Channel 4’s “Trans Kids it’s Time to Talk”, presented by Stella O’Malley, directed by Olly Lambert was released Wednesday the 21st of November. Even while it was still airing, many trans people and trans supportive people were watching in absolute shock. Hundreds, if not thousands, took to twitter to show their dismay regarding the damaging misinformation being put out to the public under the guise of debate.

This is a story in and of itself, worthy of articles tearing the awful documentary to pieces. But this isn’t that article. This article is about something else which could be far more insidious.

In the weeks leading up to the release of the documentary an account called @C4pride claiming to be the LGBT staff group of Channel 4 started to make an appearance. First was their trans supportive photo filter for their avatar. Second was a response showing clear trans support in response to anti trans activists harassing them. Third was a tweet on Trans Day of Remembrance. But most importantly, every single one of these tweets is laden with criticism from the trans community.

The trans community saw our in, here’s a group of LGBT people who work for Channel 4, and clearly support trans rights. Surely they would speak up on our behalf right? Unfortunately we got nothing but dead air from them publicly. Not a single peep regarding the documentary. Which perhaps isn’t too remarkable on its own…you’re getting hundreds of notifications a day about it but pffft no big deal could have easily just not seen it right?

But then when we look a little deeper on the subject we notice something that smells a little fishy. You see, the director of programming at Channel 4 is Ian Katz. Ian Katz is married to CEO of Mumsnet, Justine Roberts. Justine Roberts has gone on record defending the transphobia on her website and framing it merely as debate. Ignoring how many trans women are banned from the website - some for merely uttering the words “cis women”. Myself included!

So it’s a little bit weird that Roberts who calls transphobia on her own website “debate” is married to the director of programming, responsible for pushing out content which is framed as debate but is actually also just transphobia too.

And this brings us back to C4 pride and their silence on the matter. I personally can’t see any good reason why they didn’t say anything about this publicly. So the question we need to ask ourselves is if LGBT workers at the station were told not to say anything? Were they warned that if they say anything they could lose their jobs? And if so… does this not constitute a hostile work environment for LGBT people at the channel?

If it should turn out that yes, staff members were told that speaking publicly and negatively about the documentary would cost them their jobs. And if this order came from the director of programming, then I think we could safely say that this has been an abuse of power by Katz. As well as using the age old fascist technique of claiming they want debate while forcibly silencing anyone who would debate them.

I’m going to keep digging on this story. I want to find out the truth. If you work for C4 and have any information regarding anything pertinent to this, please let me know. If what I’m saying is true and your livelihood is at risk, I assure you I will not name names. You will be kept entirely anonymous. Thank you.