Simply put, some BBC output has been unbalanced by the views of its staff, some of whom don’t think that ‘gender critical’ views are worthy of inclusion in public discourse. That’s not my conclusion, by the way. It’s something I’ve heard from multiple senior people at the BBC over the last few years. It’s also been reported by the BBC’s own Stephen Nolan in an excellent podcast series, which also considered Ofcom’s record.
Reporting on sex and gender isn’t easy. Much of the content is complex and requires extensive explanation for a general audience. There is a lack of objective evidence: reliable data are scarce, and few facts are accepted by all. Many of the participants in this debate approach it with passionate intensity and are very willing to direct complaints and abuse at journalists who say things they don’t like. On the trans rights side of the divide, there are some people and groups who regard the very fact of discussing these issues offensive – consequently they refuse to engage in public conversation.
In short, this stuff is hard for journalists to do well. And the BBC, heavy with younger staff who incline to sympathy with that trans-rights perspective, and institutionally sensitive to external pressure, finds it especially hard. So it would be a good thing for the BBC’s regulator to encourage and support it to bring some more balance and impartiality to its coverage of sex and gender.
Sadly, that’s pretty much the opposite of what Ofcom did this week.
If that Ofcom report was the only evidence you had about perceptions of the BBC’s coverage of the trans issue, you’d conclude that the only criticism anyone had was that that the corporation was too sympathetic to nasty Terfs and often transphobic.
[T]here is no reference in the 91-page report to ensuring the representation of gender-critical views, a worldview that has been found by the courts to be legitimate and legally ‘worthy of respect in a democratic society’. The closest the report comes to acknowledging any difference of opinion on the trans questions is a paragraph that snidely brackets people who want balanced discussion of gender issues with racists .
To write a report about impartiality that is not itself impartial is quite an achievement.
Source: The BBC gets new orders: back trans rights, ignore women | The Spectator