The BBC and The Times are accused of stoking a 'moral panic' against the trans community
- Transphobia in the UK press has been rising over the past few years, trans people say.
- Two told Insider about what this has felt like and how it has affected them.
Looking at Freddy McConnell's GoFundMe page, you'd assume it's like any number of the fundraising pages for expecting parents - until you scroll down.
Amid the well-wishes are references to an article and its backlash. One giver says their donation is partly to "send a big 'fuck you' to all the transphobes." That's when the shadows over McConnell's joyous event begin to emerge.
McConnell, 35, is a trans man from Kent, England, who's giving birth to his second child - and he wants legal recognition as his child's father on the birth certificate. But this isn't possible in the UK, so he's raising money to give birth in Sweden, where he can be documented as his children's father.
McConnell has been public about his pregnancies and family life, writing columns about the journey and starring in an award-nominated documentary, "Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth."
As he reached the third trimester of his second pregnancy, he opened his phone to an alert about a collection of letters to the editor from The Times titled "No right to be thought a man," published on October 30.
The first line describes McConnell as "a biological woman." The article goes on to use the wrong pronouns and disregard McConnell's identity and lived experience as a man.
It is distressing, McConnell told Insider. He said that it's part of the UK's rhetoric of transphobia ingrained within the media and that he's now considering taking legal action against The Times.
The Times did not respond to Insider's call for comment.
"I became a journalist in 2013, and for two or three years everything was just normal," McConnell told Insider.
"I could be a trans person working at a major national newspaper, and my transness never felt particularly relevant, except for when I might be asked to write the 'Trans Guide 101' style piece."
But now, he says, there's a "fear-mongering moral panic" against the trans community in the press - a "campaign of misinformation" stopping trans people from being safe in the hands of UK media.
India Willoughby, 56, a trans TV broadcaster, told Insider that her career as a newscaster and one of the "Loose Women" on the hit ITV daytime show had been plain sailing.
But that changed in 2021, she said. "The intensity of the hate has been ratcheted up so highly by mainstream media that it's rendered [trans people] unemployable," she said.
"You have organizations like the BBC and The Times - these are places that everybody believes and trusts are now publishing rhetoric daily that trans people are bad, trans people are dangerous, don't help trans people," she added.
"I now feel like I'm a disease, a problem, something that needs to be gotten rid of, because every story that features in the British press about trans people is negative," Willoughby told Insider.
"And that probably reached the height this week with the outrageous, trumped-up story on the BBC."
The BBC article
The issue of transphobia in the British media is not new. But a recent BBC article titled "We're being pressured into sex by some trans women" has sparked heated conversations.
The article described cisgender lesbians who claimed to have been forced into sex by transgender women only to be met with anger and violence when they did not want to.
The BBC said one person interviewed said she had been "described as transphobic, a genital fetishist, a pervert and a 'terf'" - a trans-exclusionary radical feminist - because "she is only sexually attracted to women who are biologically female and have vaginas."
Another source for the article was a woman called Lily Cade who professed to be "Porn Valley's Gold Star Lesbian." After her interview was published, she said in a blog that all trans women were "vile, weak, disgusting, whiny, fake-victim" and encouraged people to "lynch" them.
While the blog post is unavailable, Newsweek published an article detailing it. The BBC edited its article to remove Cade's involvement.
After the article's publication, trans porn performer Chelsea Poe said on Twitter that she too was interviewed by the author of the BBC piece on the same topic but did not feature in the article.
In a recent podcast she described feeling uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation, and expressed surprise that Cade had been included
Other criticism of the article included that it used data from a self-selecting survey with 80 people, a sample not big enough or representative enough to create valid data.
In a statement to Insider, the BBC said: "This is an important piece of journalism that raises issues that should be discussed.
"We have updated this article, published last week, to remove a contribution from one individual in light of comments she has published on blog posts in recent days, which we have now been able to verify.
"We acknowledge that an admission of inappropriate behavior by the same contributor should have been included in the original article."
Willoughby told Insider that she believes the BBC "is now institutionally transphobic," saying it would be "impossible for a trans person to have a high-visibility role at the BBC."
She also highlighted reports claiming the BBC is planning to withdraw a partnership with Stonewall, the LGBT advocacy group.
Vice News said in October that BBC staff anticipated its departure from the Stonewall Diversity Champions scheme.
A BBC spokesperson did not directly answer Insider's questions about it had left the scheme, but did say the group "provides advice that we are able to consider."
Negative representations of trans people in the press are prevalent. A 2019 study by Mermaids, a UK charity supporting transgender children and their families, found an increase from 2012 in negative portrayals of trans people within the UK print press.
"Over the last few years, we've seen an explosion in media stories relating to children and gender issues and, while some of it has been responsible and understanding, much has been misleading, ill-informed and even, at times, cruel," Mermaids CEO Susie Green said when the study, conducted by Paul Baker of Lancaster University, was published.
In a statement to Insider, Stonewall said: "It's extremely concerning to see misinformation about trans people in the news, particularly in major media outlets.
"Trans people exist, which has been settled in law in the UK since 2004, and they should not be subjected to degrading 'debates' about whether their identities are real or an 'ideology.' Such discussions only serve to fuel division instead of moving us forward to a better, more inclusive world."
What's the impact?
McConnell and Willoughby told Insider that the often negative framing of the trans community in the UK press is incredibly harmful.
A study published in January found that repeated exposure to transphobic content - such as articles that misgender people or trivialize trans issues - was associated with "clinically significant" symptoms of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and global psychological stress.
The UK government has estimated that trans people make up less than 1% of the population, but their sheer existence is a contentious topic for the media.
Sitting in his home and talking to Insider, McConnell spoke about what trans people want from the press. "Really, we want nothing," he said. "It's not because we're trying to hide anything. It's because there's literally nothing to talk about. We're just completely normal, boring people. And that's such an unsatisfying answer, but it's the truth.
"When I talk about being a man, it's not because I'm engaging in magical thinking or I'm trying to will something to be true - it's just because it is true. That's how I move through the world. It's how I see myself."
Editor's note: This story was updated on November 8 to add details of the BBC's relationship with Stonewall and to clarify Chelsea Poe's comments about the contentious BBC article.