Archive for category Media
News Corp and the Nuclear Option
Posted by Zoe O'Connell in Media on 7 July 2011
Note: I originally wrote this last night following a conversation with Sarah. I’d intended it for the new UK edition of the Huffington Post, but they’ve had a lot of people writing on this and, well, events have moved on. I’d hate for it to not to get an airing, so here it is…
“This is their expenses scandal” commented my partner over a cup of tea earlier, “only it’s just beginning”.
Quite what is beginning is still to be seen. Entrapment and similar tactics against politicians phones has been part of the game since time immemorial. And celebrities set themselves up for it. But nothing is going to upset the British public quite as much as the idea that they might have hacked into the voicemail of a murdered child.
Well, a missing photogenic white girl, anyway. Black or Asian boys from the wrong part of town… probably deserved it or something. (I note that the front cover of Wednesday’s Metro, when discussing who else might have fallen prey to the scandal, featured photos of… yes, five pretty white girls.)
What remains? Many MPs rely on the press to get elected. Much of their “grass roots” support relies on the party doing well to hold on to posts in county and borough councils up and down the country. In this environment, MPs were hardly likely to act publicly. If any needed reminding, the attack on Vince Cable when it got out that he was against Murdoch served as a timely reminder.
(It would not surprise me to hear that Vince had been sighted roaming the corridors of power this week with a slightly smug grin at the latest news)
But it wasn’t the politicians that fired the latest salvo in the War on Murdoch. It was the media. Sensing blood in the water, politicians were quick to close in.
An inquiry has been announced, but will it have teeth? Will the politicians go for the kill? They may not, fearing what other dirt the journalists may have or may dig up… Or, heaven forbid, simply fabricate. (With a get-out clause in paragraph nine that nobody will read of course. If that fails, they may face the Press Complaints Commission’s ultimate sanction: A short apology a few months later buried on Page 13, sandwiched between a story on a lost dog and an advert for the latest designer plant pots.)
Politicians face the nuclear dilemma: “If we strike, will they strike back? Or will they hold what they have in reserve as a deterrent against future attacks?”
News Corp and it’s journalists face a similar quandary. If they find themselves under fire, can they win? If they consider they are doomed anyway, perhaps better to hold on to that reserve. Should News Corp prove fatally wounded, the individual journalists might still be able to take their knowledge elsewhere and seek employment at other publications.
But if someone flinches and we see Mutually Assured Destruction, perhaps there is one group now able to reap the benefits: Vince Cable and his Liberal Democrat colleagues in cabinet.
Cablegate: PCC to crack down by… “issuing further guidance”
Posted by Zoe O'Connell in Media on 10 May 2011
As you may have heard if you follow the news, the Press Complaints Commission today ruled that the Telegraph’s fishing expedition against Vince Cable broke the rules. Oddly, there is no mention of any penalties in the ruling. They’re not being asked to pay a fine and they don’t even appear to be being asked to print an apology. Instead, the PCC has “undertaken to issue further guidance” to the industry.
And yet this guidance-issuing commission is so draconian in it’s guidance issuing that the Daily Express and it’s sister papers withdraw from the self-regulatory regime earlier this year.
There are those that lament the slow demise of the newspaper publishing industry. I have to say that I am not one of them.
Channel 4 and transphobia, all mouth but no trousers?
Posted by Zoe O'Connell in Equality, Media on 23 March 2011
There’s unease in some portions of the Trans community at the moment over how committed Channel 4 really are to their new Memorandum of Understanding. There’s a much longer post by Adam Smith over at Wrestling Emily Dickinson about this, but this excerpt sums it up nicely:
So in a similar way, as angry as I am with Peter Kay I find myself angrier at Channel 4 when I read that said channel – which, just last week, to general acclaim from the trans community, signed the Trans Media Watch Memorandum of Understanding – is planning to repeat the very programme in which Kay first aired his transphobic caricature, Geraldine. Yes: on March 26th, a grand total of twelve days after signing the MoU, Channel 4 plans to air a programme featuring a character and a performer universally reviled by trans people.
Adam has also set up a petition on the issue, which is worth a look.
But that’s not the end of it. At the TMW launch, Stuart Cosgrove (Director of Nations and Regions for Channel 4) said that the Trans community was still free to “shaft him” if he got it wrong. With they way they are acting at the moment, that shafting may come rather sooner than he expected, given the transphobic remarks in his BBC Scotland radio show, Off the Ball, this weekend. This from from just under 17 minutes in: (There’s another bit just under 42 minutes in but I’ve not seen the clip they’re referring to, so can’t really comment as I lack context)
So, Health & Safety. “Warning this product may contain nuts”
Said on what? A bag of nuts?
Airdrie lassie’s knickers! (Much laughter – Airdrie is a town in North Lanarkshire)
These are not particularly unusual remarks and typical of the usual kind of casual transphobia you will get in such circles. In the normal course of events, they would probably have passed unnoticed. But given that Stuart just helped to host a high profile event to tackle transphobia, should we not be holding him to a higher standard?
TransMediaWatch/Channel 4 MoU launch event
Posted by Zoe O'Connell in Equality, Media on 15 March 2011
Last night was the launch of Trans Media Watch’s Memorandum of Understanding with Channel 4, which for anyone used to Trans events would have seemed a little unusual, hosted as it was at Channel 4′s HQ in their James-Bond-esque underground bar and cinema. I do feel a little inadequate trying to explain the mood of the room and significance of the event as it really would need the eloquence of someone such as Laurie Penny to do it justice.
This was a novel event to be at because in recent years, when it comes to big LGBT events, I’m more used to standing outside waving a banner than being inside in the warmth with wine and canapés. But Trans Media Watch achieved something truly remarkable with this MoU, aimed to end transphobia in the media and promote more accurate, positive images of transgender people as a whole. As anyone who has been involved in Trans campaigning will know, we can be a very fractious and transient community so it’s good to finally have a cause that I believe everyone can rally behind.
We had several speeches not just from TMW, C4 and the BBC but also from a Government Minister (Yes, a Government Minister turned up and gave a speech about Trans issues at a Trans event organised by Trans folk! How cool is that?) and Channel 4 showed a few clips from “4thought”, a series of short vox pops that include trans folk and I understand will be going out during prime time some time soon.
It was good to finally meet up with many people I know from Trans campaigning that I have either not have the chance to meet or I have not seen for some time. As well as many people from Channel 4 and TransMediaWatch, we had Lynne Featherstone MP (LibDem, Minister for Equalities who gave a speech); Dru Marland and Richard Beard (Becoming Drusilla); Victoria Aitkin (Jason Costello, Hollyoaks); Juliet Jacques (Writes about her transition for the Guardian); David Allen Green (Lawyer, Journalist and Orwell Prize Judge, also gave a speech); Christine Burns MBE (“Just Plain Sense” podcast and co-founder of Press For Change); Dr Stuart Lorimer and Dr Leighton Seal (Charing Cross GIC); Roz Kaveney (Journalist, Author and ex-vice-chair of Liberty); Terry and Bernard Reed OBE (GIRES); Dr Richard Curtis (Transhealth); Dr Evan Harris (President of the LGBT LibDems); representatives from the Government Equalities Office and Scottish Governments; at least one person from the BBC (Who I understand will also be signing the MoU, if they haven’t already) and video clips from Caroline Lucas MP (Greens) and Julie Hesmondhalgh. (Hayley Cropper, Coronation Street). Apologies to anyone who was there who I’ve missed. There were enough people about that I’m sure I’ve neglected to mention someone significant!
And finally, two quotes from the event:
“There is no good reason why, just because a Trans person is caught up in a story, it becomes newsworthy” – David Allen Green
“This is game changing” – Everyone
I hope that these events will stop being unusual and the next time we all meet, it’s inside in the warm and not outside waiving banners.
There is no hierarchy of diversity (BBC and others, take note)
Posted by Zoe O'Connell in Equality, Media on 1 March 2011
According to BBC News, (Although they’re not alone in using this quote) yesterday’s decision to block a Christian couple from fostering because of their views on homosexuality is because “laws protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation ‘should take precedence’ over the right not to be discriminated against on religious grounds.” Although I agree with the end decision in this case, the quotation given is somewhat concerning.
I’m worried about this idea that there is some sort of pecking order of oppression, that the gay community is somehow more oppressed than the religious community. That way lies Oppression Olympics which is, to my mind, unhelpful. Is it really relevant if I, as a white lesbian trans woman am more or less marginalised than a black lesbian cis woman or a Muslim straight trans woman? What’s needed is appropriate help and support for each group according to it’s needs and specific situations. This sort of muddled thinking could lead to more plaintive cries from the religious right that they’re being repressed because gay trumps religion in the courts. (In reality, the Equality Act 2010 states the opposite: there are many exemptions for religion)
Upon reading the actual judgement, the court actually makes it’s view very clear: “…between the protected rights concerning religion and sexual orientation there is no hierarchy of rights…“. (Emphasis mine) It goes on to say “there may, as this case shows, be a tension between equality provisions concerning religious discrimination and those concerning sexual orientation” which really is the nub of the problem: What to do in cases where two strands of diversity clash in this way.
The resolution is in the National Minimum Standards for Fostering Services. I have not been able to get a copy of the document they refer to as the later, online, version has “Standard 7″ about leisure activity. I do hope the courts are not equating homosexuality with a leisure activity! Luckily, they quote the relevant section earlier on in the judgement: “The fostering service ensures that children and young people, and their families, are provided with foster care services which value diversity and promote equality.” The same restriction presumably applies if a potential foster couple stated they could not tolerate a child being religious.
So, despite what the BBC quote suggests, the courts have not decided that one strand of takes precedence over another. It’s just in this particular case, the freedom of the children wins out over the desire of a couple to foster, as it should be.
Prisons, a transwoman… and The Sun
Posted by Zoe O'Connell in Media on 25 February 2011
A quiet week for blogging, but I have been sent one item of interest by a reader that I think people may find interesting as it concerns prisons and trans people. In this case, the prison service get it right, but facing are a bit of a backlash via the Scottish Sun in this story, titled “Sex-swap fella in women’s nick”.
In short, The Sun claims there is a pre-op transwoman in prison up in HMP Cornton Vale, Stirling and it’s causing a “storm”.
Exactly what sort of storm isn’t clear, because there are just a couple of comments from “sources” at the jail which don’t quite ring true, stating “We have not been trained to handle this. How are we supposed to search her?” Umm, well, you could try one of the draft Prison Service Orders that we’re told governors have access to. There’s no indication that staff are particularly stormy about this, nor that other inmates even know she’s a transwoman.
In fact, the only attributed source for the story is her brother. If they have a “source” in the jail, I suspect it’s not a prison warder but ancillary staff.
Oddly, they only have a pixellated photo of someone who is presumably the woman, Nichola. I don’t quite understand why they could publish her name but obscure her face. Instead, the largest photo for the story is her brother – I don’t quite see the relevance of that. It’s also not been picked up by any other news outlet, so I have no idea how true any of this is.
Kudos to Stonewall Scotland for some positive comments on the issue. (Unlike Stonewall in England, they do cover Trans issues)
The Independent – So nearly right, so very wrong
Posted by Zoe O'Connell in Media on 14 February 2011
This story in the Independent Life/Style Fashion section, titled “Gender-blending: Sexual ambiguity in fashion” could so nearly have been a nice “Hey, look, transgender gender-f**kery is cool” story. But, instead, they’ve managed to completely confuse transgender and transsexual in a way that ends up being downright offensive.
It’s not just the usual confusion of nouns and adjectives that one expects, with references to “a pre-operative transsexual in little beyond a smattering of magenta body-glitter“. I could live with that, largely because if one gets annoyed with every grammatical error in the papers, one would spend life in a constant rage.
No, it’s far worse than that:
Of course, the Blitz Kid cult of the early Eighties had its roots in the peacock glamour of Seventies rock, and performers such as Roxy Music and, of course, David Bowie. Knight cites those as his own personal reference points but states: “Now, it’s much more upfront. It’s now 2011 – it’s not 1970. And, with the advances in cosmetic surgery, there’s the ability, medically, to go further.”
Uh, what? Cosmetic surgery isn’t some sort of glamour thing for Transsexual folk. It can quite literally be the difference between being beaten in the streets and not, between life and death. Or by “go further” do they mean genital surgery? That’s certainly been around since the 70s. OK, so perhaps we can skip this one, after all it’s a quote rather than the journalist themselves.
But then we get this gem: (My emphasis)
The appeal of Candy’s first issue, featuring Kelly Osbourne’s then-boyfriend, Luke Worrall, in a powder-pink negligee, was such that cult Swedish clothing label Acne approached Venegas to create a selection of transsexual-friendly pieces. That’s transsexual rather than unisex. “I wanted to make the opposite of unisex. Unisex clothes are usually very neutral – in this case, I wanted people not to say, ‘Oh, these are clothes for men and women’, but to ask, ‘Oh, are these clothes for men or women?’ The same feeling you get in front of a transgender person, that’s what I wanted to create with the clothing.” Acne has previously collaborated with Fantastic Man and Lanvin. “The last thing you can call that is underground,” Venegas says.
A true head-in-hands, oh-my-gods moment. It seems we’re being told transsexual means people saying “Is that a man or a woman”? If this sort of offensive confusion is the result of the “designers’ fixation with sexual ambiguity reaching new extremes“, then I’d quite like it if those designers – and the journalists that follow them – took their fixation and got the hell off our turf before they do some real damage.
Transphobia in the Daily Fail, police and courts
Posted by Zoe O'Connell in Equality, Liberty, Media on 1 November 2010
In common with much of the UK Trans community, I’m too angry to write a coherent post about this right now. The Daily Mail have just published an article about the defendant in the recent death on the London Underground also being Trans. This gives them the perfect opportunity to engage in mis-gendering, bad stereotypes and all the other bigotry beloved of that publication, particularly given the possible sex worker angle too. (I’m sceptical on this point, a renowned human rights lawyer would not typically need the extra money)
I’m not just angry with the Mail though, I’m also angry with British Transport Police and the courts. The only reason the press got wind of this story was because the BTP told the press a “man” had gone under the train, in direct contradiction to eyewitnesses who stated it was a woman so they looked into it further. It’s really not hard to write a press release without gendering someone if you’re not mentioning their name anyway – most people won’t even think twice if it fails to mention if it’s a bloke or woman. Via The Sun, whose article is marginally better than the Daily Mail but only just, we know there was no initial confusion that lead to this outing by the police as those on site at the incident initially had no reason to believe she was a Transwoman.
And then we have the courts. We don’t know the full story for now, perhaps it was bought up by the defence team for some reason but if not why did the Courts allow the defendant to be outed in this way? It’s possible this will prejudice any future trial in such a way that it can’t be a fair trial. (It would possibly have to come out anyway as a defence against any allegation that it was a hate crime, but that decision was months away and could have been handled better) Even if it was an accidental outing, the Judge could have prevented the gutter press from reporting that particular fact.
To top it all off, we learn the defendant has been taken to a male prison. I do not know the defendant so I can’t be sure how far down the road to transition they are, but if they are full time this seems grossly inappropriate and may be putting them in serious danger.
And finally, notice that the Daily Mail “reporter” writing the article gets anonymity. One rule for them…
The story of the Telegraph, Philip Davies MP and a European LGBT conference
Posted by Zoe O'Connell in Equality, Media on 31 October 2010
The recent ILGA-Europe conference was bound to stir up a certain type of Tory, given the intersection of possible anti-EU and anti-LGBT rants. True to form, The Telegraph ran an article, accusing delegates of “continuing to party” and claiming (Without stating sources, of course) that £124,000 of EU money was spent hosting it. Well, I don’t trust anything they print on this topic, given their wonderful definition of Transsexual in the glossary:
Transsexual: When an individual identifies with a gender that is different from their biological sex. Many transsexuals believe that to be a true transsexual one needs to have a desire for gender change surgery.
There’s just so much wrong with that, I don’t even know where to begin. Oh, and if you were not already rolling your eyes, they put “intersex” in quotes. Seriously. Which makes me suspicious about the £124,000 figure they mention, so I had a quick look at the ILGA Europe accounts. Apparently, they spent €174,000 on Annual conference, which equates to around £151,000 at the moment. Only 47% of the IGLA-Europe budget is paid for by EU funding, so we get £71,000, almost half what the Telegraph claim.
They go on:
Delegates at the event in the Netherlands enjoyed lavish food and hospitality as David Cameron moved to guarantee that the EU budget would not increase by more than 2.9 per cent and insisted that its largesse on dubious projects around the world must end. But on the opening night of the gay and lesbian conference, delegates from 37 countries were treated to a welcoming dinner in The Hague’s medieval Hall of Knights, one of the city’s main tourist attractions.
There’s an invite on the ILGA-Europe website to attendees from the Dutch Government which actually seems to own the Hall, so it’s likely that the EU budget did not actually pay for the “lavish food and hospitality”.
Of course, no proper article like this is complete without appropriate quotes from outraged groups. Having stated that the spending was “condemned as ‘politically correct drivel’ by MPs”, they go on to quote just one MP, Philip Davies. Looks like the Telegraph is having trouble with the difference between plural and singular. So, is Philip Davies, MP for Shipley in Yorkshire, likely to be representative of MPs or even Conservative MPs? Well, he’s the kind of person to make quotes that get him “rebuked” by Harriet Harman, told Muslims to F**k off following an incident that wasn’t even caused by Muslims, (The Sun apologised, Philip Davies never has) and has been referred to as a “troglodyte” even by members of his own party.
Who better to go to if you want a quick anti-EU, anti-equalities comment to put in your paper? It’s not like he’s going to lose his seat over it: Shipley has only returned a Labour MP twice since the end of World War II, both times following the Labour landslides in 1997 and 2001. Even then, the Labour majority was less than 3,000 both times, versus the 10,000 Davies currently enjoys.
The Yes to Fairer votes campaign is over here, if you want…
Spectator: “Will transsexuals destroy women’s sport?”
Posted by Zoe O'Connell in Equality, Media on 23 October 2010
“Will transsexuals destroy women’s sport?” is the second largest headline on the front of today’s Spectator Magazine – the largest, predictably, being in relation to the Comprehensive Spending Review. It’s not exactly a positive headline, for a start using “Transsexual” as a noun. For those unfamiliar with the territory don’t do it as it implies it is very othering – man, woman or transsexual? It also contributes to the erasure of trans-male identities in this case as the implication in the headline is that only Trans women exist.
Still, “Sure, if all the women athletes transition to become male, that could damage women’s sport” springs to mind as a humorous response to the front-page headline.
There is a copy of the copy of the Article online, but I fear you will need a paper version or subscription iPad/iPhone version to see the article in the context the editors unfortunately intended. It does improve a little on the contents as the article is billed as “Transsexuals on the track – A new divide in women’s sport”… well, it’s not new, really. Any slightly more positive spin on that page is undone by the photo of a female shot-putter with the caption “Gender games” under it. A shot-putter? Please.
Once we get free from the clutches of the magazine’s editors though, the article by Luke Coppen isn’t that bad. It’s jumping off point is the recent news about Lana Lawless, a Trans woman golfer, who has had to sue a US Golf Association over their Women-born-Women policy. It’s not too bad an article, starting off by listing the concerns of others – “enjoying the physical advantages of men” and then going on to deconstruct them. It doesn a pretty good job of covering most of the well known (Within Trans circles) problems that the International Olympic Committee have had in trying to figure out who they should allow to compete… and the problem that as in this case, if a Trans woman does succeed, it’s clearly because she was “born male”, not actually because she’s a good athlete.
It’s shame this generally positive attitude is spoilt by one particular phrase in the last paragraph: “As long as there is a male-female division in sports, there will be people stealing across the border.” I’m not “stealing” across anyone’s border, thank you very much. And if anyone did try, I think they would be in for a rude awaking given that the penalty for transitioning when one shouldn’t is similar to not doing so when you need to – depression and suicidal thoughts.
There’s a reason for this post, other than just generally getting annoyed at the headline on the front page. Coppen’s article points out recent research shows that any advantage Trans Women have over cis-gendered wimen is lost after around a year on HRT. This is broady in line with current International Olympic Committee guideline that stipulates a 2 year gap between transition and competing in your aquired gender.
So, we return to our old friend, the Equality Act. Sadly, the sort of nonsense that’s happened in the US with this case could happen here too and it’s entirely possible someone in Lana’s position would lose the case because the act just makes vague references to “fairness” and “safety”. (If it’s not safe for someone to compete, regardless of gender, then you’re doing it wrong)
But if a random author of a magazine article can figure out that there’s no advantage to Trans Women (Where are the Trans Men?), why couldn’t the authors of the act figure out how to express it in terms that didn’t give anyone an excuse to discriminate indefinitely and justify it.
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