Justin Webb Telegraph article, BBC journalists are up in arms

[Mollyollydolly]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/radio/radio-presenters/justin-webb-trans-woman-complaint-bbc-meltdown/

Archive version here:
https://archive.ph/0gykB

Newsroom staff not happy at Justin Webbs treatment. Sounds like senior female journalists have had enough.

Great follow-up message from Baroness Nicholson to the chair of OFCOM on the Scarlet Blake issue: https://twitter.com/Baroness_Nichol/status/1770186411054116883

Oh, she is fabulous!
I love the letters from the Baroness, such eloquence!

She is fabulous indeed. Oh and that beautiful handwriting for the salutation <chef's kiss>

Though it probably happened a while back, it’s worth mentioning that that the old claim, that woman and man were “gender” while female and male referred to sex have now been abandoned entirely.

The BBC view is very extreme. Not surprising, given the massive over representation of “trans” managers. It was reported a few years back that they made up 4% of the management team, which is where faulty DEI policies get you.

Beautifully written. Love the 🐈

The BBC might have abandoned that idea, but the WHO still sticks to ‘man’ and ‘woman’ refers to gender, with gender being a social construct, whilst ‘male’ and ‘female’ refer to sex, which is biological.

It's helpful. Sometimes it's easier to see in a separate post. (Visual discrimination difficulties)

I LOVE Baroness Nicholson!

She's one of the shining lights that I miss from Twitter (was permanently banned for something - God knows what, and never went back when it became X).

Erm … isn’t that X post from Emma Nicholson’s X account @ baroness_nichol ?

Culture, Media & Sport Cttee currently questioning Tim Davie - right now - and this issue has been raised. Warning: TD's response will not help the blood pressure.

You can watch or catch up HERE

They've moved on now but it was at roughly the 10:15 mark onwards (the session started at 10).

Do I read it correctly, that BBC would consider acceptable to say "transwoman, meaning biological male", but not "transwoman, meaning male"?

Oh yeah - Tim Davie ‘we have to be kind and caring in this and listen to people and be nice’, meaning don’t upset the trans community by stating pesky facts?

Apparently so - ‘biological male’ or ‘born male’ would have been just fine and dandy.

Utter bollocks.

It seems so. I've just been watching the Culture, Media & Sport Committee. After Tim Davie speaks, David Jordan, Director, Editorial Policy and Standards at the BBC, says that if Justin Webb had said "biological male" or "born male" there wouldn't have been a problem. But people can't change sex and sex is biological, so why should it be necessary to say "born male" or "biological male" when both of these phrases are identical in meaning to "male"?

He also says that asserting that transwomen are male is not the BBC's "style", so they don't seem to be very interested in stating facts.

Insisting on the use of “biological” is yet another attempt to change the language around this.

It implies there is another kind of male, in the same way that “cis” is used.

We need to be careful about pushing through the addition of that word into law as it undermines the reality situation, which is that sex and male and female are invariably biological.

Grrrrr. Is that bloke on a different planet? What an infuriating response from Tim.

Tim Davie says that there were media reports about him/the BBC being "deluged" with complaints about this, when he claims to have only received a handful of emails.

The BBC complaints procedure doesn't encourage direct emails to the Director General, so I don't understand why he thinks he should personally have received lots of emails. We could of course change this, and every time we send a complaint via the normal complaints route we could also send a copy to his personal inbox.

Especially the bit about we should "be kind" to men who don't want to be reminded that they're male.

I wonder if he's ever considered being kind to women?

I didn't think the BBC were meant to be kind, caring and nice, I thought they were meant to inform, educate and entertain?

Excellent comment on Twitter/X about the BBCs responses:

I can also imagine that future complaints to the BBC will quote their complaint unit's words (used against Justin Webb) right back at them, that they "gave the impression of endorsing one viewpoint in a highly controversial area."

The next time they refer to male people with “she” or “woman” that would indeed give the impression of endorsing one viewpoint.

Absolutely and be impartial as well which they seem to have forgotten.

Well said. “Biological” is totally superfluous here.

Yes, that is truly frightening. It does explain the miserable standards of journalism today, though.

Well said. “Biological” is totally superfluous here.

The fact that this spurious complaint was upheld is making people walk on eggshells as well. It's a ridiculous contention that adding "biological" makes a man less of a man. Obviously creates a chilling effect for people talking about these stories.