The BBC’s outgoing head of news has told LGBT staff they “have to get used to” hearing things “they do not personally like”.

[ChristinaXYZ]

From The Telegraph - looks like there is an attempt by BBC management to assert the corporations duty to report all sides:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/14/get-used-hearing-things-dont-like-bbc-news-chief-tells-gay-trans

Apparently:

"In an “extremely hostile” Zoom meeting with the corporation’s Pride network, Frans Unsworth allegedly told employees last Friday they must get used to hearing opinions they disagreed with."

and also:

"Two sources present at the meeting claimed Ms Unsworth,63, said: “You’ll hear things you don’t personally like and see things you don’t like, that’s what the BBC is, and you have to get used to that.”

Ms Unsworth, who is due to leave her position in January, added: “These are the stories we tell. We can’t walk away from the conversation.”

A BBC journalist at the meeting said: “Fran was totally calm but determined about it. was totally calm but determined about it.

“She was reacting to questions from the network that implied people shouldn’t come across views they disliked. To me, it felt like she was having to explain journalism to idiots.” "

The article goes on further to note:

"Meanwhile, Tim Davie, the BBC’s director-general, has attempted to reassure staff over the corporation’s recent departure from Stonewall’s diversity champion scheme and that he was concerned about LGBT inclusivity.

However, Mr Davies was reportedly told by a member of staff that he was not in a position to make decisions on the issue “because he’s not trans”, while another claimed the BBC was “institutionally transphobic”."

Its the idea hat people are crying over an article about lesbians being raped by opportunistic males. not because the lesbians are being raped or coerced, but because they're actually talking about it that shocks me. Such a deep disconnect to the real world and these people want to work in journalism?

I have posted this quote a number of times on MN.
I make no apology for doing it again.

“If freedom means anything at all, it means being able to tell people things that they do not wish to hear.” George Orwell.

@Babdoc

For some reason, every time I tried to post a comment on the Sunday Times online article, it got blocked. And I wasn’t saying anything offensive or controversial either. Most annoying.

I cancelled my Times subscription for similar reasons a few weeks ago. I had to ring them in order to unsubscribe and when I told the woman why, she just launched into the script of telling me that me subscription also included various stuff like Times Radio.

So, I've cancelled but I doubt my reason why has made a blind bit of difference to them.

I cannot imagine crying at work unless I was dealing with some huge overwhelming catastrophe. And even then it would have to be a small private meeting - like a meeting I was being sacked or something equally distressing.

But in a group call with the CEO who was saying, effectively, "be a grown-up"? No. I cannot fathom being that unprofessional or emotionally unstable.

Shut up about abuse women or I'll be sad and cry?
Do they really think that will work?
Reminds me of a poster here who wrote that they cried each time they visited MN because the women here are so mean and discuss women's issues.

It also reminds me of an abuser who would DARVO each time I was remotely assertive and walk away pretending to cry. It kind of blows my mind seeing someone do it to...the BBC.

It’s the claiming of the victim status high ground yet again that enrages me. The Pride group are the delicate flowers who are traumatised by hearing things that they don’t like, who are in floods of tears at the cruelty and transphobia they’re encountering, who are on the right side of fucking history. In their heads.

No, no, no and fucking no.

DARVO ad infinitum.

These are the people who have been shitting all over women for YEARS now at the BBC. The people who have been promoting partisan TRA ideology as if it were a neutral, universally accepted position, who have been so criminally biased in their reporting (especially when Ben Hunte was still there), who have been complicit in the steady removal of women’s rights and erosion of our boundaries.

This has been institutionalised misogyny in action. The people responsible for this are not the victims here but the aggressors. It’s being framed as them having to hear things that upset them, but actually the paradigm is abusers being told they don’t have free rein to abuse any more and erupting in a narc rage about it.

We have to challenge at the root this idea that it is just about TRAs having their sensibilities challenged and having to live in the real world now, however much the change in direction is obviously very welcome. It still feeds into the ludicrous lie that women have power and privilege that TRAs don’t, and that this is just about free speech and representing both sides of a story.

The reality is much, much darker than that.

Cross post QueenSue!

People were sending messages in the chat to say they were crying?!

This sounds like cry-bullying to me. If I was in a zoom meeting and I was crying, I would put my video off and put myself on mute for fear no-one would take me seriously ever again. But then, it seems to work differently when women display emotion.

If women were crying about this on a work call they would be accused of weaponising their trauma and being white feminists.

Ha! @NecessaryScene

I used to work at the BBC. Its hard to understand from the outside, but it really is like a big sixth form common room. Everyone is young, even if their not, and all feel duty-bound to tell everyone exactly what they're feeling, lest they appear inauthentic.
Feeling 'unsafe' is the criticism du jour. In fact, I can't imagine any other workplace pandering so much to the various pyschodramas. It's really hard to imagine how exactly they feel unsafe. Working anywhere else, they would be given short shrift, or told to leave the drama at home

By their own arguments; How can you make the decision that you're a woman when born a man, when you're not and have never been a woman? confused

This is so good I can't help but snort.

I find this all very strange. I assume, which may be very stupid, that this is people in non-journalistic parts of the BBC, demanding BBC does journalism "different": i.e. turns itself into a propaganda machine for a certain strain of thinking.

But then I am confused. I have worked at lots of different workplaces, both public and private, at different levels, and this whole story just seems so bizarre. How are the BBC even having these kinds of hostile Zoom meetings in the first place? In the places I have worked, if you behaved like that in a meeting with a senior executive, there'd be a serious problem. At the very least, your card would be marked. So I have to ask: why are these people not scared of losing their jobs? Why do they even think they can do this in the first place?

And crying on work chats over it? That would surely instigate management intervention, wouldn't it? If I was in tears over a work policy issue, I'd probably be referred to occupational health.

I really can't understand what's going on here. The BBC seems to be a highly dysfunctional workplace.

@1234comeonbabysayyouloveme

I am really, really, really enjoying the pushback.

It's satisfying isn't it.

Also, I'm really enjoying how the TRA protest letter insisting the BBC apologize for it's article on lesbians and the cotton ceiling, has directly lead to more articles referencing the original article, leading to more and more people becoming aware of "the cotton ceiling". How vile, rapey and misogynistic it is.
Talk about an own goal.

I hope Frans Unsworth's replacement has some backbone.

This sounds like cry-bullying to me. If I was in a zoom meeting and I was crying, I would put my video off and put myself on mute for fear no-one would take me seriously ever again. But then, it seems to work differently when women display emotion.

Indeed, Potholes.

Imagine if men took women’s pain seriously, eh.

I hope Frans Unsworth's replacement has some backbone.

Me too, Gncq!

@Youdonthavetobegood

I used to work at the BBC. Its hard to understand from the outside, but it really is like a big sixth form common room. Everyone is young, even if their not, and all feel duty-bound to tell everyone exactly what they're feeling, lest they appear inauthentic. Feeling 'unsafe' is the criticism du jour. In fact, I can't imagine any other workplace pandering so much to the various pyschodramas. It's really hard to imagine how exactly they feel unsafe. Working anywhere else, they would be given short shrift, or told to leave the drama at home

Very interesting, thanks. It really sounds like it became a hermetically sealed little bubble over the years. And now the echo chamber is being opened up and light allowed in, it’s really hurting their eyes, oh dear.

I really can't understand what's going on here. The BBC seems to be a highly dysfunctional workplace.

If it's anything like some of the government bodies I've worked with then it'll be the 'LGBTQ+ allies network' which is a Stonewall network which is a gender identity ideology network, that lesbians like me steer clear of. I mean who wants to be in a room or zoom with people who think you're a genital fetishist or nazi for being same-sex attracted? I'm not surprised that they behave like coercive crying narcissists. They're so tone deaf and obtuse they never saw this coming. until now they've got away with a totalitarian state. It's a minority.

At bloody last. The BBC have been an utter disgrace.

Feeling 'unsafe' is the criticism du jour.
As someone who have been actually, physically unsafe a lot this really pisses me off. Those people making that kind of complaint don't actually feel unsafe do they, they expect to be listened to.
Why anyone would take them seriously is beyond me.

Ben Hunte reports:

www.vice.com/en/article/n7nv97/lgbtq-employees-are-quitting-the-bbc-because-they-say-its-transphobic

'A non-binary employee who recently left the BBC, specifically because of transphobia, said they ended up leaving because they were not able to be their “authentic self inside or outside of the workplace.”'

Oh, for heaven's sake. People need to grow up and stop thinking the world revolves around them and their feelings and their identities.

Not a single named source in that article. Hunte could have made the whole thing up for all anyone can tell. Why believe a word of it?

"To me, it felt like she was having to explain journalism to idiots." absolute gold

The messages about crying part is just beyond weird or a massively pathetic attempt at manipulation which suggest the BBC has bowed to that kind of manipulation in the past