The Prescott memo on sex and gender is already out of date. In the two years since I left there’ve been changes. BBC LGBT journos lost their veto about a year ago, though there are still activists who try to influence coverage, and executives who are deeply affirmative.
/ It’s out of date because the BBC takes forever to turn. It didn’t act on years and years of evidence of bias. Almost a decade of women doing the work executives should have done, and mostly didn’t. Researching, collating bundles, losing their time and energy to help the BBC.
/

🧵

Looks like the BBC may have found a way to weed out freelance journalists who don’t comply with gender identity ideology.

You can’t be paid for your time until you fill out a diversity survey. And the first two questions are about your ‘gender identity’. And you can’t
// // just leave it - as they require you to write in an ‘Other’ section why you don’t have one.

Now what is the benefit of this data, what is its lawful purpose for GDPR, and what use will it be put to?

The BBC has form for not allowing journalists with sex realist
//

This is the big BBC exclusive, the story apparently worth more than the first clinician conference on ‘gender affirmation’ harms, the enraged mob protests that tried to shut it down, and the terrifying revelations from deep inside scandal-hit WPATH.
/ bbc.co.uk/news/health-68… The unfolding medical horror of what has been perpetrated on children and young people is brushed aside in favour of a story about continuity concerns.

There’s a dossier (sic) of emails from Tavistock staff, who don’t want the Tavistock shut down, complaining about it.
/

Crucially the BBC response here misrepresents its own failure to establish sufficient *internal* balance.

‘A BBC spokesman said it did not consult externally because it was an internal note. This is not the same as the editorial guidelines, which involve a lot of engagement’ /

https://twitter.com/sexmattersorg/status/1771275212186681681

I’ve said before that Tim swims in a sea of affirmation at the BBC. It’s so murky that he doesn’t even know what balance would look like on this. He actually thinks that there are people close to him who represent the breadth of the debate.
/

The BBC lives in a world all its own as the fires of controversy rage on sex and gender. Ignore every single story this year that people actually want to know about and focus on ..middle-aged men who want free female hormones.
/ bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan… This is genuinely the story. Long waiting lists for middle aged men.

Waiting lists for ‘trans’ ’health’ ’care’ are an obsession for the BBC. It’s not that long since we had another big feature. It represents an absolute failure to engage/

… bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotla

I’ve been running over in my head what could have induced BBC and most other editors to lie so shamelessly about the sex of Scarlett Blake.
/
and legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/…
/I think the argument which confused many of them is the claim that Self-ID is already law.

It’s a common activist claim, that because you’re protected from discrimination the minute you say you’re trans, that means everyone instantly has to pretend you’re the opposite sex/

The Ghey parents’ phones will have been ringing off the hook. This is weaponisation, desperation by the media to get one of them on a breakfast programme.

None of these mainstream outlets have until now shown any interest in the harm being done to children by gender ideology. They haven’t cared about this and they haven’t cared about /

This must be picked up by the BBC, and there’s a very good reason, apart from it being a great story.

The BBC retained a team of correspondent and dedicated producer (luxury) to cover ‘identity’ issues at a time of severe cuts: protected precisely for this kind of story. /

https://twitter.com/sexmattersorg/status/1745058250251276483

The last story by Lauren Moss, LGBT and Identity Correspondent, was 20 days ago. There was a hasty catch-up contribution to the Rachel Meade story yesterday, but she wasn’t ahead of it, didn’t write the report and didn’t understand its significance.

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan…

Where the heck is the sympathetic interview with Lynne Pinches who actually lost out on a title? ⁦⁦@steve_mawhinney⁩ you need to take control of your department

‘Walkout sparked 'vile' and 'horrific' abuse, says trans pool player’ bbc.co.uk/sport/wales/67… How many gender believers are working for you Mr Mawhinney. Do they know the difference between men and women?

Unbelievable

While other journalists finally investigate the harms ignored for years of affirmative social transition, the BBC Identity unit taps its trans-sympathetic civil service contacts for anything that might discredit the new schools guidance bbc.co.uk/news/uk-677943… ‘Key parts of the guidance, such as schools not having a "general duty" to allow pupils to change names, pronouns or uniform were flagged in the draft as misrepresenting the Equality Act, *as in some cases there is a legal duty to do so*.

Is there, BBC? That’s a fact, is it?

R4 Today leading off on the voices of kids who’ve been brainwashed , without asking why they’ve never been told that no one can change sex - it’s wrong. And Mike does not have a transgender son. He has a daughter. The children are not experts here. And if Today considers their voices important - why not include a child who regrets social transition in school? I’m concerned about the bent of this coverage already.

This is what the BBC TQ+ team have been working on and why they ignored last week’s game-changing Commons statement by Kemi Badenoch.

More than one story on their patch and their editors allow them to freeze like deer in headlights.

Imagine a BBC / bbc.co.uk/news/uk-676772… Education Correspondent ignoring a key landmark statement from the Education Secretary, because they were busy with a flexi-deadline long-form piece. Or a Home Correspondent ignoring a key migration statement.

You don’t do it. You pick it up. Or your editors make sure /

Little round up. Remarkable week for sex and gender reporters unless you work for the BBC. After this, News CEO @deborahturness must be, is hopefully, wondering - why on earth did we save the posts of LGBT and Identity Correspondent and LGBT Producer? Where have they been? First: they completely fail to report the landmark Commons statement and questions with Kemi Badenoch, Minister for Women and Equalities.

This turned out to be so much more than the diaried note on recognition of foreign gender certificates.

https://x.com/mforstater/status/1732446711933501574?s=46&t=tddGJFSgWBG3CogorVsT4A

Now the dust has settled, what’s the fallout for sex and gender reporting?

It’s not good. It will still depend on the efforts of brave individuals at the BBC, because there’s no corporate impulse back to impartiality and fact-based coverage / bbc.co.uk/news/entertain… Some of you will remember Ben Hunte, the LGBT Corr who was appointed as and who saw himself as an advocate Ben Hunte named first LGBT correspondent for BBC News This was after Stonewall activism at the BBC demanded the creation of two postsbbc.co.uk/news/entertain…

Going to write a brief thread about the BBC’s strange relationship with the truth on sex and gender.

It won’t start any fires but it might help people understand why the BBC has adopted such an irrational approach.

It was put on the record, but not publicly, in January. First, what was said, then, what it means.

‘Accuracy and impartiality are not the same thing..tweets could have held a position of being entirely accurate but still raised a question as to..impartiality and to the BBC’s’ (these edits aren’t salient).

Also in the Telegraph, will post a link but the Mail has been cheeky and it doesn’t have a paywall

‘Some civil servants now feel that the idea that everyone has a gender identity which is more important than their sex is 'treated as undisputed fact’ mol.im/a/12551365

This is the Telegraph original story and it’s a banger. They’re leading with it telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/…

Paywall rage? This is a good public interest story, and the BBC has enough political, education and LGBT teams to cover it.

You should be able to get a version of something similar for free. Instead the BBC gives you drag queen GP.

It’s not an accident. telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/… web.archive.org/web/2023091100…

Sad reminder that the BBC still has live links to Mermaids on its website

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-446610… It’s old. But if you search ‘transgender children’ on the site - maybe looking for advice from the authoritative BBC, thinking this is where you’ll get some neutral input, this is the seventh or eighth hit.

LOOK - breaking telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/2… web.archive.org/web/2023052611…