Newsroom realities

How to talk about sex and gender

‘I don’t share your beliefs - let’s not police each other’s language’

You know what you think. You understand sex is real, and that people are harmed by gender identity based policies and gender identity activism. You want to write stories about it, and you want to use accurate language. But how do you raise that in the newsroom? How do you talk about it with your editors?

There are a number of ways of effecting change. Be ‘out’ at work and not publicly ‘out’. Be ‘out’ publicly AND at work. Or go ‘under the radar’ - try to effect change while keeping your views to yourself.

The problem with being ‘out’ publicly is that some news employers, unlike other employers, require public impartiality, quite justifiably. If you work at the BBC, for example, you can’t say what you think on social media without risking disciplinary action (plus complaints from activists that you make them feel ‘unsafe’).

Unfortunately social media is a very good way, sometimes the only way, of finding others at the same news outlet that you might be able to team up with. Official staff networks and forums are almost all completely captured and won’t have the ‘sex and gender’ conversation except in affirmative terms. It means people are isolated, and unaware that there may be plenty of others around them who’d like to coordinate efforts.

The problem with being under the radar is that gender identity activists in newsrooms are hyper-sensitive to any hint of sex realism. All you have to do is say that you want a particular guest on (like suggesting a call to Stephanie Davies-Arai or Maya Forstater), or you want to cover a particular court case, or even if you use the word ‘sex’ instead of ‘gender’, and, to put it bluntly, they’re on to you. In fact, any reference to accuracy in an editorial conversation about sex and gender will probably get you clocked.

Once that happens, you can be managed away from stories and opportunities, or denied career moves or secondments, or presenting gigs, or deployments, without it being obvious as to why. However, you will know why, and fear you may have no defence when it comes to complaining about it.

The problem of being ‘out’ at work, even if not publicly - is obvious - potential repercussions. The same lack of career progression (see above): exclusion from opportunities: disciplinary actions that are a process of punishment, even if they eventually vindicate you or are abandoned.

How can you protect yourself and navigate such capture?

That’s where ‘I don’t share your beliefs’ is helpful.

First, remember that accuracy is the most prized and defensible principle. Not only do you prize it - your employers do too, or claim to. They’ll have policies and mission principles which you can cite back at them. If you stick to accuracy, you are on solid ground. Know your facts. Sex is real, a man is a man and not a woman.

Secondly, events that arise from pretending these aren’t true are worth reporting. Mentally prepare your response to ‘no one is interested’ ‘the story has gone away’ ‘there’s no peg’ ‘we looked at that last year’ and so on - the ‘it’s niche’ excuse.

Thirdly: speaking up at work generally gives you the Forstater defence. Once you’ve been ‘clocked’ as it were, you may suffer the consequences of being known to be gender critical without having the protection of the law.

But when you’ve made your understanding of the realities of sex known in the workplace - thanks to Maya Forstater, you come under the protected characteristic of belief in the Equality Act 2010. ‘

It doesn’t mean that all that repercussive behaviour won’t happen. And if you have an affirming editor you are in a particular bind. However you do have the protection of being able to claim that you may be being discriminated against because of your belief.

Fourthly, and we cannot stress this enough, make contemporaneous notes of everything and email them to yourself the day you make them. This includes events which aren’t ostensibly about sex and gender, but will be about your situation - were you excluded from a meeting you expected to be at, or do you unexpectedly find yourself never assigned to the lead story any more? Are all your pitches suddenly being rejected, are you being confined to refashioning PA? These are the sorts of disbenefits which build up a picture.

Maintaining contemporaneous notes makes you feel empowered and in control. You are creating a cache of evidence. Often, simply the knowledge that you have good contemporaneous notes can make a manager back off.

So we come to ‘I don’t share your beliefs - let’s not police each other’s language’.

Often the first way this issue will arise in a newsroom conversation about pronouns. It’s the simplest and the hardest thing to do - say ‘he’ when everyone around is using ‘she’. You gather your courage and do it, and someone corrects you.

Do you need to launch into an argument? Absolutely not, and definitely don’t. You simply do not share their beliefs and neither they nor your employer can compel you to express them. You can say it with a smile.

What belief are they expressing? The belief either that sex is determined by the brain, or that everyone else is morally obliged to pretend it is. If they’ve tried to correct you, they believe one of these two things.

Both are beliefs which are very hard to defend, and most pronoun enthusiasts are unable to do so on the hop, because they’re accustomed to compliance. Plus you have expressed a mutual tolerance, which is hard to criticise.

(Bonus: others in the meeting or on the desk who share your understanding will be in touch afterwards.)

You might want to add that you feel harassed by being told to express beliefs which you don’t share, especially if they persist in the ‘correction’.

You can now use natural, accurate language freely in the newsroom, in fact you might as well, and like everyone else who expresses gender critical beliefs, you have Forstater protection in doing so.

In most newsroom situations, using accurate language is incredibly powerful on its own, even without ‘making a case’ or any argument for why you want to. It’s a change in culture.

In various tribunals, we have seen witnesses and lawyers for Respondents (such as the Darlington NHS Trust) slip back into using ‘he, him and his’ for trans-identified men, simply because lawyers and witnesses for the Claimants are doing so.

They all know that ‘trans women’ are men, and the cognitive dissonance of having to maintain the lie that they aren’t, can collapse when people around refuse to comply. Especially when they’re doing so without any repercussions. It highlights the fact that they’re making a choice in affirming gender identity, and it prompts the idea that the choice to use female pronouns for a man might not be an impartial one (it isn’t).

Make sure you’re already familiar with your workplace bullying and harassment policy and understand that gender identity activists will get more of a pass than you. Assume a two-tier approach. But remember you’re not talking about (or personally ‘harassing’) anyone present: you’re discussing third parties, and news stories, in the course of your job where accuracy is prime.

Everyone chooses the right time to speak up at work, and it has to suit them. People are in situations where they might not be able to. Journalism is a fragile and insecure profession. You want to keep your job, it’s probably better for women’s and LGB journalism if you do, and it’s very easy for an editor to say that you didn’t get a bump up for professional reasons other than your gender critical understanding.

But if you fear that gender identity activists have realised that you are gender critical, and it might be affecting your work life and career, one option is to speak up and acquire ‘Forstater protection’ in doing so. There’s plenty more on the Sex Matters website.

Bear in mind this isn’t legal advice, and don’t take it as such - it’s drawn from the experience of gender critical journalists who’ve gone before. Once again, any conversation like this should be written up in a contemporaneous note and emailed to yourself. Mentioning it to a line manager can be useful, and putting that in the contemporaneous note too. Compelled speech on the newsroom shop floor is indefensible.