Calling transgender samurai killer a woman was accurate, insists BBC

[IwantToRetire]

The BBC has defended its use of female pronouns to describe a transgender killer who stabbed their partner to death with a samurai sword.

In a written response, the broadcaster’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) said: “The BBC recognises the debate around sex and gender identity involves deeply held and sometimes conflicting views. The BBC’s approach, therefore, is to use terminology which is clear and appropriate to the context.”

The ECU said the language had been appropriate because Rowland-Stuart was referred to as a woman throughout the trial.

can be read at https://archive.is/xiafB or https://archive.ph/xiafB

Taken from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/26/calling-transgender-samurai-killer-woman-was-accurate/

So the inaccuracy of the court is used as a excuse for the inaccuracy of the BBC, and so on ad infinitum.
But we're told that using preferred pronouns is just a harmless courtesy.

It's not a "view" or a belief that men cannot be women, it's actual reality. As the saying goes the truth is still the truth even if no one believes it.

If you are the state broadcaster and you require tax payers to give you money or risk fines and ultimately imprisonment if you don't pay those fines, then you better damn well tell the truth and the truth is that this was a crime committed by a man.

The BBC are a reprehensible joke at this stage.

Many will only read the headline. It shouldn't have read "woman" or "wife", and would have been quite easy to avoid.

It's willfully misleading and dripping with agenda. I feel angry reading about very male behaviour reported in this way.

The BBC should report the facts. The fact is he is male. Their opinion seems to be that the type of male he is, is a subtype of woman. If they don't want to call him a trans identified male, then at the very least they should have said "trans woman" in the title; a widely accepted euphemism. Then, rather than saying 'she', they should accept the clumsy, tiresome writing that will result and avoid all pronouns altogether, instead using his name in place of each one.

It would look absurd, because it is, but it would at least be accurate.

Even Nicola Sturgeon, one of the staunchest worshippers of gender, found herself unable to call Isla Bryson a woman. That the BBC has no such qualms about referring to this particular arsehole (a killer, no less) as a woman shows just how much of an activist organisation it has become. Educate, inform and entertain. Or brainwash, lie and gaslight? This is not journalism. It is pushing an ideology on a public that is getting increasingly sick and tired of being deceived by a once respected institution.

Just because he was referred to as she in the trial doesn't mean the BBC needed to add to the smoke screen. They could have been even more accurate by referring to him as a "biologically male trans woman" .

“The BBC recognises the debate around sex and gender identity involves deeply held and sometimes conflicting views."
So they have stated they think there is a debate or conflict and have firmly and persistently come down on one side of it.
Just not the side of the law.
Or on the side of women.
Our national broadcaster.

I defend the BBC when I can. After all I worked there for over 30 years in a newsroom.
This is such bollocks.
It enrages me how they treat the editorial guidelines as if there some sacred text. Is there no-one in management there with the wit or the balls to think maybe, just maybe they should change their guidelines. It's totally, utterly indefensible.
We need SexMatters to take them to court.

"Husband killed by samurai sword" or similar would be fine and neutral.

I've less a problem with preferred pronouns, that's a separate debate though.

Using "woman" and "wife" in the headline is misleading. Could also use "partner".

The same is if it said "man killed by out of control immigrant" and it turns out to be a 67 year old immigrant who moved here aged 3.

It might be true (not that I'm saying above is but obviously BBC believes TWAW) but it's still misleading.

It's also unbalanced as they have GC readers.

I worked there too and at other organisations as a journalist. I covered court cases. If the court was telling the journalists something we could see with our own eyes wasn’t true, we challenged it. That’s what journalists do - or are meant to. They seek out the truth.

BBC - I feel nothing but shame about what you have become.

These shameful liars at the BBC have ruined our national broadcaster and made it a joke.

It's deception and it is really bloody annoying. How are they going to report and make sense of the fact that this 'woman' will be housed in the men's prison?

We need Martine Croxall to read this story out on the news. 🙄

If the bbc or a newspaper is directly quoting something said in court, they must of course do so accurately. But otherwise they should not use language which is misleading to an average reader.

They must think we are all stupid...
"Respecting an individual’s chosen gender identity does not mean the BBC is endorsing or supporting any side of the debate around transgender rights.”

Just the assertion that he has a right to have his gender identity respected is taking a side - but in the long run I suspect the people most harmed by the BBC’s choice ate trans identifying.

The dogged determination to refer to violent male criminals as women has probably done more to heighten concerns about trans people than anything else.

They have a lot of previous. They defended calling a trans identified male who deliberately killed a cat in a blender and filmed it, and then hunted down and murdered a man who had had too much to drink on a night out, a "woman" with at first zero suggestion that he was actually male.

So, if a case in court correctly used male pronouns would the BBC do the same?

Actually I've just answered my own question, they did with the Andrew Miller kidnap case
.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-67144375

That's exactly what it does.

The BBC can't help themselves. I was reading an article about Poundland earlier and one "woman" who is pictured and quoted has quite a strong 5 o'clock shadow.

Suzanne Moore not mincing her words

https://archive.ph/A2DnY

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/27/bbc-wants-trust-stop-calling-male-criminals-women/

Andrew Miller declined to be identified as a woman for his trial to spare the trans community iirc. If he'd insisted on it the BBC would have had quite the dilemma.