I've sent various courteous, thoughtful complaints, and have been fobbed off with responses ranging from the rudely dismissive to the totally indifferent (often to the content of my complaint!) And then there was Scarlet Blake. And now this.
I feel almost sick with distress that the BBC does this. It's utterly demeaning and downright dangerous. It's also undemocratic.
I'm losing patience. Could I suggest a new tack?
Dear BBC Complaints,
Many women remain undecided how to vote in the General Election. The deciding issue for us is how our legal and political rights may be affected by a change in government.
In order to judge whether or not we agree with Labour's stance that transwomen should be accommodated in a majority of single-sex spaces, it is necessary for us to know whether trans women tend to follow male or female patterns of violence and sexual violence.
As our national broadcaster, with a mandate to report facts accurately, please would you clarify that the individual in the above report is a transwoman. This provides the nation with information necessary to participate meaningfully in the democratic process, while using terminology that is respectful both to the individual in question and all of your readers.
If this is not editorial policy, please would you explain why, with explicit reference to your mandate to inform the public and thereby enable our democracy to function in a genuinely inclusive way.
I would be especially interested in the rationale behind your policy to favour the self-descriptor 'woman' over the impartial and unambiguous term 'trans woman'. Unlike 'woman', the latter respects all parties: the individual in question, women who wish to retain a collective noun for their sex class, and other readers struggling to follow the current debate and undecided how to vote.
Best wishes,
Catiette