The BBC has upheld a ludicrous complaint against the Today programme’s Justin Webb. Back in August, Webb told listeners that trans women were ‘in other words, males’. This basic truth should not be controversial. We transwomen are male. It is a necessary criterion – women cannot be transwomen because women are female.
The background, incidentally, was a decision last summer by the International Chess Federation to ban those transwomen from competitions reserved for females. Webb was on the radio discussing the news item with Dominic Lawson. Webb’s point was timely and appropriate. Not everyone is up to date with the transgender debate and there is confusion – understandably – over specialist terminology. Indeed only a few weeks beforehand, it had been widely reported that more than a third of UK residents did not know that ‘transgender women’ were biologically male. Webb was simply carrying out his professional duty to explain and inform.
But someone complained. They protested that Webb was giving his personal view on a controversial matter. Please! It is only a controversial matter because feelings have been prioritised over facts. Nevertheless, six months later, the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit determined that Webb’s comment breached the BBC standards of impartiality. The ECU concluded that:
It could only be understood by listeners as meaning that trans women remain male, without qualification as to gender or biological sex, and that, even if unintentional, it gave the impression of endorsing one viewpoint in a highly controversial area.
BBC
This is on a par with the suggestion that journalists should not point out that the earth is an oblate spheroid without someone else making the case that it is flat. Biological sex is only controversial because an activist lobby has found political advantage in making it controversial. In doing so that group has wielded extraordinary powers over what other people are allowed to say, certainly it seems at the BBC.
The BBC News style guide is not much help. To Auntie’s credit, it does admit that a ‘a transgender woman’ is a person ‘born male’, but then muddies the waters with the concept of living ‘as a female’. Are women – females – supposed to live in a certain way? But since sex is innate and immutable – certainly in human beings – then it’s hard to see how Webb fell foul of the style guide.
This is not the first time that Webb has found himself in hot water over transgender issues. In 2022 he was admonished after pointing out that Kathleen Stock had been ‘abused by students who accuse her, falsely, of transphobia.’ The BBC huffed and puffed over that, claiming that the ‘validity or otherwise of the accusation of transphobia are the heart of the controversy’. Meanwhile Webb’s description summed up the extraordinary scenes at the university that eventually resulted in Stock leaving her job. I know who is serving the listeners.
The BBC has a problem. The public is not well served when impartiality is used to prevent specialist terminology being explained in the context of biological sex – something that is widely understood. As a result of this latest (partly upheld) complaint, the BBC discussed the finding ‘with Justin Webb and the Today team’.
I hope Webb and his team responded by pointing out the facts to the BBC – somebody needs to.
Debbie Hayton is a teacher and journalist.
Her book, Transsexual Apostate – My Journey Back to Reality is published by Forum
* This article was first published by The Spectator on 1 March 2024: Justin Webb has been wronged by the BBC.
Debbie Hayton 
2 replies on “Justin Webb has been wronged by the BBC”
Oh dear, Antie’s bloomers showing again. The whole impartiality thing is wokeism, like equity, and then – as you point out with the flat Earth comment – not applied across the board, because it’s impossible. We should write to complain if we see anything mentioning the shape of the Earth.
And I noticed on the news last night that the “Scottish Hate Crime” law that J K Rowling made a personal protest against was only described as applying to the “whipping up of hatred” against certain groups, with no mention of the significant clause that this rests on the perception of the complainant, which is largely where the problem arises.
Apparently, the Scottish police decided unilaterally that the complainants’ (many of them) views didn’t matter, falling foul of the (stupid) law they’re supposed to uphold, while the BBC would haul JKR over the coals if she worked for them.
Similarly, I’m sick of hearing “…which is designated a terrorist organisation by the British Government” every time Hamas is mentioned, yet I can’t remember the last time the BBC reminded us of the string of UN Security Council Resolutions against Israel.
Impartiality, imschmartiality.
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I think the problem lies with the fact that so many people confuse gender with sex. My understanding of gender is that it is socially constructed from characteristics displayed by both men and women. It seems to include some of those characteristics blended with assumptions and personal interpretation. Therefore apparently there can be a huge variety of genders.
Sex on the other hand is simply biological and decided in every cell in our bodies therefore cannot be changed.
The government confused the issue by allowing some people to change their sex on official documents. I understand this was done so as not to embarrass people not wanting to declare that they were trans and I can see that but by allowing this to happen they have in effect said that people can change sex. So now we are all confused.
I know I’ve said this before but why does it always seem to be the transwomen kicking up a fuss and refusing to understand how this is affecting the rest of us?
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