Thread by @fairplaywomen

A complaint has been submitted to @IpsoNews about the misuse of the word "female" in this headline. /1

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9…

Zoe Watts has been convicted and jailed for making homemade bomb and weapons. It is widely known that Watts was born male and now identifies as a woman. The birth sex of Watts would have been easy for a journalist to find /2

There is plenty of public domain information available, including previous reporting by other newspapers. Watts has also run transgender awareness courses for the police. By making their trans history public Watts also makes their male birth sex known /3
lincolnshireunison.org/assets/downloa…

There was no clarification elsewhere in the article that Watts identified as transgender. It was completely unnecessary to refer to Watt's sex (or even gender identity) in the headline and should have been omitted to avoid misleading readers in this way /4

Misrepresenting the sex of the offender in this story has a material impact on the understanding of a story. The central point of the story, as summarised by the headline, is that a female person has been sent to prison for possessing weapons. Most people in prison are male /5

Most people in prison for possession of weapons are male (97%). MOJ offender statistics show that in March 2021 there were only 10 female prisons in England and Wales convicted of possessing weapons compared to 314 male prisoners /6

gov.uk/government/sta…

It is a fact, evidenced by official statistics, that it is rare for a female person to be convicted of possessing weapons. Most stories of this type will involve someone who was born male and not female /7

Misrepresenting this news item as if it was one of the rare examples of a female sent to prison for weapons possession distorts public opinion about criminality patterns in the UK and changes the central point of the story /8

It turns a common-place story about a male person going to prison into a rare and unusual story about a female person going to prison

The use of the word "female" in the headline breaches Clause 1 on accurate and misleading reporting and should be removed from the headline /end