In the middle of a relentless publicity blitz, Irvine Welsh sat down with the Daily Record’s John Dingwall for a front-page interview. It backfired spectacularly. The splash claimed Welsh had “slammed Nicola Sturgeon’s trans beliefs,” accusing her of “forcing trans down people’s throats” and weakening the independence movement. Anti-trans campaigners briefly cheered; then the backlash landed, and Welsh was left looking desperate and irrelevant — mocked across social media and ultimately pleading with readers not to share his own words.
‘Another Old Man’
When PinkNews amplified the story, LGBT+ readers and allies delivered a merciless verdict. “Bro hasn’t reviewed his opinion since the last time he wrote a good book (early 90s).”
“Yet another past-their-prime author deciding to punch down on people to revive a dying career.” “Ah f*** — another disappointing old, old, old, old, old man.”
Others were blunter, branding him “another transphobic arse” and “an irrelevant has-been.” The message was clear: to a younger generation, Welsh is a relic.
Blue Sky, Black Eye
The anger spilled onto Bluesky — the very platform Welsh had once sanctimoniously championed as a refuge from Elon Musk’s “incel and Nazi” swamp of X. He urged followers to leave, even posting step-by-step guides showing them how to migrate.
Now, that same community turned on him, mocking him as “Scotland’s Graham Linehan” and “the bald JK Rowling.”
Welsh’s response was not defiance but pleading. On Bluesky he protested:
“It was the Daily Record and a long interview was reduced to the clickbait of ‘sturgeon’ ‘drug deaths’ ‘trans’. I didn’t ‘slam’ anybody. Please don’t fall for their bullshit and propagate their lazy, poisonous agendas.”
The irony was glaring: the man who once urged his followers to spread his gospel on Bluesky was now begging them not to circulate his own interview.
Turncoat
The Record comments briefly delighted the gender-critical crowd, who despise Sturgeon and trans rights.
But as soon as the LGBT+ backlash hit, Welsh scrambled to disown the very headline he’d given. His Bluesky begging was a direct betrayal of those new, fleeting allies. To them, he’s now a cowardly turncoat. To the LGBTQ+ community, he’s just another old, transphobic bore.
A Pattern of Hypocrisy
This isn’t even the first time. In July 2024, Welsh tweeted at Harriet Harman:
“Have you decided what a woman is yet? VERY IMPORTANT!”
A classic gender-critical jab that earned him praise from Graham Linehan and his crowd. When the blowback came, he tried to distance himself then too.
It’s a pattern: Welsh wants the edgy rebel clout of wading into the fight, but none of the accountability. He plays the bold truth-teller in tabloids, then the misunderstood artiste online when things backfire. The only constant is his hunger for attention.
Out of Touch
For weeks, Welsh has toured media outlets railing against the “brain-atrophying” curse of mobile phones, insisting they are destroying culture. Yet he can’t even distinguish between a 1990s Nokia and a modern smartphone — lumping three decades of technology into one lazy rant.
That might pass for eccentric if it weren’t for his history. For over a decade, Welsh was a prolific Twitter addict, thriving in the very attention economy he now condemns. He only turned against social media after Elon Musk scrapped the blue-tick hierarchy that gave him status, slinking off in the huff.
He shook his fist at the internet only once his social media spotlight dimmed.
Choose Hype
And while he sneers at algorithms and “the death of culture,” Welsh has been everywhere — BBC, STV, France24, Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch, endless podcasts, profiles, and puff pieces.
But what is the ageing author actually promoting? A bizarre disco vanity project and yet another reheated Trainspotting spin-off, dismissed by the Spectator as “tedious, pretentious, self-parodic — a lazy retread of old ground.”
Once a chronicler of rebellion, Welsh is now the establishment’s favourite “edgy” mascot — wheeled out to scowl at modern life while cashing in on nostalgia.
Welsh tried to play both sides of the culture war, and lost them all. In the end, his bald ambition has backfired.
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