All About Trans

Here's a story I missed...until now. 

The Times reported last Friday that back in 2011 the BBC and Channel 4 funded a transgender campaign group called All About Trans to the tune of £20,000. 

“Some BBC insiders believe its influence is still felt in the corporation’s reporting on gender identity”, the paper says, adding “The BBC and Channel 4’s investment went unnoticed and they have not provided funding since. It is unlikely the broadcasters would back a similar project today.” 

The organisation held “several discussions” with BBC executives, including one in 2013 with editorial policy executives, “the gatekeepers of the broadcaster’s impartiality.” 

The report quotes “a BBC insider” saying:

It might look like ancient history but All About Trans has informed our approach in news and all content. It was embedded nearly a decade ago and it’s not gone away.

The organisation promotes preferred terminology “like assigned male/female at birth” as against “born a man/woman” and advocates “inclusive language”, eg. the use of pronouns, “which are echoed in BBC News’s rules on the use of language in reporting.”

The top-rated comments below the article suggest people are unimpressed:

• And they think it acceptable to waste my license fee on this???? I would NEVER intentionally fund such a cause!! The BBC has totally forgotten its purpose....and is increasingly (and sadly) showing itself to be not fit for purpose.
• I am dismayed to learn that this is within the terms of the BBC charter. I am dismayed that they would fund any organisation pushing a particular point of view with public money - it conflicts at least with their ability to claim objectivity and lack of bias.
• Another reason not to pay my licence fee. Many of these public bodies seem to forget that ordinary people are slogging their guts out doing actual ‘work’ to finance these completely self-indulgent and erroneous “initiatives”.