The BBC is publicly funded and, as such, must abide by its charter to operate without political bias and with the highest degree of accuracy. The BBC has a children’s channel, CBBC. On one parenting Twitter feed, CBBC shared the following tweet for “International Women’s Day.”

The description reads: “Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, transgender drag queens and ‘drag mothers’ to the STAR House, provided a home, food, clothing and sense of family to many LGBTQ+ kids made homeless by their biological families.”


This is both misleading and sinister. First, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera were cross-dressing men. So what feasible connection do they have with “International Women’s Day”? Second, far from the saintly image depicted in the CBBC tweet, Johnson and Rivera engaged in prostitution and drugs. Rivera reportedly missed the Stonewall riots entirely from having passed out from heroin overdose, while Johnson was mentally unstable and eventually killed himself. In what world are such people appropriate role models for children? Third, in addition to supposed charity work, the STAR House was also “the first trans sex worker labour organization,” according to the Global Network of Sex Work Projects. Does the BBC think that kids “made homeless by” (or perhaps encouraged to leave) their “biological families” are better off in sex work? I wonder whether the British taxpayer agrees.