Media coverage of cases involving trans-identifying people

[NasturtiumsAreUnderrated]

Interesting that this morning's Beeb story managed to find a flattering picture of Sandie Peggie for a change, instead of the ones they were using in R1, which managed to make her look 'hard' (he looks capable of standing his ground; she looks mean), whereas the previously fragrant, fragile Dr U is more obviously male in the R2 images. The media never select images by accident.

OTOH I think we need to fight and win the language battle. ‘Woman’ and ‘female’ refer to a sex category and the SC confirmed this with respect to the EA 2010. The genderists must be forced to find alternatives and the media need to be reminded to stick to the ‘ordinary meanings’ instead of aiding and abetting the efforts of trans rights activists to render ambiguous and essentially meaningless what the SC described as ‘plain and unambiguous words’. The BBC story refers to Dr U as a ‘transgender woman’. He’s not a woman, as that category is construed in the SC judgment - which is as per the scientific definition - hence he cannot be a subtype (indicated by adjectival prefix) of woman. He is not a transgender woman or a trans woman, because he's not a woman. He's a trans-identifying man. (The compound noun transwoman is wilfully misleading and therefore also objectionable.)

The TRA project is to make gender, not sex, the basis on which society organises and regulates. That would be a nonsensical thing to do and we still need to ram home that point and challenge every conflation of sex and gender and insist that anyone referring to gender defines the term and attempts to explain why a personal, private identity that can only be determined by asking is supposed to be relevant.

You’re right.
Some newspapers are becoming less biased, but I’ve commented before that in their enthusiasm to comply with IPSO guidelines re reporting on trans people, they violate the very first of their guidelines - which is not to be misleading.

Even "trans-identifying man" gives credence to the idea you can be "trans". He's a man.

In law he’s a man and a transsexual, although in reality I expect he’s a cross dresser.

I agree. 'Transgender woman' is confusing, many people just hear 'woman' and wonder what all the fuss is about.
My preference would be 'man or male who identifies as transgender'
Its important to be clear that the person the reporter is referring to is a man.

When presenting on this subject, I always start with a language quiz. Whilst about 75% guess the sex of a 'trans woman / trans man/transman/ transwoman' correctly, almost no-one knows gets 'transgender woman/man' correct. The assumption that that a 'transgender man' or 'transgender male' is a male who identifies as transgender.

Anecdotal but consistent ime. And I present to medical professionals.

It's notable that IB was unable to keep from 'misgendering' Upton when NC used plain correct language to refer to his sex, also Nuala in the Women's Hour program with Joyce, as hard as she tried, in the end she was unable to keep from misgendering Robin White. Proper language in this debate can't be over estimated.

@Toseland
I don't think it's helpful to get tangled up in semantic weeds, so within reason I'm not overly bothered what adjective is used to qualify the noun, so long as the noun is correct. However, although I'm broadly sympathetic to the argument for ‘people first’ terminology (emphasise the person rather than the impairment or illness), I'm not keen on the ‘person with a trans identity’ construction for several reasons:

1 It's verbose. Journalists have word limits, let's make it easy for them to call men men.

2 It's clumsy and I fear it risks confusing people and clarity is the priority, as @ErrolTheDragon recognises.
In some ways it’d be nice to be able to say that Dr U is a man with a piece of paper, but if he's described as a man with a GRC people may still infer that he's a man because of his fancy piece of paper.

3 I think that ‘with a trans identity' concedes too much. I've never used the term ‘trans-identified’ because it implies that the trans identity is socially (and possibly legally) valid. I won't participate in the social validation of an identity that undermines my female identity and rights. A man's trans social identity is not a done deal without societal validation and that's what needs to be rolled back.

But to return to the essential point, the fine semantic points matter much, much less than complaining when journalists don't follow the SC’s unequivocal ruling that the words ‘woman' and ‘female' are unambiguous and refer to sex.

Upton doesn’t have a GRC

(edited - at least, that’s what I’ve understood)

I think you're right @WaitedBlankey, I'd forgotten because it's just so crazy that so much time, money and mental effort has had to be expended arguing that a man who doesn't even have the fancy piece of paper shouldn't be allowed in female spaces. It's so easy to forget that the SC ruling should only have affected the c.9000 GRC holders. Social validation of trans identities has done incalculable damage.

Unambiguous language is essential to clear understanding.

Dr Upton is male.
Nurse Peggie is female.

This should be made abundantly clear in any reporting.

Upton is a nasty piece of work, manufacturing career-ending allegations because one brave woman stood up to him.

I’d be interested to know the “penalties” of breaking* IPSO post SC clarification - if indeed there were any pre clarification.

Isn’t IPSO a set of sector self determined rules for those who sign up, or do they impact other things ie insurance?

By breaking* I mean factual clear language with a willingness to explore issues impartially.
After all, what was the issue of explaining within the piece (especially in the early days) of what a trans / trans issues were…. Instead of the usual confusing, obfuscating, sanctioned words. We know - the gentle introduction, sanitisation and hopeful acceptance without question of very difficult issues, and the resulting (or intended) piggybacking of various ‘interest’ groups.

Who sat down in the meetings to decide what was acceptable?

The legacy of this type or reporting has resulted in a confused general public who are now waking up to the previously unimagined consequences of the acceptance without question movement. Resulting from weak, piss poor to downright deceitful reporting.

Solid, investigative journalism is near extinct. The facility to construct and deconstruct, evaluate and critique an argument or issue are abilities which seem beyond the skill set of most journos these days. Or, maybe I’m being unkind.

I noted with interest that Bumba said yesterday that 'society had evolved since 2023' and that she may not have made the same decision now.

Evolved? That phrasing seems to be confected to hide behind now. But I wonder if media will start using this 'evolution' framing as well. Whereas, nothing has actually changed except that Stonewall and others have been proven to significantly overreached, sold in falsity to create policies throughout the UK including media guidelines, and that finally those who have been pointing to the naked emperor are being allowed to say the truth.