Transphobia in the UK is rapidly escalating – this could lead somewhere horrifying
Listening to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 this morning, as I’m embarrassed to admit I sometimes still do, something in the last segment shocked me to attention. In a segment interviewing a professional chess player, the presenter Justin Webb said: “sex matters in so many areas of life, doesn’t it? And it seems it matters in chess, at least the World Chess Federation [sic] have banned trans women – in other words, males – from contesting in the female categories in chess.”
Not only is this equation of trans women to males deeply offensive, it is also plain wrong. Trans women are by definition women, i.e. female. They are not males. When Webb’s interviewee didn’t take the bait, arguing it's not really for a man like himself to adjudicate on these matters, Webb scoffed and goaded him. This supposedly neutral BBC presenter was audibly frustrated by his interviewee's answer.
I’m not surprised to hear casual unchallenged transphobia on the BBC. I’m certainly not surprised to hear it from Justin Webb, one of the most virulently transphobic presenters on air, who was last year rebuked by the BBC for inaccurately labelling as "false" accusations of transphobia against Kathleen Stock. What is surprising is the nature and extent of this transphobia, which has become far more open and pervasive in the last few years. It does come as a surprise that a leading presenter at the BBC feels emboldened to make such an openly outright transphobic statement as “trans women are males” – after claiming “sex matters, doesn’t it?” in the lead-up to his question.
Not long ago, a BBC presenter would never have made such an incendiary, biased statement. BBC staff were conscious of the acceptable norms of public service broadcasting. On the rare instances things like this did happen, there was always a considerable public backlash. It says a lot that open unabashed transphobia is now an acceptable norm at the BBC. The inevitable silence on this from the entire media and political establishment is indicative of a wider malaise in the public discourse.
Trans people, especially in the US, are talking a lot at the moment about a “trans genocide”. This may seem extreme – but when you consider US conservatives are openly calling for “transgenderism to be eradicated” and armed militants are turning up to drag queen story time events across the US, it’s not hard to see why.
I recently came across a video on research from the UN on the ten stages towards genocide. They usually start off fairly innocuous, with a group being identified, othered and discriminated against, but these stages often lead towards the terrifying final stages of persecution and extermination. According to this framework, the US appears to be at the seventh stage, preparation – just one step away from persecution.
Perhaps the situation in the UK isn’t quite as bad, but it’s headed in the same direction. And if we continue to allow statements like Justin Webb’s to go unchallenged, this incessant escalation of transphobic rhetoric could lead us to something truly horrifying.
