BBC uphold breach of impartiality claims over news presenter’s transphobia

The BBC’s own Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) has upheld 20 impartiality complaints against presenter Martine Croxall’s mask-slip transphobic moment live on air. However, not content with this one visible display of transphobia, the BBC News’ article covering the story only went and made its own little Freudian slip. And once more, the BBC showed its vile ‘gender critical’ (read: transphobic) ass.

BBC Martine Croxall complaints over transphobia live on air

On 6 November, the BBC reported that:

The BBC has upheld 20 impartiality complaints over the way presenter Martine Croxall altered a script she was reading live on the BBC News Channel, which referred to “pregnant people” earlier this year.

Croxall had been introducing research from a London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) press release. Specifically, the research looked at groups most at risk during UK heatwaves, in which it highlighted pregnant people as a particularly vulnerable demographic.

However, during the news segment, Croxall seemed to feel the need to qualify ‘pregnant people’ with the word ‘women’. She then made the decision to add the qualification very visibly deliberate, with an irked facial expression.

Yet, the BBC management’s weak explanation defended Croxall, stating:

Ms Croxall was reacting to scripting, which somewhat clumsily incorporated phrases from the press release accompanying the research, including ‘the aged’, which is not the BBC style, and ‘pregnant people’, which did not match what Dr Mistry said in the clip which followed.

Of course, it’s a crock full of shit. And ultimately, even the BBC’s own complaints unit know that. The ECU said that her facial expression as she verbalised “pregnant people” gave the:

strong impression of expressing a personal view on a controversial matter.

It added that it had been:

variously interpreted by complainants as showing disgust, ridicule, contempt or exasperation.

In its final determination over the complaints, the ECU stated that:

even if inadvertently, [it] falls short of the BBC’s expectations of its presenters and journalists in relation to impartiality, the ECU upheld the complaints.

The ECU had also determined that it didn’t buy the pathetic excuse from management in the face of the reactions her performance prompted online as well. Unsurprisingly, there was an outpouring of “congratulatory messages” from the usual transphobic social media-spheres. Staunch transphobe JK Rowling was predictably among them.

While it was good news the BBC’s internal complaints process recognised all this – it wasn’t long before the BBC was back to throwing trans and non-binary people under the bus.

Correction note reveals the BBC’s thinly-veiled transphobia all over again

At the time of this article’s publication, the story reads in one part that:

The presenter changed her script to instead say “women”, and the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) said it considered her facial expression as she said this gave the “strong impression of expressing a personal view on a controversial matter.”

However, a quiet little correction squirreled away (as the BBC does), at the bottom of the page, reveals this isn’t what it originally said.

Notably, the correction note stated that:

This article originally said the ECU found that Martine Croxall’s facial expression as she spoke expressed a “controversial view about trans people” and has been amended to make clear that they instead found that her expression gave the “strong impression of expressing a personal view on a controversial matter”.

So the BBC watered down its own article to what? Appease the JK Rowling-worshipping gender critical crowd? It wouldn’t want to be excluding any marginalised groups from its audience now would it? Except of course, Croxall did exactly that in her puerile reaction on TV. There’s a reason the research used “pregnant people”. It’s because trans people, non-binary folks, and gender-diverse individuals can, obviously, also be pregnant.

Medically speaking, this isn’t anything particularly difficult to understand. And, of course, that’s leaving aside the fact that how people choose to identify is no one else’s fucking business. Saying “women” was a purposeful move to exclude and ostracise already disgracefully oppressed and silenced LGBTQ+ minorities.

The research about heatwave risks would be relevant to them too. And in ignoring this, it could actually put them at further risk as well.

But sure, Croxall was just expressing a “controversial view”.

Slipped past its editorial process? Yeah right

What’s more, it wasn’t the only example of the thinly-veiled transphobia rife at the UK’s public broadcaster. Another part of the article now reads:

The ECU said it considered Croxall’s facial expression laid it open to the interpretation that it “indicated a particular viewpoint in the controversies currently surrounding trans identity.”

Once again though, the correction note shows this wasn’t the original wording:

The article also mistakenly quoted the judgement as referring to “trans ideology” and has been amended to correctly refer to “trans identity.”

Now, it’s obviously perfectly possible this was a genuine, honest mistake. But this is also the BBC we’re talking about. It hasn’t exactly consistently stood up for the rights of transgender folks – including those within its own employ. In fact, at times, it has actively platformed those inciting hatred and violence towards them.

That the collocation “trans ideology” slipped through its editorial process probably tells you everything you need to know about how deeply-embedded disgusting TERFery is at the BBC.

Nothing ‘radical’ about TERFs or the BBC

Ultimately though, the beebs couldn’t have the trans-exclusionary white feminists (because let’s be honest, there’s nothing ‘radical’ about them, and they’re almost always middle class white Karens) frothing at the mouth at the meekest insinuation of transphobia.

In the end, the BBC appeared to prioritise the feelings of vicious transphobes taking offence to inclusive terminology, over you know, the people their bigotry is attempting to erase from public life.

Featured image via The Independent