Stephen Fry: A coward and a hypocrite
All of a sudden Fry doesn't support Stonewall? Pull the other one
How can we tell the tide is turning against the crazed gender ideology that has engulfed society for so long? Maybe it’s when lovies like the actor Stephen Fry appear to criticise Stonewall – an organisation he enthusiastically supported even very recently.
In response to a question submitted by gay rights activist Levi Pay: “I'm a gay man who used to work for Stonewall. I watched as this organisation, which I used to love, shifted to arguing for the medicalisation of gender non-conforming children. It now portrays lesbians who wish to exclude male people from their dating pool as being equivalent to racists. How can Stephen Fry, in all conscience, continue to support them?”
“Do I? I'm not sure I do support them,” Fry responded on the Triggernometry podcast, released yesterday. “I have no interest or support of this current wave of nonsensical… It’s shameful and sad… It has got stuck in a terrible quagmire”.
Should those of us that have been speaking out against harmful gender ideology for years be celebrating, as a famous gay man joins our ranks? Isn’t this a clear sign that the tide has indeed turned, as increasing numbers of the liberal elite condemn an organisation that turned its back on lesbians and gays to promote the transing of children?
Yes, of course. But Fry’s admission tells us something important. He did not directly condemn Stonewall’s stance on gender at all.
In 2011, Fry, along with Graham Norton, paid towards a trans-identified young women's double mastectomy. While it is difficult to gauge his current views on puberty blockers and the medicalisation of children, he did ask, during the podcast interview: “Does no one have sympathy for some poor child that believes they were born into the wrong body as far as gender is concerned, and is trying very hard to live a life…this has happened for thousands of years, that there is a certain proportion of people born like that.”
Fry’s weasel words come only now – when it has finally become safe to speak out, as a result of all the work put in by men and women who have shouldered all the risk, and been exposed to all that hatred, over a very long period. Too little, too late, Mr Fry.
His interviewers failed to pressed Fry as to how Stonewall is a quagmire, or why he no longer supports them. So busy they were sycophantically laughing along at his jokes, they forgot to be journalists. Had they been on the ball, the hosts (who obviously had advance notice of the question) could have done a quick Google and found that in 2018, when lesbians were dragged off the London Pride March for daring to suggest that transactivism is harmful to them, he posted on Instagram, “This is where identity politics wearies the soul and causes nothing but despair for people #terfs?) to block a Pride march because of some screwed up contempt for the right of trans and intersex people is pretty damn sick.”
In 2022, as many Harry Potter cast members openly condemned JK Rowling for her views on gender, Fry tried to play both sides, saying he didn’t want to condemn her despite her remarks making his transgender friends “deeply upset”. He didn’t want to get involved in the debate because “it’s upsetting to both sides”.
His backtracking is a sure sign that the gender war is all but won. His career won't be adversely affected by a little soft condemnation of Stonewall – but plenty of others in the arts have lost careers because they spoke out. One such is my friend James Dreyfus, who has been put through hell for saying what we all know to be right.
Countless lives, careers, friendships have been ruined, and some have paid with their mental health. The price has been extremely high. Now, as the rats leave the sinking ship, rather than dishonestly denouncing the likes of Stonewall, let's encourage others to just be honest about how captured they were, and admit that they chose the coward’s way, rather than standing up for those harmed by gender ideology.
Those wishing to be seen to be ‘on the right side of history’ have targeted and vilified those of us who have stood against gender ideology because it harms children, women, and lesbians and gay men.
Many of those who have supported transgenderism may now try to deny it, or to deflect the blame. But this could have ended years ago, had they used their platforms to speak up, instead of maligning and misrepresenting those who did. Let’s hope that the house of cards continues to fall, with Fry and his friends finding the courage to robustly condemn everyone who has allowed so many – including swathes of children – to be harmed in the name of progress and inclusivity.
Stephen Fry and his pals aren’t going to admit being cowards Julie. They will just mingle with the crowd on this one, it’s what cowards do.
We will remember, as they continue to be lauded by the rather revolting BBC - always on the wrong side of any sexual or woman-hating phenomenon - and most people will not know and will not care.
But we will know, and the Stephen Fry’s of this world will know we know, and actually they will care, but they will not tell us they do.
Be satisfied that actually, your name is on the roll call of honour while many brave women will never be remembered for their resistance.
Fully with you on this Julie. However, I’d hesitate to say that the struggle is all but over. Stephen Fry is the kind of public figure who will condemn breast binding in one breath and celebrate a man tucking his balls as “art” in the next.
In our family yesterday we had a conversation triggered by the inclusion of a drag queen in the lineup for the Strictly Christmas special. I made a remark about the BBC grooming the public. My co-terf daughter said she thought that this was a non-misogynistic representation of drag, that it had nothing to do with trans. My son-in-law expressed his deep fear that the far right are hijacking the ideas of old school feminists like me as the vanguard of anti woke rhetoric. (I detected an undertone of “you need to be careful you’re not stoking the flames of fascism”.) I said if that’s happening, the BBC and the government are asleep on the job and it was up to people like me to call out instances of gender ideology especially when it’s under the guise of “family entertainment”. What swung it for me was the perfect 40 awarded by the judges for a pretty sloppy cha cha. The female impersonator’s partner was referring to him as “her” throughout, although it was obvious from footage of rehearsal that he was dancing with a bloke.