BBC Transphobia Part 2

Content warning for transphobia and sexual assault, same as the previous video.

Previous video

Complaints page

Awful article

Contact:

Text of my escalated complaint:

This response does not answer my initial complaint. It responds as though my complaint was that Chelsea Poe was not included in the article, but this is not the case. My complaint was not that Chelsea Poe was not included. My complaint was that the author of the article both 1) interviewed Chelsea Poe and 2) claims in the article that no high-profile trans women who have spoken about sex and relationships wanted to speak to her. This is not true, because she spoke to Chelsea Poe.

Chelsea Poe is a trans woman. She has spoken about sex and relationships in various media outlets. She was interviewed for the article. This is all beyond dispute.

Chelsea Poe is also indisputably high profile, by the definition of high profile used by the article. Firstly, she was high profile enough to be contacted and interviewed for the article in the first place. Secondly, the examples given in the article of trans women the author does consider high profile are people who have similar or smaller profiles than Chelsea Poe. It is impossible for those women to be high profile and Chelsea Poe to not be high profile.

Chelsea Poe has over 20,000 social media followers and has been quoted in Slate, The Huffington Post, Glamour, Paper magazine, and other media outlets. The article includes quotes from people with much smaller profiles than this.

I understand fully that the author can include or not include whoever she likes in her article and do not need this explained to me. What she cannot do is make false claims about who was interviewed. The article’s claim that no high profile trans women who have spoken about sex and relationships wanted to speak to the author is provably false, and that is what I require a response from the BBC about.

Text of my new complaint:

My complaint is about language used by a source in an article posted on the BBC news website on the 26th October titled 'We're being pressured into sex by some trans women'

The article includes as a source a survey released by the group Get The L Out, which it links to. This survey deliberately and repeatedly refuses to gender trans people correctly. It also approvingly includes a quote which says “All transsexuals rape women’s bodies,” & states in reference to this quote that this “analysis remains as relevant as ever.”

I would like to state that my complaint is solely about the transphobic language present in the survey which is being given a platform by the BBC. I have absolutely no complaints about the sample size, distribution method, or findings of the survey. I have zero issues whatsoever with the survey or the article in which it appears, with the singular exception of the transphobic language and attitudes being shared in the survey. The transphobic language and attitudes are the only thing about which I am complaining, and the only thing for which I require a response.

Does the BBC agree with the attitudes and language expressed in the survey linked in the article? Is it considered acceptable to misgender trans people by the BBC? Are quotes likening all trans people to rapists considered ‘relevant analysis’ by the BBC? Is it acceptable for the BBC to platform such language and attitudes?