It’s hard tackling transphobia when the BBC propagate it As our national broadcaster, the BBC has a duty to be fair, honest, and accurate in its reporting. These values […]

As our national broadcaster, the BBC has a duty to be fair, honest, and accurate in its reporting. These values are embedded in the Royal Charter that is the constitutional basis for the BBC.

So you can imagine my surprise yesterday afternoon when a colleague flagged to me that I’ve been mentioned in a BBC News article about people being suspended from Twitter. No reporter had spoken to me for a comment, no-one had told me it was going to be published, and yet, there it was.

It turns out that I hadn’t just been named in passing but as an example. The BBC had published claims made by a transphobe that I was a man. Such a claim is highly inaccurate and deeply offensive. I felt let down by the BBC that they would share such abuse without even speaking to me.

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Immediately people were already criticising the article on social media.

https://twitter.com/anniewallace/status/1001497655246237696

I’m actually embarrassed that this is a headline. This is painful to look at. I’ve seen a lot of sensational nonsense around trans people, but this is a BBC article trying to turn a gang of serial harassers who are FINALLY seeing consequences into underdogs. pic.twitter.com/cISusy99qo — Mia Violet (@OhMiaGod) May 29, 2018

24 hours after the article was published, after being heavily criticised on social media, and having numerous official complaints sent in, I received an email from a BBC News Editor asking me for comment. This isn’t good enough.

By failing to ask me for comment when they were originally producing the article, the BBC failed to inform people of the actual issue; online transphobia. To do this is highly irresponsible of the BBC because, let me be clear, Twitter didn’t ban those users because of me having some mythical supreme power over social media, they banned those users because they broke Twitter’s very clear rules on hateful content.

This is not an attack on free speech, it is a private company deciding it does not want to host abusive content. No individual or private company is required to host every single person’s speech. It is up to these private companies to decide what they want to host within the law.

The BBC article is also dangerous as it emboldens transphobia within our society, which sadly leads to an increase in hate crimes against trans people. At the start of this year LGBT+ charity Stonewall found;

Two in five trans people (41 per cent) have experienced a hate crime or incident because of their gender identity in the last 12 months.

Younger trans adults are at greatest risk: 53 per cent of trans people aged 18 to 24 have experienced a hate crime or incident based on their gender identity in the last 12 months.

Hate crime against trans people is significantly underreported; most trans people – four in five (79 per cent) – don’t report it to the police. Some trans people who report a hate crime don’t feel supported by the police or experience even further discrimination.

The BBC may see it appropriate to give a platform to those who are abusive online, but I don’t and clearly, neither does Twitter. The type of abuse that goes on online is horrendous and it affects so many people on a daily basis. I’ve previously written about the issue calling for urgent action; I’m pleased to see that Twitter is doing taking it.

I am willing to continue have discussions with the BBC and others, on how we can achieve factual news articles that are fair and balanced, and don’t propagate harm against LGBTIQA+ people.

Finally, let me make it clear, I am not a man. I have never been, and I never will be. I am a woman. I am open about my trans history, but first and foremost I am a woman. In the Green Party, we are clear on our policy; Trans Women are Women. Trans Men are Men. Non-Binary Identities are Real and Valid.

The BBC say they attempted to make contact with Aimee prior to the publication of the article, but were unable to. They have since updated the article with comment from the Green Party