EP27: Trans Pride Brighton 2019 and BORIS JOHNSON ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

“This government is as committed to protecting and improving the rights of LGBT individuals.

“It is vital that the next steps on any potential reform of the Gender Recognition Act are carefully planned, and have the right backing so they can have a positive impact on the trans community in the UK.

“We had more than 100,000 responses to our consultation and have met with 140 organisations to ensure that we have taken into account views and concerns from all sides of the debate. We will announce more detail on our proposed next steps in due course.”

Background:

– The Government has committed to tackling hate crime in all its forms, including abuse targeted at transgender people, through the Hate Crime Action Plan. The Home Office has been working closely with stakeholders, including providing funding community-led projects aimed at tackling homophobic, biphobic and transphobic hate crime.

– The cross Government Hate Crime Action Plan published in 2016, and refreshed in October last year, focuses on five key priorities: to prevent hate crime happening in the first place through education; tackling hate crime in our communities; increasing reporting; improving support for victims; and increasing our understanding of hate crime.

– The Law Commission is undertaking a review into hate crime legislation.

4. Hacked Off transphobia report!

https://hackinginquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Media-transphobia-report-final.pdf

5. Statement from Hacked off

We have considered for a long time that some newspapers have a problem with transphobic media coverage, and began looking at this more closely over the last few months. When we did look at the detail in more depth, we found a significant amount of inaccuracies published about transgender people, and the law on transgender equality as it stands.

We are a nonpartisan organisation and do not take a position on substantive policy issues beyond media policy. We don’t take any position on proposed reforms to gender recognition. Indeed, we defend the right of newspapers to be partisan and campaign for their point of view. But as with other contentious issues, such as Brexit, immigration and climate change, we do believe newspaper coverage should be accurate and respectful. We found that, in characterisations of transgender people, and the debate on policy in this area, this wasn’t happening.

Not only is accurate and respectful newspaper coverage important for the dignity and protection of transgender people, but it is to the benefit of society more widely to have robust and fact-based debates on these matters.

There is no meaningful regulation of newspapers and news websites in the UK. While a system exists for independent regulation, it is entirely optional and the vast majority of major news publishers have chosen not to sign up. Most are instead members of IPSO, which is not a competent regulator, and is subject to extensive industry control. This is the fundamental reason, in our view, for why publishers have been able to get away with all of this disinformation.

Although IPSO has announced (an) inquiry, it is unable to:

Change its own rules in response to any recommendations (without permission of newspaper executives)
Change the standards code it claims to enforce, in response to any recommendations (without permission of newspaper editors)

So it is a redundant exercise, designed to give the appearance of taking action over the issue, whilst fundamentally failing to do so.

IPSO could have:

Considered complaints about related coverage reasonably, but has failed to do so (https://hackinginquiry.org/press-complaints-handlers-credibility-falls-to-new-low-ipso-fails-to-find-made-up-quote-inaccurate/)
Investigated, on its own initiative, instances of related coverage, but has failed to do so
Launched a standards investigation into such coverage, but has failed to do so.

The system for independent regulation, which would ensure appropriate remedy for newspaper falsity, is already established, but there is no incentive for newspapers to join it. The law should be changed to ensure all news publishers become members of an independent regulator.

6. IPSO statement

We’ve actually just published a response to this which is on our website. I think it covers most of your questions and gives a little bit more info about us and our work in this area (including clarifying some things about how we work which are wrong in the Hacked Off report) https://www.ipso.co.uk/media/1720/trans-reporting-response.pdf

The only thing perhaps it doesn’t cover is the time taken to deal with complaints – we’ve got an effective, robust, complaints process and sometimes it does take a bit time, especially if the matter is complex. I wouldn’t say the time taken was any longer than any other regulator – we’re committed to dealing with people’s complaints thoroughly and properly. You can see how it works here https://www.ipso.co.uk/complain/our-complaints-process/

There’s also a bit more on the research here: https://www.ipso.co.uk/news-press-releases/blog/ipso-blog-examining-editorial-standards-in-coverage-of-transgender-issues/ We hope to publish in early 2020. It’s a serious, robust and thoughtful bit of research which is trying to engage with an incredibly sensitive and complex issue. As Charlotte says in her blog, we feel this issue is currently under-researched and there are gaps in the evidence base around the standards of reporting and impact on individuals. We hope it will create a new evidence base for discussions of media coverage as well as offering valuable insights both to IPSO and to other groups seeking to raise standards in specific subject areas.

We strongly reject any implication that we do not take this issue seriously – we continue to work to protect the public and uphold high standards of journalism.

6. Laura Kate Dale stuff!

Website – https://laurakbuzz.com/

Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/LauraKBuzz

Twitch – https://www.twitch.tv/LauraKbuzz

BUY HER AWESOME BOOK –https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1785925873/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

7. Gendered intelligence

DONATE MONEY AND VOLUNTEER WITH THIS LOT THEY ARE AMAZING

http://genderedintelligence.co.uk/

Twitter – @Genderintell

8. The Spirits!

Website – https://thespirits.uk/

Soundcloud – https://soundcloud.com/theespirits