Russell T Davies says he has gender critical friends - drama ensues

[fromorbit]

RTD's new drama Tip Toe is about to start. A Guardian article on it has seen online drama.

‘How often I’m called a paedophile online is shocking’: inside Russell T Davies’s horrifying drama about rising hatred
The creator of It’s a Sin is back – and he’s furious. His new series, Tip Toe, explores the rise of homophobia through a feud between two Manchester neighbours. He and stars Alan Cumming and David Morrissey talk death, fear and ‘joy as a form of protest’...

Trying to get in as well rounded a view of the issues at stake here is a deliberate choice by Davies. Spit & Polish’s employees are mostly a younger generation of LGBTQ+ people. He sought advice from the writer Juno Dawson, with whom he worked on Doctor Who, about how to portray the trans characters in the show, including the charming and endearing employee Zee (Iz Hesketh). Stephanie (Elizabeth Berrington), Leo’s close friend whom we see throughout the series, is gender-critical – believing that biological sex cannot be changed from birth.

“I wanted all sorts of voices in there,” says Davies. “I’ve got friends who are gender-critical. It’s only online you end up screaming and shouting and being attacked by them. In real life, you have a chat, and we all kind of sigh and put up with each other. That’s how the world works. It’s actually how the world is ceasing to work.” As terrifying violence looms towards the end of the series, Stephanie and Zee end up on the same side.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/may/29/inside-russell-t-davies-tip-top-drama-alan-cumming-david-morrissey

It is now over for RTD he can't have friends who think like that according to the TAs. That makes him "intolerant". On Bluesky there is massive push back. RTD has aroused the hatred of Windy!!! Someone else has threatened to kill RTD over this.

Details and screenshots from James Dreyfus.

James Dreyfus

Russell T Davies says, in an interview, that he has “gender-critical friends”. Bear in mind, that he is extremely vocal in support of the LGBTQIA+, especially the QT. (Although, curiously there were NO trans or non-binary characters in “Queer As Folk”…an odd oversight, considering they apparently “fought for our rights” & were ‘ubiquitous’ in 1999…🤔) Anyway, apparently his support is not meeting the skyscraper-high threshold for their purity test & he’s now being attacked for his choice of friends by the very people he champions. Which seems to me to be a trifle harsh, irrational & certainly predictable.

This outcome probably demonstrates that it’s perhaps unwise to engage in genial horseplay with your pet rattlesnake, unless you’ve a fridge packed with anti venom & are handy with a needle…

James Dreyfus
16h
Re: my earlier post.

It’s odd to be in a position where my instinct is to defend Russell T Davies, when I’m pretty sure the favour wouldn’t be returned, but to see the outpouring of venom directed at him today for daring to have ‘ GC friends’ patently shows how ANY deviation from the approved narrative is as dangerously precarious as stroll across a barbed-wire tightrope…

These reactions are just insane.

https://nitter.net/DreyfusJames/status/2060768949059674466#m

So will RTD experience this backlash and see things from a different point of view?

The other big question is will the Terfy character in the series suddenly convert to thinking biology is not a thing at some point. Presumably a man is going to do some violence at some point. If this prompts any women character to go - "oh no men are being violent - IT MUST BE MY FAULT! Why did I have opinions!" It will be very very dumb.

If on the other hand you have a trans type and a gender crit being jointly horrified by male violence and managing to unite to condemn it you might have something you don't see in any drama so far, but happens IRL a lot. Because men being violent is kind of a thing.

He went out to the US writing rooms in california post that first Dr who revival.

There were a couple of reviwers saying he wasn't going to be great for Dr Who second time round as he a very different writer to previous incarnation -- and they were absolutely right.

One of the staff writers on the new go at children's programme doctor who isTRA Juno Dawson . Also sooz kempner was doing something I can't quite remember.

I wonder if they'll disown him. Doctor who Reddit seems to demand it

They do like a bit of cancelling. It would be mean of me to want Fat Tony and the dodgy ex copper to go after him, wouldn't it....

I'm not surprised at gay women.
As a heterosexual woman, I am not going to experience pressure to accept a trans woman as a sexual partner, they might be.

My skin crawls at the thought of it to be honest.
You could say well you might experience it from a trans man but I just can't see it somehow.

Lucy Mangan’s review is mildly scathing though forgiving for all his services to tv. Interesting that she calls the “transgender” character “he” too.

Dawson was the trans adviser on Tip Toe.

Dawson wrote the rather crazy Eurovision Dr Who episode which was not that popular.

Apparently in the second Tip Toe episode the Cummings character has a weird interaction with a 16 year old neighbour. Review from young gay guy:
https://nitter.net/Dthemortgageman/status/2061231167953658313#m

She's surely on borrowed time.

RTD certainly has recurring themes of Terrible Assumption Just Because a Middle Aged Gay Has A Very Young Friend.

Queer As Folk the lad was 16 or so. Cucumber now this

Lol, there’s a cringing apology at the bottom of the article now, saying the character had an incorrect pronoun introduced during editing that has now been corrected. Oh noes, mustn’t offend the fictional character!

From that review it sounds like Leo is the GC “friend,” and RTD has him lynched by bad people to show him why he should have been more enthusiastically pro-trans. SEE WHAT YOU MADE HIM DO?!

ISTR she’s pissed them off before for some minor reason.

Same theme keeps recurring in Stephen Fry's novels. In neither case has it stopped them being a national treasure.

I certainly wouldn't want to draw any parallels about the number of novels John Le Carre wrote about terribly decent chaps whose wives just didn't appreciate their genius, thereby forcing them to cop off with much younger women.

Popbitch today:

So .. is he saying if all the actors in The room were dreaded nobody would notice?

I've just watched all episodes of Tiptoe tonight and I have to say, it was a fantastic drama but I'm absolutely livid at how firstly, the working class are portrayed as disgusting bigots, it's not the 1980s FFS. And how the LGBT community are under constant, and increased threat. This show has done so much damage IMO and is really irresponsible. There's even a working class man who says that he doesn't believe HIV is real. Does ANYONE really believe that these days?

Julie Burchill on RTD

https://archive.ph/qWpz5

https://unherd.com/2026/06/russell-t-davies-is-stuck-in-a-purity-spiral/?edition=us

'Dr Whobris' 🤣

She's been reading this

Some of the snarkiest reactions could be found on Mumsnet, where one user observed that “no doubt he’ll make a statement soon suggesting he was ‘misquoted/taken out of context’ and will swear fealty to the Purity Police”.

All the best people do 😃

… and some of the worst…

I actually had to keep checking the clothing to make sure it wasn’t set in previous decades. It’s the dangerous results of using exaggerated stereotypes that you’d never find IRL behaving horrifically in a bid to illustrate the dangers to LGB and T that don’t exist. What a shame he didn’t enlist one of his GC mates to write the GC character as a more heroic voice of realism.

A lot of what was shown absolutely still happens today. AIDS denialists as they are called do exist (though more prevalent in Russia and some so-called natural medicine Drs saying something like poppy seeds will help). I've had conversations with them including on MN where they ended up by telling me I was bonkers to take my medication for it. Through my volunteer work | also come across stigma and negative attitudes that marginalised groups experience.

I don't think anyone surprised that AIDS denial exists in other counrties - Russia - countries in Africa and very possibly America or pockets of whoo thinking or individuals even in normally sane countries.

What it is not is a main stream or common view in UK even in working class communities.

There is a constant demonisation of working class by middle class TV writers and increasingly middle class industry - the assumption working class are all thick and racists and bigoted. At many points in the past the Britsh working class was much more welcoming to immigrants and ethic minorities that middle or upper class who were at times more focued on breeding or outright eugenics yet if you watch historcial dramas that is rarely show what more common in working class being demonised and then edcuated by their betters to correct thinking.

I can't work out of this was done due to poltcial motiavations as PP think or if it's an old has been harking back to days of his youth unware how much society has moved on and is indulged because of past writing successes.

I don't see it as demonisation of the working class and that all the working class are thick and bigoted. All the characters are all working class on both sides, probably due to the setting. It's more about raising awareness of issues happening in the UK today and is recognised that socio-economic factors can play a part in challenges that people face.

It's more about raising awareness of issues happening in the UK today and is recognised that socio-economic factors can play a part in challenges that people face.

Denying AIDS is not really a thing in UK communities working class or otherwise.

Shoving views not held by a section of the population who do face more social and economic barriers and sometime even prejducie in certain careers to raise issues happening elsewhere and not in UK - well that not a great look TBH and doing it under guise of "raising awareness" is very disingenuous.

It matter little if you personally don't see it increasing numbers of people are starting to see it and question it and not just with RTD writing - it's a wider issue.

I might be misunderstanding what you are saying, however the issues mentioned in the series are what I have experienced in the UK, those experienced of people I support and others I've spoken to.
Given that these are I feel being dismissed, I'll leave it there and not respond further.

If you experinced AIDs denial in UK why did use first use Russia as an example?

I've pointed out these views are not a common feature of working class UK culture I know and live and work in. This program and writing is showing a pattern of shoving underiable thinking onto working class communties and making out it current behavior.

If you've actually encounted AIDS denial in working class communiteis in UK - they I'm very sorry and frankly astounded that that happened. Science denial IME tends to more a middle class phenomenon thouigh I'm sure there are exceptions.

One issue I have is the hierarchy of victimhood that underlies so much modern writing - so women and working class communities are at bottom and their issues do not matter and if they are made worse by shoving views and behaviors on to them that do not hold on mass ( there are always exceptions) that fine if people at top or hierarchy of victimhood issues get highlighted - I think that wrong and lazy writing.

I think this was another example of RTD poor writing - he world view seems increasingly very limited and outdated. It's shame as he used to be one of the best writers out there.

Sorry not been following this thread as i dont RTD is quite as wonderful as some make out.

But did see this review (if already posted sorry - again!)

https://metro.co.uk/2026/06/03/tip-toes-gender-critical-character-misses-mark-28631365/