Citing the editorial policy, The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in a shocking move allegedly altered quotes from a female rape victim in its reporting to avoid ‘misgendering’ her transgender abuser. A recent insider report by ‘The Times’ of London, revealed that the media outlet replaced every reference as noted by the victim as ‘he’ or ‘him’ with ‘they’ or ‘them’ to avoid alleged misgendering.
According to the reports, the BBC had published a research story about a lesbian campaign called ‘Get the L Out’ on October 26, 2021, which was criticized by most of the readers as it was based on a small sample size of just 80 women. The campaign had interviewed gay women and had asked them to describe their ‘sexual and romantic’ experiences with transgender persons.
The article headlined ‘We’re being pressured into sex by some trans women’ featured testimonies by three women who seperately spoke to the media outlet explaining how they had been raped during an encounter. One of the women in her statement said that a transgender person had physically forced her to have sex after they went on a date.
The woman reportedly told the BBC, “I was too young to argue and had been brainwashed by queer theory so he was a ‘woman’ even if every fiber of my being was screaming throughout, so I agreed to go home with him. He used physical force when I changed my mind upon seeing his penis and raped me”.
But quote published by the BBC media outlet read, “[They] threatened to out me as a terf and risk my job if I refused to sleep with [them],” she wrote. “I was too young to argue and had been brainwashed by queer theory so [they were] a ‘woman’ even if every fiber of my being was screaming throughout so I agreed to go home with [them]. [They] used physical force when I changed my mind upon seeing [their] penis and raped me”.
BBC used brackets to indicate that the pronouns has been changed to make them woke compliant, but didn’t mention what the original pronoun was. One of the sources associated with the The Times said that they were originally all male references but the ‘woke bros’ at the news website wanted to make them female because of misgendering. Reportedly, the pronouns were changed on the advice on the 14-member central diversity team. This team has has influence over the BBC’s style guide, which dictates that stories should adopt an individual’s preferred pronouns, regardless of their biological genders.
Angela Wild, the co-founder of ‘Get The L Out’, whose members believe the rights of lesbians are being ignored by much of the current LGBT movement, also slammed the editorial policy adopted by the BBC and accused it of manipulating the rape victim. “It’s really unethical and disrespectful to the victim. It’s a form of gaslighting for a woman who has already been through sexual violence”, Wild said.
The BBC, however, said that the edited quote was an example of where the BBC’s style guide. “It’s routine to have editorial discussions about different stories. Our only intention when deciding on language is to make things as clear as possible for audiences”, it was quoted. The BBC further did not deny the diversified style guide but stated that the final decisions were made by the news division.
Interestingly, the BBC style guide, which was last updated in November 2020 mentioned clearly that, “Where possible, use the term/s and pronoun/s preferred by people themselves, when they have made their preferences clear.” Reportedly, more than 20,000 people, including BBC employees have signed an open letter describing the story as ‘deeply flawed’ and ‘incredibly dangerous’ for the trans community.
