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Most comedians are boring, disingenuous, whimpering cowards! I used to see comedy as a platform for the truth. Comedians were renegades, speaking truth to power, disrupting mainstream agenda and championing the underdog. Now most comics just pay lip service to feminism, parrot mainstream narratives and bow down to authoritarian lobby groups to increase their chances of getting on TV. Which is a dumb plan, because audiences are abandoning television, probably repelled by the bland hogwash woke TV execs continue to serve up. Comedy fans instead gravitate to streaming platforms such as Netflix, home to my fellow ‘terfs’ Ricky Gervais, Joe Rogan and Dave Chapelle.

I’m not alone in my criticism of the comedy industry. In the Scotsman Kate Copstick ponders ‘Has Comedy lost its edge?’ Julie Burchill wrote ‘Who Killed Comedy’ for the Spectator. And the popular podcast TRIGGERnometry asks ‘Is comedy killing itself?’

It’s almost six years since Maria MacLachlan, aged 60 at the time, was punched by a young person identifying as a trans woman at speaker’s corner. A place famous for free speech, women were having to meet there because venues had capitulated to calls for cancellation of debates about gender laws from trans activists. Weeks later women including well respected political activist Helen Steel were violently threatened by trans activists at The Anarchist Book Fair for drawing attention to proposed legislation changes that could effectively erode women’s sex based rights. For six years, debate has been suppressed around potential changes to gender recognition laws. Women have been attacked, deplatformed and lost their livelihoods. Comedians have mostly remained silent on the issue. An issue that threatens the very foundation of their livelihoods – freedom of expression.

I’m a cancelled comedian. In February this year, I wrote an article slamming the comedy industry which blew up on twitter, reaching over 1.5 million people. My show at the Leicester Comedy festival was cancelled within hours. My crime was to criticise the utopian idea of Self ID. A policy which would enable trans identified people to change their legal gender without medical assessment. My widely held opinion that it’s a bad idea, has now been adopted as Labour policy. Creating consensus between the two major political parties in England. It’s a view that is shared by the majority of people, but lobby groups would have you believe we are all ‘transphobic bigots’!

My views are not an affront to trans people. I have always actively included trans people in my spaces, called them by their chosen pronouns and encouraged others to do the same. I am simply participating in a political debate, challenging potential policies that would affect me as a woman. Those with my stance highlight the fact that Self ID will be co-opted by dangerous criminals. This view is now supported by widespread evidence. Like the case of double rapist Isla Bryson, a trans-identified male being housed in a female prison in Scotland. As I write it has been reported that Barbie Kardashian, another trans identified male who threatened to rape, torture and murder their own mother. Has had to be moved to the male side of a prison in Ireland due to threats towards female prisoners and prison staff. I chose not to use the chosen pronouns or refer to these two individuals as transwomen, because I believe they are opportunistic violent males, exploiting trans identity for evil gain.

It’s naive to think that dangerous men in prison wouldn’t see Self ID as a free pass to an easier life and access to vulnerable women. Most trans rights allies seem to be middle class. I have not met one working class person who believes Self ID is a good idea. We working class are streetwise, many of us have had to directly confront the darker side of human nature.

As a mental health advocate I strongly believe that people with gender dysphoria should have a robust psychological assessment and treatment of any underlying mental health issues before being given hormones that could forfeit their fertility or being referred for irreversible and potentially life threatening surgeries. It’s recently reported that GPs in Scotland will soon be able to prescribe hormones, and refer patients for surgery, without psychological assessment.

I became known as a comedian largely because I have spoken about my own experience of acute mental health issues. Despite my vulnerability being public knowledge, hundreds self identifying as comedians and some big names like Richard Herring piled on to me on Twitter when my column was published. I couldn’t keep up with all the tweets, a lot of it consisted of misogynistic abuse and one follower told me they saw a death threat which led me to call the police. The onslaught made me ill. I spent 2 weeks in a psychiatric ward due to acute stress. I thought comedians were supposed to make people laugh, not push them to mental breakdown.

The pile-on was instigated by Chortle editor and comedy critic Steve Bennett. Who has revealed himself to be a raging misogynist, since he felt the need to override my opinion piece with his ideologically captured drivel of a statement which he added as an addendum to my article. He twisted my words in a dog whistle to the wokerati, publishing a misleading headline that was later changed at my request, perhaps due to fear of legal ramifications.

He tried the same thing with Joanna Cherry, the SNP MP who is appearing at The Stand as part of the festival. He called her a ‘trans-critical’ MP on twitter and was called out by comedians like Leo Kearse and Andrew Doyle for misrepresenting her views. Her show was cancelled because she holds the same opinions as me, but was later reinstated and The Stand were forced to publicly apologise due to unlawful discrimination.

I am not the only comedian to recently fall victim to cancel culture. Comedy veteran Alfie Brown who was last year nominated for THE award and won a Chortle award for Best Show was piled on in March, over a routine he did eight years ago. Hardly anyone stuck up for him and it appears that he has since been quietly dropped by his agent. Then in April it was the turn of TikTok comedian NoHun, who had shows cancelled for saying “Men can’t get pregnant.” Who will be next?

There has been a slow creep of ideological capture over recent years in the comedy world. Think it was 2017 when fat-positive comedian Sofie Hagen kicked me out of her “Feminist” facebook group because I said her safe space policy was infantilising. The same year I gained an obsessive male stalker who would contact my venues and comedy writers who’d praised me in an attempt to deplatform me, simply because he didn’t like my view that the RAF shouldn’t have banned skirts. Then I’ve had entitled posh students come to review my shows, but instead have published political rebuttals to my points, giving me 1 or 2 stars maybe just as punishment for not pushing the woke agenda they subscribe to.

In a fun karmic twist, I will be reviewing at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. The darker part of my nature would love to hunt down the wussy comedians who piled on during my cancellation and rip them a new one – but I’m better than them. And I’d rather not waste my time sitting through an hour of propagandised swill. My passion is to amplify the voices of courageous comedians, with the guts to speak their minds. Comedians like Elaine Miller who at last year’s festival was spat at in the street after being denounced as a transphobe simply because her show was about biological women and didn’t mention trans women. I’d like to see Mary Bourke who I saw tear the roof off when I shared a stage with her at London’s free thinking club Comedy Unleashed and Raul Kohli, one of the few comedians who had the guts to stick up for me during my twitter pile on.

I didn’t get paid to write the column which drove over a million people to Chortle. In fact over the years I have paid Chortle £630 in advertising fees. In 2019 it was £330 to advertise for a week on Chortle which also gets a guaranteed review. It’s no secret that publications are more likely to review an artist, if they buy advertising.

I’m being paid to write this article and I will be paid to write reviews for Mumble. Editor Damo is letting me choose who I review, whether they have paid for advertising or not. Some may critique me for choosing to review for Mumble, who also offer a promotion package with a guaranteed review. In my opinion, the package is a bargain. The same cost as hiring a flyerer for a couple of hours, but likely with more reach and a deeper impact. I think it’s a good business model, publications are funded by advertisers and writers deserve to be paid. Comedians are essentially businesses and all businesses need to advertise to truly compete. Comics spend a minimum of about £2000 to hire publicists, and big outdoor posters can cost hundreds. Some comedians believe they are entitled to reviews. There are over 1000 shows listed in the comedy section of the brochure. A strong USP is needed to get audiences and reviewers into a show.

I am looking for the rebels, the weirdos and the renegades. Those who are truly being themselves and not afraid to say what they really think. This is the first year, barring pandemic years since 2013 that I am not performing at the fringe. Instead, I’ll be hiding in the shadows of the audience. I may have crossed over to the dark side, but I’m looking for the light. I want to believe there is hope for comedy, freedom and democracy. I may not have a mic this year, but I have a pen. And along with sisters they tried to terf out before me like JK Rowling, Joanna Cherry and Maya Forstater – This woman, won’t wheesht!

Samantha Pressdee