Feel free to use the below if you'd like to complain. It only takes a minute (link above), and the more who do, the better. The BBC need to hear that, while there are people who may find the use of sexed language distressing and feel disadvantaged by such, there are also those who find its omission distressing and feel disadvantaged by this. I wouldn't like to be on an editorial team navigating this, and would be sympathetic to language that names sex while acknowledging gender. But to focus wholly on the latter to the exclusion of the former is unambiguous bias, and deeply unsettling. It hits me far harder than any outright and aggressive misogynist insult, because it's institutionalised, and shaping national conversation, from a professedly politically impartial source.
"In your article on the important and underreported issue of a lack of period products at schools, your omission of the use of sexed language (excepting a single reference to "girls" in the context of a survey by "Rise International") is marked. Your adoption of gender-neutral/de-sexed language such as "pupils" and "students" in reporting on an issue affecting only females makes parts of the article at best confusing, and, at worst, misleading or inaccurate.
For example, the opening statistics of "four out of every 10 pupils " logically must mean that you include males in these statistics. However, given that males do not experience periods, the reader naturally wonders whether they should assume that "pupils" instead refers to females only. This has a direct and substantial impact on national understanding of the extent of this very serious issue: are 40%, or 80%, of female students, affected? This is a huge difference, and I quite genuinely don't know which you intended. It shouldn't be necessary to read, re-read, cross-reference and/or make assumptions to discern your meaning. You have a mandate to communicate information clearly and accurately.
It is hard to understand a national broadcaster deliberately deciding to adopt language that actively obscures meaning. In reporting on a sex-based issue such as this, political bias towards favouring gender identity over biological sex would seem to be the only possible explanation.
There is a place for such language, to acknowledge and respect minority groups. However, sex is also a protected characteristic in the Equality Act of 2010, and this report is, arguably, about discrimination on the basis of sex. It is about a damaging lack of recognition of girls'/females' needs, and on society's resistance to acknowledging these needs. As such, it is deeply ironic and quite upsetting to see our national broadcaster's editorial decisions demonstrating and perpetuating these very same biases."