Rugby League bans transgender athletes from top events

[2Paws]

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/61875651

"The International Rugby League (IRL) said it had considered "relevant developments in world sport" in coming to its decision to ban transgender athletes until it had completed research on its final inclusion policy."

Baby steps for now, but so important for rugby. I just hope World Rugby is listening...

So how many genocides is this now?

We note that the author of this email has presumed that sport + transgender = male

Simple clear demonstration of sex based bias.

Saying trans people can't play sport is deliberate. And not specifying that it's males who can't play female sport is also deliberate. Whether every instance is deliberate, or simply ignorant, who knows.

But the entire meaning changes when one says men instead of people.

Follow-up complaint submitted:

Thank you for your response to the above complaint. Unfortunately, the amended headline is still misleading as it refers to "transgender players" being banned, while in fact it is only transwoman players, i.e. males, who are banned from women's international competition. The article itself also refers repeatedly (and misleadingly) to "transgender players" (although a direct quote from the IRL does specify "male-to-female (transwomen) players"). Additionally, the article devotes a great deal more space to criticism of the ban than it gives to justification and support for it. This imbalance, combined with the misleading headline give a clear impression of bias in the article. I understand that headlines require brevity and this may be at the expense of nuance, but a reference to "transwoman players" or even just "male players" would be shorter, clearer and more accurate than "transgender players". I cannot think of any good reason, other than deliberate bias, for persisting with such a misleading presentation, even after complaints have been received and considered.

great follow up. thank you for persisting.

Ditto. Excellent follow. Will consider doing similar

Response to follow-up complaint:

Thank you for taking the time to contact us again.

We’re sorry to learn that you weren’t satisfied with our earlier response, and we can see why.

Firstly, we'd also like to apologise for the delay in getting back in touch with you. We know our audiences appreciate a prompt response and we’re sorry this hasn't been the case on this occasion.

In light of your further comments, we’ve now changed the headline of the article to the following:

‘Transgender women banned from women's international rugby league’

We’ve also edited the introduction to the piece, making clear that ‘Transgender women have been banned from women's internationals while rugby league's governing body does further research on its inclusion policy’.

We’d like to thank you for your feedback on these points and apologise that this was not made clear originally. Your comments have been discussed with the team at the Sport website, and have prompted a helpful discussion about the language we use across our output.

This concludes Stage 1 of our complaints process. That means we can’t correspond with you further here. If you remain unhappy, you can now contact the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU). The ECU is Stage 2 of the BBC’s complaints process. You’ll need to explain why you think there’s a potential breach of standards, or if the issue is significant and should still be investigated. Please do so within 20 working days of this reply.

It's taken a month to get from a completely inaccurate headline via a second, still inaccurate version to this version, which finally approximates to the wording in the original press release. It could be better but I guess it'll do.

Apparently, my comments "have been discussed with the team at the Sport website, and have prompted a helpful discussion about the language we use across our output."

It would be nice to know something about the content and consequences of that discussion. I assume the discussion had some significant consequences - if not, in what sense was it "helpful"?

Nice to see the word woman in the headline used properly (I.e does not include transwomen).

Now we have some clear examples, I wonder in what other ways transwomen are not women?

Cynical me is thinking the "helpful" is how much do "we" need to change the content to avoid a stage 2 complaint.

Congratulations on getting the changed.

Thank you👏🏻