Action point: complain to the BBC

[alexbrett]

Trigger warnings for binarism, sexism, and cissexism apply.

The News Quiz (BBC|Wikipedia) is, as the BBC says, a "topical panel quiz show, taking its questions from the week's news stories."

This week one topic of discussion was Storm, a Canadian child whose parents are allowing Storm to make their own choice about when to disclose their sex and gender. I'm not going to link to news articles, because it's easy to find more information, and the family has explained that they are feeling overwhelmed - but I will note that, as the excellent blog Sociological Images points out, this isn't new.

The News Quiz, alas, got it very badly wrong.

The following transcript is taken from Series 74, episode 7, starting at 19:46. Panelists were Susan Calman, Jeremy Hardy, Andrew Maxwell and Paul Sinha; the chair was Sandi Toksvig. The episode is available on iPlayer until the third of June.

[Sandi Toksvig] Who said "No sex please, we're Canadian?"

[Paul Sinha] Erm... a Canadian couple, who have made news across the globe. They're from Toronto, and they've got a four-month-old child called Storm, and they've decided they're not going to tell anyone what gender this child is. They call it a "tribute to freedom and choice", but there's no freedom and choice on the part of the child whatsoever - the poor child is called Storm, is what, gonna a, be bullied and b, be expected to have mutant powers, which is not an easy [audience laughter] - which is not an easy childhood to have. Erm. But again, I'll bring my medical expertise - fourth-year medical school, I remember this very well - boys have willies, and girls don't! [audience laughter] And eventual-

[Andrew Maxwell] They have more than just /not/ a willy - they've got a whole different set of equipment!

[PS] Well, well absolutely, I just didn't want to get too technical. [audience laughter] I have total support for people who struggle with their identity - men who think they're women, women who think they're men. I'm a gay man who likes football and has a beer gut, I consider myself a gay man trapped in a straight man's body [audience laughter] but I don't understand how you could force this on a child. It's beyond me. The child has no choice in this -

[ST] But apparently they give the child a choice in everything else, because they believe in something called "un-school-ing", which is a radical form of home schooling which the child is allowed to decide, what he - or she [laughing] - learns.

[AM] Dear oh dear.

[ST] How many lessons do you think there'll be called "Putting Nemo on again" or - [audience laughter] How often is the child going to say "Please! All I want to do is learn about the instability of the Weimar Republic!" That's, er [audience laughter]

[AM] It's weird, man, it's creepy. Like, children, I've got one of each gender -

[ST] Are you sure?

[AM] Yes! Boys like boys' things and girls like girls' things. You can't have a toy -

[Susan Calman] Weeeell...

[AM] - that's unisex! What are you going to give them - a pink dinosaur?! [panel laughter]

[SC] But the thing is, the thing is, I would disagree. I don't have any children, I have cats, [audience laughter] but I was a child myself at one point. And so, even though I was kind of told to be really girly, I wasn't, I think children find their own kind of way in life -

[AM] Well of course they will, anyway.

[SC] - depending on genetics, it's nature not nurture.

[PS?] It's very fashionable to say everything's genetics now, [plummy voice] "oh, because it IS all genetics" and you say, yeah, but you know, you can't separate out nature from nurture, cause they're intertwined, they say [plummy voice] "no, but I saw this amazing documentary about twins, you know, and the twins had this amazing kind of empathy, it's almost telepathy" - that's because you saw ONE documentary about ONE set of twins, and Channel 4 are not going to BOTHER to make a film called "The twins who were nothing like each other"! [audience laughter, applause]

[ST] A couple in Canada have decided to raise their new baby Storm without gender and aren't telling anyone whether it's a boy or a girl. Storm has two older siblings named "Jazz" and "Kio", names which don't particularly say "boy" or "girl" but really *scream* "affordable car". [audience laughter] Storm's father, David Stocker, said "If you really want to get to know someone, you don't ask what's between their legs." [audience laughter] There must be some exceptions to that - you know, I mean, if they're riding a dragon, for example! [audience laughter]

[AM] If David Stocker, is so convinced of this, why has he kept with the normal name David Stocker?

[?] Yeah.

[AM] Why hasn't HE changed HIS name to "Moonbeam [raspberry]"? [audience laughter] He like, why don't *you* give your *children* normal names, and YOU walk around in a post-gender freakzone? [audience laughter]

[JH] Yeah, but you can have gender-free names - you could be Sandy, for example -

[PS] Thank you very much.

[JH] - Lesley, John Wayne's real name was [crosstalk] Marian, and, er, Vinny Jones' real name is Louise - [audience laughter] I can take him! [audience laughter]

[PS] Once more, knowing full well he's not listening, Jeremy.

[ST] Two points to Paul.

There's a lot in there to deconstruct.

I can't do all of it, but feel free to contribute in comments. Off the top of my head:

• "No freedom or choice on the part of the child" - a gross misrepresentation. Allowing a child the choice to disclose their own sex is potentially extremely empowering: reactions to babies are measurably different depending on their perceived sex: this even begins before birth.^[1] Taking away the ability to pigeonhole a child's personality based on a binary label means people will actually have to get to know the child rather than prescribing and suggesting its behaviour: sounds like freedom to me.
  
• "Boys have willies and girls don't!" This is sexist, in that it defines women as lacking; it is cissexist, in that it erases the existence of trans children, and equates people's gender with their genitalia. Note the follow-up: vaginas are described as too technical. (It's also a gross and binaristic oversimplification, because of course It's A Bit More Complicated Than That.)
  
• "Boys like boys' things and girls like girls' things." This is a harmful and sexist attitude, and a self-fulfilling prophecy: children are extremely sensitive to gender policing. It's also ridiculous, particularly given the example of a pink dinosaur: as Sociological Images points out, pink is a manly colour - or at least was constructed as such until the 1950s! Restating this idea contributes to the problem.
  
• "Why don't you [David Stocker] give your children normal names, and YOU walk around in a post-gender freakzone?" Andrew Maxwell here suggests that "normal" doesn't include non-binary people; he minimises the difficulty of changing one's name; he overlooks the fact that David's gender is (presumably) male, which accords with his name, whereas Storm's gender is as yet unknown; and he is quite explicit that he views people outside the gender binary, or people trying to challenge gendered assumptions, as "freaks" to be mocked: which is exactly what already-marginalised groups don't need.
  
• "Men who think they're women, women who think they're men." This is a significant misrepresentation of trans* people, and suggests that e.g. trans women are "really" men. It is harmful and inaccurate and bigoted.

Action
I am appalled that the BBC chose to endorse the harmful and bigoted views expressed in this segment. Let's let people know how disappointed we are.

• Complain to the BBC - and, if you're comfortable, please share your wording in comments!
  
• Contact The News Quiz directly.
  
• Contact TransMediaWatch at transmediawatch at googlemail.com.

More ideas? Please leave them in comments. Thanks! Want more references? Ask me and I'll dig them out.


[1] Kane, 2009. 'I wanted a soul-mate:' gendered anticipation and frameworks of accountability in parents' preferences for sons and daughters. Symbolic Interaction, 34 (4), 372-389.

Comments

Sample letter

[(Anonymous)]

I was linked here from an open thread at Shakesville. Thanks for the write-up!

Here's the text of a message I've just sent the BBC; feel free to use it as inspiration for crafting your own messages.
----
Dear Sir, Madam

I am writing regarding the recent episode (No 7) of News Quiz which featured a question about the Canadian couple who have not disclosed their youngest child's sex.

I am deeply disappointed that you chose to air the responses to this question, which managed to be sexist, patently offensive to transsexual and gender non-conforming people, and profoundly misinformed about child development as well as gender and sexual orientation.

It is commonly understood today that sex and gender are separate things: one biological, one psychological. Thus, until a child is old enough to express his or her own feelings clearly, it is a scientific fact that we do not know what their gender is. Storm's parents have simply chosen not to subject their child to the (also scientifically proven) differences in how adults react to children based on their presumed gender, regardless of what the child's own personality might be. The episode of News Quiz profoundly misrepresented these facts.

I should perhaps not be surprised to hear this kind of ignorant speech from people who otherwise characterise women as 'lacking willies', consider female anatomy too complicated to bother with, and see people outside their narrow gender binary as 'freaks'. Despite Ms Calman's attempted interventions, your panel seemed happy to perpetuate the false idea that children naturally conform to stereotypical gender roles, toys, and colours, when in fact most of these things are socially constructed and a great deal of (harmful) gender policing goes into making sure that girls play at nurse and boys play at doctor, for example, when we all know very well that people of either sex are equally suited for both.

I am deeply disappointed in the quality of entertainment you have chosen to diffuse, and deeply sorry for the people of all ages and genders who will have heard this episode and absorbed its false and harmful messages.

I hope that you will issue an apology and refrain from airing such offensive and misleading material in the future.

Sincerely,

[libractivist]

Re: Sample letter

[alexbrett]

Thanks - this is really good, and I really appreciate you sharing your response :-)

I'd just like to note for other people intending to use this wording that it might be better to replace "Dear Sir, Madam" with "To whom it may concern" (or some other wording that doesn't assume the person reading the complaint identifies within the gender binary).

Thanks again!

Re: Sample letter

[karohemd]

I'd be interested in the BBC's response. I'm not knowledgeable enough on this subject to send my own complaint but I've had bad experiences with complaining to the BBC regarding issues I feel strongly about and was fobbed off with comments like "it's all meant as lighthearted entertainment".

[naath]

Good grief what the ever loving fuck BBC? That's beyond crap.

And what on earth do they mean "no freedom of choice on the part of the child"? Storm is an INFANT, one does not normally give infants much choice on account of how they can communicate GIMME FOOD and OW IT HURTS and I NEED A CUDDLE and really not very much else! This is GIVING the child a choice, Storm will be able to discern their own gender identity and choose when (if) to disclose it to people at their own speed. Unlike almost every other child ever who is told what gender they "are" from their first moments.

BBC complaint wording

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for this. FWIW, here's how I chose to express my views on the BBC's complaints form.

Ros xx

***************

The treatment of the subject of gender by the panellists was misleading, offensive and perpetuates damaging and inaccurate assumptions about gender which are both sexist and transphobic. I am disappointed that you considered them fit for transmission.

I was particularly offended by Andrew Maxwell's comments, claiming that raising a baby without disclosing its biological sex to strangers was "weird" and "creepy", and asserting that "Boys like boys' things and girls like girls' things". He is upholding and perpetuating detrimental views that people's gender (psychological) ought to conform to their sex (biological), and that to behave otherwise is "freakish".

Paul Sinha's choice of words was also unfortunate in talking about transgender people as "men who think they're women, women who think they're men". This is a gross misrepresentation; transsexual men, for example, are not "women who think they're men", they are men who KNOW they're men (gender) despite being assigned female (sex) at birth.

Another comment of his, "boys have willies and girls don't!", was, quite simply, just pathetic.

It is quite clear from the quality of the material trotted out by the panellists in this segment that trying to make the same old tired jokes about sex and gender just isn't funny any more, not when it is well understood that gender is much more subtle than just binary and dictated by physical sex, and that gender stereotypes and assumptions based on physical sex are restrictive and harmful (particularly in child development). If your panellists couldn't cover the subject in an original, accurate or non-offensive manner, the topic simply shouldn't have been aired.

Интернет-магазин Buynice

[(Anonymous)]

www.buynice.org - интернет магазины одежды из Израиля|Интернет-магазин buynice