BBC News does not inform readers cat killer and murderer Scarlett Blake is transgender in this article. I intend to complain to ofcom. These are not our crimes.

[Heylo]

Has anyone seen this recent article on the transgender (trans woman) Scarlett Blake who was sentenced to 24 years today for murdering a man. Blake also killed a cat. Pls see this recent article from bbc news. BBC news puts nowhere in article that Blake is transgender. Uses pronouns ‘she’ and refers to Blake as a woman.

bbc article here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-68401335

These are not our crimes. I am reporting the omission of the fact Blake is transgender to Ofcom. I wonder if anyone is thinking the same (about reporting to ofcom, here is the link: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/complaints )

This post is a brazen display of intellectual dishonesty. @Thehigheroffer goes beyond taking a quote out of context and actually makes up a fake quote and hopes that we won't notice. Do you think that we are blind? Actually, you possibly do because TRAs often claim that women cannot see the difference between men and women, which would rely on us being blind.

You could not ask for a clearer example of the Straw Man Fallacy.

Really? I missed that. How novel.

Yes. Call Mariana Spring! I’m sure she/her will get to the bottom of this.

And Jon Ronson while we’re at it. Just heard his Things Fall Apart trailer with his odd little voice saying “But that’s not true is it?”

"Article is now clear, it includes the paragraph:

'The Ministry of Justice said Blake, who is transgender, would serve the sentence in a men's prison.'"

I disagree, @HappyintheHills; the article is still not clear. It uses female pronouns from beginning to end, and the line you quote could easily be (mis)interpreted as meaning that Blake was born female and had transitioned to male, hence serving their sentence in a men's prison. It's not clear at all.

Also, the line starting "Her trial heard that she had been on the streets looking for potential victims" - sounds to my ears like they were trying to shoe-horn as many 'she/her's' into the article as possible; surely 'THE trial heard...' would be the normal way to construct that sentence..?

No, @Thehigheroffer, can't you read? I wrote 'women seldom commit crimes anything like these'.

You list some women killers by name, thereby proving their rarity - you can remember them, even though some of their crimes date from decades ago.

Their crimes are also different to Blake's: Hindley was working with a man and we can't know how that influenced her actions, but you can't compare her with a sole actor such as Blake was.

Nor can you compare him with killer nurses, who are different again, as they have a specific cohort they victimise and there's the possible Munchausen/'Angel' thing going on with them.

Female Nazi guards - again a specific group with a very vulnerable cohort available to them but their actions were totally backed by the state.

It's vanishingly rare to find a woman who does what Blake has done.

Well said. The reason MH, RW etc are household names is because sadistic murders committed by women are so rare. There are so many male murderers and sexual predators that only the absolutely heinous ones stand out. Most male crimes get minimal reporting because they're so run of the mill.

Was very clear on the 6 o'clock news including that she will be sent to a men's prison. They used she but made it absolutely clear she was transgender

Then they could just say man or male instead, no need to mention transgender.

He will be sent to a men’s prison. He is a trans identifying male - he is a male who has transitioned.

So many ways to describe the actual facts.

It matters for a number of reasons:

Because the 'be kind' trans women aren't like men mantra can continue if it isn't called out. If there isn't a record of trans womens crimes and if female stats show rising levels of 'female' violence the women are dangerous too line is repeated and believed.

Because victims are being forced to lie in court calling men women when they know it's not the case

Because if the perpetrator hasn't been caught an inaccurate description hinders the hunt for the killer.

If it's recorded as a female crime that warps the crime statics, it could lead to money being wasted on 'violent women' initiatives when as ever this type of violence is almost always carried out by men.

It is not our crime.

I agree @Heylo these crimes should not be recorded as by women. They aren't and will never be women. It also messes up crime statistics and makes it appear that women rape (impossible a woman to rape), sexually assault and murder in higher numbers than before.

Not in my name. Fed up of this madness and pandering to what is another sick male. He committed the crime, not a woman.

I agree.

I'm particularly annoyed that the BBC has doubled down on this because lots of people complained about their coverage at the end of last week when Blake was found guilty. Even if the complaints department is so swamped that complaints aren't read in details for some days after submission, surely they must be monitoring what news items are giving rise to complaints and passing that back to BBC News.

I gave them positive feedback in November (can't even remember why now!) and got this automated message:

This is an automated message (sorry that we can’t reply individually) to let you know that we’ve read your feedback and will report it overnight to staff across the BBC for them to read too (after removing any personal details). This includes our programme makers, commissioning editors and senior management.

Now, if they can do that for positive feedback, why aren't they doing it for complaints, which are likely to be more urgent?

According to 2020 figures, in England and Wales, 93% of murderers are male and 7% female. While the overwhelming majority are of course men it hardly indicates that murders by women are rare

@nettie434

Agree.

Its not beyond the wit of the home office to keep a list of crimes by transgender individuals separately anyway, both m-f and f-m separated, they could be useful to see if natal women taking testosterone affects offending patterns too

Just to be clear then-

Rose West's are 'our crimes'?

Beverly Allitt's are 'our crimes'?

Lucy Leroy's are 'our crimes'?

They may be yours. If you want to claim them, go ahead. But they're not mine .

Missing the point massively.

Who is Lucy Leroy?

How many of those women followed a random victim on the street and strangled a stranger?
Women killing is comparatively rare, women killing an unknown man is rarer, women killing a man unknown to them for sexual gratification is rocking horse 💩rare!

So list out some sexually motivated crimes where the victim was a stranger committed by women then. If its not a male crime then there must be plenty of cases of women committing these type of crimes.

tbh I’d be surprised if some of that 7% is not transwomen with GRCs. So actual women will form an even smaller number.

According to 2020 figures, in England and Wales, 93% of murderers are male and 7% female. While the overwhelming majority are of course men it hardly indicates that murders by women are rare.

Yes it does. Murders aren't common even before you get to the fact that only 7% of them are committed by women. Also there will be other men in the "women" figure so the real result is even lower. With sexual motivation to the murder like this one, that's overwhelmingly a male crime and I can't think of any off hand where men weren't involved at all.

X post with @SanctuaryCity

even after being at this for quite a few years it’s still mind blowing to see the TRA falling over themselves to scold us for not wanting a murderer - a fucking murderer!!!! to be described as a woman when he’s male

Well it's no consolation to the families of someone murdered by a woman is it regarding whether it was a random encounter or not. Murder is just evil regardless of who does it

It's ridiculous.

Well it's no consolation to the families of someone murdered by a woman is it regarding whether it was a random encounter or not.

No one said it was. The point here is that Scarlet Blake is a man. So is his "girlfriend" who was involved with the cat torture and killing.