SEEN in Journalism: The BBC and preferred pronouns

Not clear how you think trans people are helped by the BBC's dogged determination to respect the identities and preferences of murderers.

"When it comes to accuracy, however, it must not be balanced by inaccuracy"

Hilarious given the author of this goofy article imagines the supreme court decision compels the BBC not to use preferred pronouns or to refer to trans women as men when all it did was define woman for the express purpose of special exemptions a provider might feel like providing to CIS women under the Equality Act.

but I think the use of cross-sex pronouns by media is defensible in principle

I think a more straightforward middle way would be to change their policy to

"We generally use pronouns to refer to sex, unless there are editorial reasons not to do so"

The policy is then neutral by default, but allows for flexibility.

I'm not sure I agree with 'In effect, [that] the BBC [decides it] knows better than the Supreme Court'.

The SC has ruled that sex means sex for equality purposes, but it can still be true that 'being transgender' (with or without a GRC or GD diagnosis) has legal or social salience (in fact it must have, given there is actual legislation on the topic).

Reporting a TW as a woman is inaccurate, but reporting him as a man is incomplete. Reporting him as a TW also needs further explanation for the portion of the population that think TWs are TIFs. There's a lot of information to pack in, but it's got to be done (and of course TRAs are furious, because these stories usually show TWs in a bad light, even compared to other men).

Use of names and pronouns is a separate issue. Any confusion as to actual sex can be mitigated with good information upfront, but I think the use of cross-sex pronouns by media is defensible in principle, provided it's consistent (no switching to male when they turn out to be rapist gender!). And it drives home to the reader how ludicrous it all is.

If 'being transgender' doesn't have the social convention of name and pronoun use, then it has nothing at all (well, apart from the dodgy ID, which also needs getting rid).

Not saying I agree, but it would be a self-consistent approach.

What I also find interesting is that in the first screenshot, they've used the gender-neutral "partner" to really minimise as much as possible the fact this is male violence perpetrated against a woman despite the fact the second one calls the trans person a "wife". They are really rubbing it in that only men identifying as women get to have female pronouns and words, no matter what they do to women, and that women who are actual goddamn women aren't allowed to have a sex even when they're the victim of male-pattern crimes against women.

But as posted above by MycatLarry, they are still using what they believe to be the killer's preferred pronouns on the website.

From the BBC style guide

"A person born male who lives as a female, would typically be described as a “transgender woman” and would take the pronoun “she”. And vice versa. We generally use the term and pronoun preferred by the person in question, unless there are editorial reasons not to do so."

I would love it if they could explain their reasoning here.

They are avoiding pronouns on the BBC website and said this in the report, quite a long way down.

“Westman's name was legally changed from Robert to Robin in 2020, with the judge writing: "Minor child identifies as a female".“

What a dilemma, the women at BBC Verify want to respect his pronouns, BBC News want to skim over and bury his trans identity and otherwise let it be known he is male.

Meanwhile the word in the street is that, far from being an innate characteristic, he is apparently now moving away from identifying as female. So all these people declaring that kids have the capacity to make life changing and permanent decisions and should have to live with the consequences are coming across as a bit ill informed now.

Our national broadcaster is tying itself in knots and humiliating itself now.

The BBC are now referring to the Minneapolis school murderer as 'she'

Just one paragraph from today's news report -

"Officials added that the guns used in the attack were all legally purchased, that the killer did not appear on any government watchlist, and that police are not aware of any mental health diagnoses or treatments that she was receiving."

We mustn't offend the memory of a child murderer, eh BBC?

Am I a “normie”? 🤣

As for “BBC Verify” it’s like the Ministry of Truth.

They’re awful.