all because I made jokes on X,” he wrote.

“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.”

The posts in question include one that says, “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.”

Another has a photo of a trans activist gathering and includes the caption, “A photo you can smell.”

The third one says, “I hate them all. Misogynists and homophobes. F*** em.”