BBC shift towards accuracy angers the gender identity faithful

'Biological male' is upsetting activists

A brief update on the BBC.

The BBC has ‘given way to transphobic rhetoric’, according to US activist Erin Reed. Erstwhile celebrity India Willoughby says a new editorial policy is ‘dehumanising’ trans people. Their indignation is reflected across gender activist social media.

Erin and India, in their current iteration at the BBC, are ‘biological males who identify as women’. Earlier this year they would have been trans women. Last year they would have been women.

This in a nutshell is the reason for the anger. Perhaps next year Erin and India will simply be he/hims in BBC copy.

Erin’s piece last week, and India’s latest car protest video, were prompted by the BBC describing Sophia Brooks, who accused Graham Linehan of harassment (he was cleared), as a biological male who identifies as a woman, and using neutral ‘they’ pronouns.

Erin claims: ‘The BBC is arguably backing down from ethical and scientifically rigorous coverage in order to cater to the anti-trans agenda. Instead, it has reverted back to pejorative terms to refer to transgender people in many of its news pieces’

India says it’s a ‘nasty new policy..editorial bias telling you, the listener, who to trust..a dehumanising tactic’.

Others call it ‘a reactionary hatefest’ from the ‘Bigoted Broadcasting Corporation’.

Are they right? Pink News investigated, and decided they aren’t. It asked the BBC’s press office whether it had changed its News Style Guide, which requires trans people to be referred to using ‘the term and pronoun preferred by the person in question’

‘A spokesperson responded by stating “there hasn’t been any directive and there’s no separate internal version of the BBC style guide”.

Pink News is wrong. But the official position is also accurate: there is no directive, the style guide hasn’t been rewritten, and there’s no special internal version of it.

But there is a new BBC policy to move towards accuracy. It was shared with us last week that the new informal policy is to use ‘biological male who identifies as a woman’ in every story ‘where it helps the audience understand’.

Anyone can see this across a range of stories:- here are a few

• Coverage of the Sandie Peggie case and its latest Sandie Peggie coverage here

• Its latest coverage of the Darlington nurses

• Its latest coverage of the EHRC guidance on the Supreme Court judgment and here

• Its report on the court case of child sex offender Natalie Wolf (particularly noticeable because unlike in the Graham Linehan case, the court used female pronouns, which the BBC ignored)

To be fair, you don’t need inside information to see this is happening. It’s written all over the output.

This follows a BBC acknowledgement both internally and externally that it made mistakes with its ‘trans coverage’ and is trying to get things right.

That’s where we are right now. This all follows the leak of the Prescott memo which detailed not only bias across a range of issues, but inactivity from news executives in response.

The shift has been going on for a while. For BBC Scotland, the Sandie Peggie case was an opportunity to move to a type of neutrality which it took seriously, and which is being sustained. BBC Northern Ireland has been making similar changes. BBC Wales has made efforts to stem the flood of activist content. BBC Health has been covering the story fairly. The Social Affairs editor has produced truly solid coverage. Sandie Peggie’s lawyer was interviewed at length. The range of issues that’s touched by TQ+ and women’s rights is now being shared between a proper range of correspondents. The Identity Hub can’t exercise a veto any more.

On the other hand: some teams think facts need a trigger warning (we wrote to them about this) the BBC does still use ‘trans women’ and always qualifies the word male, it still substitutes ‘trans’ for ‘male’ in key stories, its reporting is still patchy (for example its coverage of the puberty blocker trial has been a thin version of what’s needed), drag still holds sway and its regional reporting is still pretty well sunk in a bog of affirmation.

The new policy is a great move, but with further to go.

Unfortunately but entirely predictably it will face a wave of gender activism as it moves forward. Jolyon Maugham says it is ‘looking with lawyers at the BBC whitewashing of trans existence’ and has launched a special crowdfunder. No one minds much what he says but internal activists could use it as a reason to defer further progress. Then there’s the complaints activism - like the 428 people who object to Martine Croxall saying ‘pregnant women’. It’s not rational behaviour but it can be very effective. And no credit will be given for the BBC’s decade of compliance.

BBC thinking after For Women Scotland won at the Supreme Court was that it would be enough to put ‘trans’ in front of ‘woman’ to satisfy due accuracy’. Some stories had exactly that edit but female pronouns were still used. Only this year she/her was being used for Abbi Taylor, Joanna Rowland-Stuart and Zoe Watts. Public pressure has encouraged the BBC to go further.

Not far enough but it is a proper and substantive shift. The BBC is as vital as Press Association copy in shaping how the rest of the media covers these stories. It provides deep background for a wider cultural shift. Even Channel 4 - which fell harder, faster and for longer than the BBC - declined to use ‘she’ for Sophia Brooks. Sky News too, and ITV.

We need it to hold on to this progress and support it to go further. The gender identity activists, for once, are right: yes, the BBC has moved, and not in a direction they like.