BBC at it again withholding fact ‘woman’ charged with murdering husband is trans

[Heylo]

You know what to do Mumsnet. BBC apologised previously because of mass complaints about sick cat killer Scarlett Blake not being referred to as trans and just being referred to as she / woman in original article. They’re now at it again.

this person arrested for killing husband with samurai sword.

bbc article
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp00de3r3qro

daily mail article https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13480347/amp/Trans-woman-70-appears-court-accused-murdering-husband-samurai-sword.html

complain and let’s get a precedent set, these are not our crimes!

ArabellaScott · Today 06:48

I also question how it's making a man who says he's a woman 'suffer' by disallowing him access to women's spaces. He has male services available. It's not 'suffering' to deny a man access.to women.

I suppose he is suffering, in that he's being denied access to his living props, which he wants, so as to act out his fetish. So meh, tough shit, Terry.

@Mummy2024, re: "I so hope that men being attacked by these so called woman's rights groups take civil or legal action for discrimination soon. I'm appalled. Don't you see that in trying to attack transgender groups your also discriminating against men as a whole? And before anyone starts spouting on that I'm a man I'm not I'm just sick to death of woman thinking they can discriminate against all groups that arnt woman."

Discrimination isn't always bad by definition. It has several meanings, one of which is making an informed, "discriminating" distinction, even in law.

Your comment, and others, above would imply, by logical extension, that men have grounds to "take civil or legal action" for there being single sex toilets: after all, the main reason for their existence is that all men pose a potential threat to women! Or that any applicants to teacher training being asked for a DRB check could perceive this as a discriminatory "attack" on their character, because, similarly, the default assumption behind that system is that all adults pose a potential risk to children. So, are all men offended by single sex loos because of that associated slur on them collectively? No, of course not! Do all teaching applicants protest the DBS requirement as characterising them as inherently deviant? Heck, no!

We all recognise, in a complex society, that these are practical ways of mitigating population level risk based on undeniable overall trends. Whatever we may want, we can't personalise everything. The individual's self-perception can't reign supreme in a fully functioning society.

Catiette · Today 11:11

Discrimination isn't always bad by definition. It has several meanings, one of which is making an informed, "discriminating" distinction, even in law.

Yes, precisely; I don't feel discriminated against, because I'm not welcome in the ladies, I just understand that it's a necessary and desirable part of the way society works, or should work. It's no different to me to getting in the car after a night in the pub, it's just not the done thing, because it's SAFC.

Yes, as I've said before, the idea of being able to choose whether to use someone's pronouns or not might hold more weight, if choosing to use correct sex pronouns didn't result in women being cancelled, targeted, fired, threatened, arrested and hit.

Which is why "BE KIND" of course, is such a massive kick in the face to women.

What it REALLY means is, deny reality, shut up, don't voice your concerns, allow a subjective "feeling" or desire to trump your very real rights and needs, ignore the safeguarding issues, and every other thing that is screaming out to you that this ideology is hateful and misogynistic at it's very core.

What it REALLY is, is a threat.

BE KIND.
Or else.

The idea that using wrong-sex, gender-based pronouns is kind to the person asking is also - in more cases than not IMO - wrong.

It's not kind to encourage a child to think that their mental health is so fragile that other people naming reality will harm them. That is the opposite of kind.

Encouraging a child to think that physical sex can be changed as easily as pronouns is also unkind - and likely to end up with them being a lifelong medical patient.

It's also not kind to the people being abusively compelled to lie.

So pretty much unkind to everyone. It's fundamentally abusive and establishing an abusive dynamic. That's the point though, I think queer theory explicitly wants to destroy everything good about human society.

Obviously when it comes to the K Dolatowskis, the I Brysons, the A Millers, then using wrong-sex pronouns is playing into their hands. It must be like Christmas to find that they can continue to abuse their victims with the explicit support of the police, the judiciary, the civil service, and the journalists (note: all these 3 convicted) by compelling them to lie. What joy they must feel.

I'd imagine Dolatowski really enjoying reading how the newspaper articles called him (all 6ft5 of him) 'she/her' whilst just assuming sex based pronouns for his child victim. Thus demonstrating how very very important he is and how very very unimportant the child he attacked is in comparison. Also reflected in the prison term, IMO.

@ExpertInNothing It’s when you read a story and think, crikey, that’s unusual crime for a woman, before discovering that the person charged isn’t a woman at all, but identifies as one.

Until women fought back, even our official crime and other statistics were being rendered meaningless when biological sex wasn’t recorded.

You can’t track patterns, or numbers, and apportion resources, if you don’t collect accurate data.

In the last census in England and Wales, women’s groups were forced to crowd fund for a legal challenge, which was successful, to include clearly defined biological sex.

Fair Play For Women won a High Court challenge against the Office for National Statistics and the ONS conceded that the proper meaning of sex in the census meant sex as recognised by law.

If these women hadn’t challenged the ONS we might not have any data differentiating sex and gender, however flawed.

If the media print blatant untruths, it degrades public discourse, and makes it difficult to believe anything they read.

@ExpertInNothing that is not the law.

I've had a non-response from the BBC.

Dear Audience Member

Thank you for getting in touch about our article reporting that Joanna Rowland-Stuart has been arrested and charged with murder.

We have published two articles about the case, both of which have accurately reported the information put into the public domain by the authorities during court proceedings, and will continue to report on the case as it develops.

All feedback from readers is appreciated and shared with senior editors so that they are aware of audience concerns, so thank you again for contacting us to make your views known.

Kind regards, 

BBC Complaints Team

@BingBongSong me too. It all helps. Today the BBC has published something about Cashman’s whip withdrawal and referred to Rosie Duffield in quite a respectful way. Something that wouldn't have happened 6m ago. Every complaint adds a small stone to the cairn.

To state the obvious, this is not what 'accurately reported' means.

"Sunak says Britain has never been better" is accurately reporting information from an authority.

"Britain has never been better" is not.

Of course some sources should be considered reliable, but that's a risk the BBC takes. Accuracy depends on whether the statement is true, not whether a supposedly reliable source said it.

I had exactly the same reply. It seems that reporters are no longer expected to do any research themselves even - as in this case - after it's been reported to them that there are inaccuracies in their report. And let's not forget that this particular crime was a very unusual one for a woman. Had the perpetrator been an adult human female you can bet your life a bit more in depth reporting would have been done.

To be honest, if the police and courts refer to someone as a woman, it’s quite tricky for media to decide that the person is not; that would take quite a lot of work to establish.

Besides media mis-reporting, our problem is also with our authorities and institutions mis-gendering criminals, in the belief that they are legally compelled to do so.

We were even in the position with the last census of women having to crowd source a (successful) legal challenge to the way gender and sex were conflated in the questions, which would have made a nonsense of the results. Census data allows us to design policy and apportion resources. Its validity is therefore vitally important.

@SmudgeHughes Yes, I agree its difficult for the media in practice, and a much wider institutional mess.

I'd have more sympathy for the BBC if they had been reporting the wider issues and controversies robustly, including how the media should cover them.

BBC News is happy to challenge other national institutions when it suits (even its own senior management). Its problem seems to be a sort of cultural metropolitan right-think. I want to be a strong defender of the BBC model, but their abrogation of responsibility when issues are important but dinner-party-awkward makes it hard.

I don't really think it's that difficult actually.

A note at the top of any article (or indeed short paragraph within the article) stating: the pronouns for the convicted / alleged offender are gender-based in accordance with those used in court/ by the police. The offender is biologically male. All other pronouns for other people used within this article are assumed and sex-based.

Clear, honest, impartial. All the things the current reporting is not. Also clearly shows the bias towards the offender and against the victim.

@dougalfromthemagicroundabout I think the practical question is if the source information doesn't make any reference to it. The BBC can't just assume from photos.

Of course, they should be asking questions about the whole issue, and they should clarify articles where needed, as soon as they become aware (as I think they belatedly did for the Scarlet Blake case).

I can just about understand the BBC taking this line back in the very early days (like a sort of witness-protection analogy. Extremely rare, anomalous case, social convention seems to support it. I wouldn't expect the BBC to out a protected witness).

But as soon as this became even the tiniest bit controversial it should have reassessed.

Of course I don't think the BBC did get into this via witness-protection thinking. I think it saw itself as doing the modern thing, and falling into line with all other institutions. Then as it became more contentious, I think management realised it was hostage to its own staff, and has been too cowardly to face the issue head on.

@dougalfromthemagicroundabout But yes, as soon as the BBC becomes aware I think a paragraph something like your proposal is the right approach.

@dougalfromthemagicroundabout I think the practical question is if the source information doesn't make any reference to it. The BBC can't just assume from photos.

Of course, they should be asking questions about the whole issue, and they should clarify articles where needed, as soon as they become aware (as I think they belatedly did for the Scarlet Blake case).

The BBC were aware of the inaccuracies in the report. I initially read the report on the BBC website and immediately made a complaint (as I'm sure did many others). Two days later the same report was broadcast on the South-East local news with no amendments. To my mind, this was deliberate and not a case of being misinformed by other authorities.

Yes I agree, their policy is wrong.
And their response didn't make sense either.

I'm only referring to the practical problem of initial reporting. A lot gets reported from press releases, especially less eye catching stories.

I got this too. They're saying in effect that they will only report what the court authorities have said publicly. And yet most other news organisations reported that he is a transwoman - their journalists found that very relevant fact out for themselves. So why couldn't the BBC journalists?

The complaints procedure seems entirely designed to out people off even bothering. I've had identical results from complaining before, and I have to admit, it's worked with me. 🙄The tone is, this is our policy: like it or lump it.

I complained again using the original complaint reference number. I said I found their reply unacceptable and either the bbc is deliberately misleading their readers or they are just an inept organisation.

Wtf? It’s like a statement that ‘we don’t do journalism, and we don’t regard accuracy as a goal in our articles.’ I’d escalate as if their response indicates their stance it is surely both in the public interest to know this and they are in breach of their licence agreement if they’ve abandoned accuracy in reporting, replacing it with ‘what people told us, despite every other news org working out it’s not accurate. It’s also in the public interest to know when their policy of reviewing what people say changed, given their recent disciplining of Justin Webb for apparently breaching impartiality, impartiality being something the journalist on this article has clearly not bothered with, to be defended by the bbc.