Small but significant changes in BBC style guide around Transgender and LGBT language

[SingleSexSpacesInSchools]

https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1514351367393197&id=100064550447736&post_id=100064550447736_1514351367393197&rdid=Uetbp7k194oe1RxM

"The BBC has shuffled its style guide in the right direction.
Sharp-eyed campaigner Alan Henness uncovered changes to the corporation’s guidance made in the past 24 hours.
The updated version of the reference tool, used by over 5,500 BBC journalists, contains several small but significant changes to the language used when reporting on sex and trans identities.
Perhaps most striking, where journalists were previously told “the concept of a gender identity is contested by some”, the final two words have disappeared. The guidance now states simply: “We should be aware that the concept of a gender identity is contested.”
The corporation has also added a warning that “care is needed with the use of umbrella terms”. The guidance says that, where possible, initialisms should be avoided, adding: “The issues affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people can be very different and the more specific we can be with our language the better.”
No changes have yet been made to the use of pronouns. The BBC advises reporters: “We generally use the pronoun preferred by the person in question, unless there are editorial reasons not to do so. If their preference is unknown, apply that which fits with the way the person lives publicly.”
These are hardly revolutionary changes. But after years in which news organisations have too often adopted the language of trans activism as though it were neutral fact, acknowledging without qualification that gender identity is a contested concept, and advising care around the use of umbrella terms, marks a welcome shift towards precision.
At the time of writing, the BBC has not reported how these changes have impacted on drag queens."

‘Respecting their gender’ by stealing language used to describe women so there is no longer a way to identify women as a group is incredibly harmful. As is ‘respecting’ a system that reduces women to a selection of harmful oppressive stereotypes based on a pronified male fantasy. The BBC news should use facts and correct language - which includes correctly sexed pronouns.

It's linguistic genocide. Intentional to obscure meaning.

It’s not hurting anyone showing respect for preference

It is hurting the truth, pandering to someone's delusion is muddying the waters, we can't have confidence in anything the media say, if they're not telling the truth.
It's a matter of being able to trust what you're being told. It doesn't matter what the individual wants, if you read/listen to a story about a woman and later you find out it was in fact a man, it undermines your confidence to believe anything they and eventually anyone else says.
It's the chip, chip, chipping away at the trust a society needs in order to function that's the problem.

HOUSE.

Anyone else's card full?

Oh, I stopped keeping track a while back, it's just so tedious. Hence my tactics thread, so we can have it all in one place and it's not living rent-free in my mind. It's not as though it varies much, does it?

I'm not interested in the so-called arguments anymore. The only thing I'm interested in are actions and progress. And we are definitely getting somewhere.

@LlynTegid There isn't much difference between drag queens and men who claim to identify as women. They both cross dress, wear woman-face, just as in the old days white men wore black-face and pretended to be minstrels. Then black-face became unacceptable because it was decided it was insulting to black people, but somehow it's still okay for drag queens to mock and insult women.

I think that the change to the BBC style guide is much more substantial than you say, if we look back a few years. The last time I looked at it (a few years ago) they had a definition of "homosexual" - which was being sexually attracted to people of your own "gender". I wrote in to complain that the definition (very deliberately) said same gender attracted rather than same sex attracted. The BBC rejected the complaint and my appeal, of course. Homosexual/ity is no longer defined in the guide. And the whole section on transgender is new - it's actually written in a sensible manner - going against how the BBC has handled transgenderism for years.
It's actually very encouraging.

Wasn't sure that this merited its own thread, so tacking it on here.

Auntie abandoning the drag queens? Stap me!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq63816e60lo