UK media reporting on BBC ignoring risk of gender identity

[Heylo]

Most recent is telegraph reporting that BBC not reporting in adequate detail (bbc don’t mention gender at all) the boxer with XY chromosomes participating in female boxing this olympics

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/olympics/2024/08/01/bbc-fails-show-fight-imane-khelif-gender-paris-2024/

other publications also picked up on bbc not reporting WPATH files.

how long will the bbc be allowed to omit key stories relating to gender identity and keep access to the tv licence fee? This goes beyond biased reporting - readers are not being made aware of the issue at all.

how long do we tolerate this from the U.K. national broadcaster? It is no longer fit for purpose.

At this point its up to all of us to flood the top with complaints and hold them to account
https://www.ceoemail.com/s.php?id=ceo-75504&c=BBC-Director%20General%20and%20Editor%20in%20Chief

Unfortunately I suppose in this case the BBC have got a bit of a get-out in "The IOC made us do it, guv!" Not that that's any excuse at all.

To which I’d respond:

1. Are you our national broadcaster? And
2. Who pays your bills, the IOC or UK tax payers?

Yes a spanking by the IOC would leave the BBC with a lot of dead air to fill this summer, but they literally have decades of content we’ve all paid for to fill that dead air.

It is so very very heavily spun to benefit this political agenda and the interests of men by actively suppressing unwanted information.

The IOC seem as another poster said on another thread today 'as shady as fuck' by this point. The BBC are no better. The BBC certainly should certainly long since have lost the licence fee.

The BBC conduct over fair reporting of women's rights is abysmal and yet another black mark on their increasingly grubby report card.

So much misunderstanding over this. I've just been reading a Facebook thread where several people are claiming that Khelif was born a woman, with a genetic abormality leading to high testosterone. "Khelif’s birth certificate and biological sex is female. She is not trans. She’s a woman, with genetic anomalies. Let’s not confuse things."

We really need the BBC to do some clear, factual reporting.

It is infuriating on social media. I think lots might be driven by bots or uninformed men/Americans.

Yes. Which is why calling any male 'she' whether he has a trans identity or whether he has a male DSD is a problem for women and where all the lies start to take hold.

It's not kind and it never has been.

I was struck by the difference in the headlines:
BBC "Boxer Khelif through as opponent abandons in 46 seconds"
The Times "Women’s bout involving failed gender test fighter ends in 46 seconds"

Too many people of my acquaintance are parroting the 'just a special kinda woman!!' line or retweeting well-known human biologist Billy Bragg.

@Fenlandia the most annoying so far is that 'she' was assigned female at birth and was born with a vagina. It is probably more worth our while supporting the Italian boxer than trying to argue with these imbeciles.

I will send in a complaint to the BBC over lack of transparency/factual reporting for what its worth.

All the other main newspapers make clear the boxer's chromosones.

e.g The New York Times write that the boxer is intersex with chromosomes "46XY DSD".

Some info on this from:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK279170/#:~:text=46%2CXY%20DSD%20are%20characterized,no%20gonadal%20tissue%20is%20found.

"46,XY DSD are characterized by micropenis, atypical or female external genitalia, caused by incomplete intrauterine masculinization with or without the presence of Müllerian structures. Male gonads are identified in the majority of 46,XY DSD patients, but in some of them no gonadal tissue is found. Complete absence of virilization results in normal female external genitalia and these patients generally seek medical attention at pubertal age, due to the absence of breast development and/or primary amenorrhea"

Clearly intersex.
Seems very likely she raised as a female from birth.
Not trans.
As to whether she should compete in this category is another question.

//cannot edit.m so have added

As to whether she should compete in this category is another question. Because the sport has to be fair.

Well on radio 4 tonight they have Kelly malone and JoAnna harper giving their opinions. No balance at all

Although saying that Kelly maligned position seems to have shifted on transwomen in sport

Good for you, I will try and complain too. The BBC are not helping the general public get to grips with the facts, I guess because they know people don't want to realise they've been watching mixed-sex boxing while being told it was all hunkydory.

I just had a look and the captured Canadians (CBC) are reporting it more honestly than the BBC. Isn't that interesting? "Olympic bout against Algerian who previously failed gender test"

The reporting on 5Live this afternoon was shocking, reported Carini's words briefly at the start of the piece then 10 mins spent trying to avoid any hint that Khelif could be considered male (I still don't know all the facts) and great sympathy towards Khelif for being judged purely on appearances.

Good. At last.

Justin Webb actually called him a biological male this morning on the Today programme, the first time time I have heard anyone say this. BBC are pussy footing around, just talking about testosterone levels, and not the DNA test.

The Italian press is also bad on this. Mainly just repeating "not trans" "unusually high testosterone ".

Idiotic male bbc sports correspondant on R4 yesterday: 'well, I'm not sure we'll ever really know what happened in this match' in a jokey/baffled tone.

I know nothing about boxing and I can tell you what **cking happened - she stopped because she knew she'd be seriously injured or killed if she didn't. It's really very simple.

@FizzingAda not normally a fan of Webb but that's good to hear

I would love someone to come along with some objective biology here as I’m quite confused among all the misinformation and knee-jerk responses.
First of all, surely you can’t have a ‘gender test’ as gender is a social construct/innate feeling?
But the existence of men and women’s categories in sport presumes an empirically determinable binary. Ie people are either male or female and that can be objectively ascertained.
It’s my understanding that these two boxers have a DSD which means that at birth they appeared female despite having XY chromosomes (which only became apparent much later, possibly not until they were tested by the IBA. They have been raised as girls and their ‘innate gender identity’ is female.
So I’m not sure it’s helpful or constructive to say ‘they’re cheating violent men.’
On the other hand, their chromosomal pattern certainly aligns them with men rather than women. But I don’t know - and the reporting is by no means helping me to understand - what that actually means in terms of physical performance. As a feminist with no knowledge of human biology, it certainly seems to me that the XY combination should assign someone to male not female sport. But I don’t know what testosterone levels are going to be, or to what extent people with this particular DSD have been through male puberty - the things which are deemed to give men an unfair advantage in most sports.
These are clearly people who do not fit neatly into either biological category. All the more need, then, for some careful, sober, objective criteria to be applied by some experts in the field who are prioritising fairness over some limp ‘be kind’ agenda.
People with DSDs indubitably have a very hard life in all sorts of ways, but it’s not up to IOC to compensate them for that by giving them licence to pound women to pieces.

I think gender here means sex.