July 26, 2024 - 7:20pm

→ Richard Ayoade defends Graham Linehan over trans views

For expressing concern about the proliferation of hormone treatment and gender transition among minors, comedy writer Graham Linehan lost his marriage, his career, and the support of many former friends. But it would seem the industry hasn’t completely deserted him. Speaking to the broadcaster Gyles Brandreth on the Rosebud podcast today, fellow funnyman Richard Ayoade described the Father Ted creator as “a man of great principle”, and said that Linehan had endured a “harrowing time” in the aftermath of his involvement in the trans debate.

Ayoade also praised Linehan’s memoir Tough Crowd, which was published last year and detailed his shunning by the television industry in response to his comments on gender, and called him a “brilliant writer”. Ayoade is no doubt used to mixing with controversial public figures — his brother-in-law is Laurence Fox

→ JD Vance: the latest meme target

Trump’s choice of J.D. Vance as his running mate has inspired a bonanza of viral memes and falsehoods aimed at discrediting the Ohio senator. Perhaps most famous is that Vance admitted in his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy to having had intimate relations with a sofa. The Associated Press went to the effort of debunking the viral claim in a since-deleted fact check titled “No, JD Vance did not have sex with a couch.”

It’s also been widely claimed that Vance is 5’7”, when in reality he’s reportedly about the same height as Trump: 6’3. It’s far from a trivial fact, given that Americans famously refuse to elect short presidents.

There’s been an entire news cycle dedicated to Vance’s comments about “childless cat ladies”, with commentators accusing him of insensitivity toward the involuntarily childless. In the original comments, Vance specifically mentions that many people are “unable to have kids for serious and complicated reasons” including medical and relationship issues, and says “the target of these remarks is not them.” Where have all the fact-checkers gone?

→ LGBT people coming out at younger ages

Younger LGBT people are coming out at younger ages than their older counterparts. A new poll from Gallup shows that the youngest LGBT adults, those aged 18-29, came out at a median age of 17, much younger than the median age for adults aged 65 and older which was 26.

In other signs that society has become more accepting of homosexuality, young adults left the shortest time before coming out (three years), while senior citizens were the longest (10 years). Despite 70% of LGBT adults saying that treatment of sexual minorities has “gotten a lot” or “gotten a little” better in the past 10 years, one in four say they have received poor treatment or harassment. Baby steps…