{"id":35,"date":"2026-05-22T23:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T23:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=35"},"modified":"2026-05-22T23:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T23:40:11","slug":"inside-the-capture-of-the-bbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=35","title":{"rendered":"Inside the capture of the BBC"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In his 13 years as a senior BBC editor, Rob Burley saw the Corporation\u2019s defining commitment to impartiality undermined by transgender ideology, a blind commitment to diversity and inclusion schemes, and a culture of intolerance. Informed by his experiences at Newsnight<\/em> alongside other prestige shows, this major investigation reveals how the BBC took a side in the culture wars.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read more The end of Japanese pacifism<\/a><\/p>\n

He draws on extensive interviews with current and former staff \u2014 including journalists at the very top. Speaking out for the first time since leaving the Corporation, Fran Unsworth, the former director of BBC News, reveals in an explosive interview: \u201cI would actually say it drove me out, just dealing with the progressive editorial issues and the bullying around them all. It was incredibly difficult.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

But has the BBC learned from its mistakes? Only last November, Tim Davie, the former director-general, had to resign in disgrace over the issue of impartiality. And as his successor Matt Brittin prepares to take office next week, Burley asks whether the BBC can still deliver on its founding promise to report without fear or favour.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Burley\u2019s investigation covers the BBC\u2019s capture from 2010 until today:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u201cNo Debate\u201d: The Newsnight row that exposed a new activism<\/strong><\/li>\n
  2. Stonewall, the Style Guide and the drift towards advocacy<\/strong><\/li>\n
  3. How DEI changed the culture<\/strong><\/li>\n
  4. A disastrous reorganisation<\/strong><\/li>\n
  5. The Nolan podcast and the BBC\u2019s Stonewall reckoning<\/strong><\/li>\n
  6. The battle for BBC Online<\/strong><\/li>\n
  7. The Tavistock Files<\/strong><\/li>\n
  8. Exclusive: Fran Unsworth on \u201cprogressive madness\u201d<\/strong><\/li>\n
  9. Matt Brittin\u2019s challenge: can the BBC recover trust?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n
    \n

    Over his 13 years as a senior BBC editor, Rob Burley saw the Corporation\u2019s defining commitment to impartiality undermined by transgender ideology, a blind commitment to diversity and inclusion schemes, and a culture of intolerance. Informed by his experiences at Newsnight<\/em> alongside other prestige shows, this major investigation reveals how the BBC took a side in the culture wars.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    He draws on extensive interviews with current and former staff \u2014 including journalists at the very top. Speaking out for the first time since leaving the Corporation, Fran Unsworth, the former director of BBC News, reveals in an explosive interview: \u201cI would actually say it drove me out, just dealing with the progressive editorial issues and the bullying around them all. It was incredibly difficult.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

    But has the BBC learned from its mistakes? Only last November, Tim Davie, the former director-general, had to resign in disgrace over the issue of impartiality. And as his successor Matt Brittin prepares for his first day next week, Burley asks whether the BBC can still deliver on its founding promise to report without fear or favor.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Burley\u2019s investigation covers the BBC\u2019s capture from 2010 until today:<\/strong><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. \u201cNo Debate\u201d: The Newsnight row that exposed a new activism<\/strong><\/li>\n
    2. Stonewall, the Style Guide and the drift towards advocacy<\/strong><\/li>\n
    3. How DEI changed the culture<\/strong><\/li>\n
    4. A disastrous reorganization<\/strong><\/li>\n
    5. The Nolan podcast and the BBC\u2019s Stonewall reckoning<\/strong><\/li>\n
    6. The battle for BBC Online<\/strong><\/li>\n
    7. The Tavistock Files<\/strong><\/li>\n
    8. Exclusive: Fran Unsworth on \u201cprogressive madness\u201d<\/strong><\/li>\n
    9. Matt Brittin\u2019s challenge: can the BBC recover trust?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      ***<\/p>\n

      We don\u2019t know much about Matt Brittin, the former Google executive who will become director-general of the BBC on Monday, but we must assume that he likes a challenge. When he walks through the doors of Broadcasting House, he will be greeted by a restive staff, demands for further swingeing cuts and doubts about the journalism that, above all else, must be the BBC\u2019s purpose.<\/p>\n

      He has to succeed where his predecessor, Tim Davie, failed, and push savings through without further compromising the BBC\u2019s ability to deliver impartiality. That was what the row that engulfed Davie and the Corporation\u2019s CEO, Deborah Turness, last November was about, and Brittin must fix it. Although the focus of the leaked Michael Prescott memo that triggered the crisis which saw both quit their jobs was misleading editing of a speech by Donald Trump, the kicker was an allegation that producers blocked stories unfavorable to the perspective of transgender rights activists.<\/p>\n

      Davie had never properly addressed the underlying institutional dysfunction that wrought such damage: the decade-long capture of the BBC by a world view that regards any attempt to discuss the issues around transgender rights to be hurtful and transphobic. Davie\u2019s failure to grasp the journalistic implications of this is best exemplified by his use, as late as 2024, of the lazy mantra: \u201cWe have to be kind and caring in this and listen to people, and be nice<\/i>!\u201d<\/p>\n

      But is Brittin, another 50-something non-journalist who is happy to display his woke credentials on the trans issue, too similar to his predecessor? The similarities between the two men don\u2019t inspire confidence and the BBC\u2019s record isn\u2019t good. It took a side in the culture war. It allowed its pursuit of younger audiences and an obsession with Diversity & Inclusion to skew its editorial judgment and marginalize women. This investigation exposes the extent of that capture. Based on my own experiences at the BBC, and numerous conversations over many months with members of staff, past and present, it reveals the scale of the problem and the difficult task ahead.<\/p>\n

      Assessing the damage, one former senior BBC executive who worked closely with Davie is particularly damning. \u200b\u201cI\u2019ve never been an enemy of Tim\u2019s,\u201d he tells me, \u201cbut I think that shows, again, his inability to understand what journalism does. He\u2019s not a journalist. And that\u2019s the problem.\u201d One senior presenter despairs for an organization out of touch with its license-fee payers: \u201cWe seem obsessed with drag queens. We are in a terrible mess at the BBC.\u201d Another wants drastic action: \u201cThere\u2019s no sign of anyone getting a grip on anything,\u201d he tells me. \u201cThe only solution is getting rid of them all. It\u2019s like cutting out cancer. You have to just do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

      \u201cNo Debate\u201d: The Newsnight<\/em> row that exposed a new activism<\/strong><\/h5>\n

      For me, it all started on a Newsnight <\/i>shift in 2014 when Frank Maloney, the boxing promoter, announced he was now a woman and his name was Kellie.<\/p>\n

      Born Frank in Peckham in 1953, Maloney enjoyed a stellar career as a boxing manager and promoter who helped guide Lennox Lewis to become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. Frank, a chirpy Cockney, and a tiny bit menacing, retired in 2013 and began living quietly as a transgender woman. Only when the papers came sniffing in the summer of 2014 did Kellie Maloney come out on the front page of the Sunday Mirror<\/i>.<\/p>\n

      It was hardly a new idea, but it was still a shock to see Kellie, transformed by a neat little bob. British culture had tended to play trans for laughs, most memorably in the guise of the unseen, deep-voiced transgender woman taxi-driver Babs in the BBC comedy The League of Gentlemen<\/i>, and the bearded man in a dress insisting he was, despite the evidence, \u201ca lady\u201d on the less brilliant Little Britain,<\/i> but the respectful reception in the boxing community, of all places,\u00a0suggested attitudes were changing.<\/p>\n

      Approval was not unanimous, however. Feminist commentators noted that Maloney, then 61, had enjoyed decades as a man in a macho sport. Was it really fair that he was able to benefit from all those years as a man and then just turn around and expect to be treated as a woman? It was an interesting question, so I commissioned a discussion for Newsnight<\/i> that was designed to be broad and discursive.<\/p>\n

      \u200bI approached the issue with sympathy, no agenda and little deep understanding. I assumed everyone knew the difference between a man identifying as a woman and the full Aretha Franklin: a natural born woman. I was unaware of how uncompromising many activists were on the subject. Arguments about issues such as self-ID had yet to hit the mainstream and my basic knowledge had been shaped by Channel 4\u2019s My Transsexual Summer,<\/i> which had aired in 2011. It was a sympathetic portrayal of transgender young people and what seemed to me to be their deep and sincere desire to live as the opposite sex. When it came to Kellie Maloney, \u200bI didn\u2019t think Maloney\u2019s years as macho Frank meant he should continue to suppress what he regarded as his true self.<\/p>\n

      I was keen to explore the issue and give a new generation of transactivists the chance to make their case in an impartial setting. What I was about to learn the hard way was that this new generation rejected debate.<\/p>\n

      \u200bIt fell to the producer \u2014 we\u2019ll call him Mark \u2014 to assemble a panel. We weren\u2019t looking for conflict but wanted to begin a conversation that hadn\u2019t been had yet about Maloney, women\u2019s spaces and the aspirations of the new transactivism. Mark booked Paris Lees, a high-profile transgender woman who celebrated Maloney\u2019s choice. To understand the nuance, we also wanted to hear from a transgender man, so we booked Freddy McConnell, best known as \u201cthe man who had given birth\u201d, also known as a biological woman.<\/p>\n

      But we needed some grit in the oyster: a guest who could help us explore the implications of biological sex giving way to gender identity. The two women Mark sounded out had received death threats after speaking out on the subject and being labeled as TERFS: \u201cTrans Exclusionary Radical Feminists.\u201d It simply wasn\u2019t worth the grief, they said wearily. When Mark posted on Twitter to ask the formidable radical feminist Julie Bindel to take part, the online activists lost it. Bindel, knowing the risks better than we did, declined the invitation.<\/p>\n

      \u200bMark pressed on and eventually struck gold with Miranda Yardley. Yardley \u2014 a transgender woman who sympathized with the concerns of gender-critical feminists like Bindel \u2014 was already asking questions about the difficult issues surrounding biological men demanding access to spaces reserved for women. \u201cThe demand for unrestricted access to female spaces,\u201d Yardley had written, \u201cthat exist for the dignity, comfort and protection of women, concerns me greatly.\u201d<\/p>\n

      \u200bI was pleased. A discussion between three transgender people was unusual and interesting, even if it was slightly weighted in favor of Lees\u2019s and McConnell\u2019s approach. But the reaction on Twitter when we announced the line-up was less enthusiastic. The online activists thought including an actual transgender woman with a different set of opinions was transphobic.<\/p>\n

      Mark was clearly shaken by all the abuse filling his Twitter feed. A section of the transgender community were piling in, calling Yardley a TERF \u2014 though I don\u2019t know how you can be both trans and \u201ctrans exclusionary\u201d \u2014 and there was abuse directed at Mark too, sharing his account name, calling him \u201cscum\u201d.<\/p>\n

      \u200bWe carried on, regardless. But then, at 8:48pm, less than two hours before the start of Newsnight<\/i>, Lees took to Twitter:<\/p>\n

      \u200bI\u2019ve turned @BBCNewsnight down as I\u2019m not prepared to enter into a fabricated debate about trans people\u2019s right to exist\/express themselves.<\/p>\n

      McConnell, already in a cab to the studio, wasn\u2019t far behind:<\/p>\n

      \u200bWas going to go on @BBCNewsnight but thanks to this awesome trans community, found out it\u2019s basically a TERF-filled trap.<\/p>\n

      Lees\u2019s reasoning was disingenuous. We weren\u2019t debating transgender people\u2019s right to exist: the entire panel was made up of transgender people existing and expressing themselves. And the transgender woman McConnell labeled a TERF was outnumbered two to one. Where was the trap? Instead, it looked like the pair decided to pull out as soon as they learned Yardley was booked. An alternative trans viewpoint was a threat. A discussion was unthinkable. And so, the mighty Newsnight<\/i> was forced to drop a sane and serious discussion on what it means to be transgender because two intolerant transgender people misrepresented our agenda and closed down the debate.<\/p>\n

      The transactivist tactics \u2014 Twitter storms, name-calling, disingenuous accusations and the insistence on \u201cno debate\u201d \u2014 have become all too familiar in the years since. And the feeling that the BBC was being policed and manipulated by activists only grew stronger as their hold on the corporation grew more pernicious. But as we were to discover, this had been going on under the surface for some time.<\/p>\n

      Stonewall, the Style Guide and the drift towards advocacy<\/strong><\/h5>\n

      A year or so later \u2014 after I\u2019d left the program \u2014 the entire Newsnight<\/i> team was summoned for a special event: Newsnight<\/i> meets the transactivists, hosted by transgender media pressure group All About Trans. \u201cWe kind of all had to go,\u201d one staffer remembers. \u201cIt was almost a three-line whip thing. And we were all paired with a trans person when we got there.\u201d<\/p>\n

      I know of no other campaign group able to secure the attendance of an entire program team, including the then-lead Newsnight<\/i> presenter Evan Davis. Davis, according to one attendee, \u201cwas much more critical [of transactivists] in those days than he is now\u201d, and he pushed back strongly when they tried to tell him the sorts of guests they didn\u2019t want to see on Newsnight<\/i>. \u201cYou can\u2019t dictate who we have on,\u201d he told them, \u201cthat\u2019s not what we do.\u201d Unlike the encounters between transactivists and concerned feminists, or those that took place online, the event was cordial.<\/p>\n

      The connections between trans campaigners and the media ran deep. In 2011, before most of us were paying attention, the lobby group Trans Media Action persuaded the BBC and Channel 4 to stump up \u00a320,000 to get them up and running. Following the investment, which went unnoticed at the time, Trans Media Action, which later became All About Trans, held dozens of workshops for senior BBC staff providing guidance on how to handle transgender people and their pronouns. These workshops included activists from the now-discredited charity Mermaids and various pressure groups.<\/p>\n

      In 2013, representatives met various BBC executives \u2014 sometimes at the swanky Langham Hotel next to BBC HQ \u2014 including Steve Herrmann, the boss of BBC News Online at the time, and Colin Tregear, an advisor to the BBC Complaints Unit, as well as other gatekeepers of the broadcaster\u2019s impartiality. Their message was that the BBC should refer to transgender people by the gender they identify with rather than their biological sex as well as using preferred terminology such as \u201cassigned male\/female at birth\u201d as opposed to \u201cborn a man\/woman\u201d.<\/p>\n

      Such was their sway that when a new BBC Style Guide \u2014 the internal rule book that applied to BBC journalists \u2014 arrived in November 2013, it had adopted the transactivist position. If you said you were a woman, then that\u2019s what you were. It also asserted that \u201cHomosexual means people of either sex who are attracted to people of their own gender\u201d, a contentious statement since it suggests sexual attraction is driven by gender rather than sex.<\/p>\n

      It was the BBC\u2019s job to resist being carried along on a wave of activism and concentrate on impartiality but too many of its staff, including its executives, were predisposed to view the transactivist position as inherently progressive and therefore good. By absorbing the transactivist world view, the new Style Guide seriously compromised the BBC\u2019s ability to be impartial when the controversy around the issue exploded a few years later. But that wasn\u2019t the only problem.<\/p>\n

      In 2015, having delivered marriage equality for gays and lesbians, the hugely successful lobby group Stonewall decided to focus its energies on transgender rights. This was a perfectly legitimate move \u2014 although an ultimately disastrous one \u2014 which became a big problem for the BBC. At the time that Stonewall made this fateful decision, the Corporation was already a paying member of Stonewall\u2019s Diversity Champions program which offered advice, \u201cinclusion strategies\u201d and a nice logo to advertise your commitment to diversity. It was also registered with Stonewall\u2019s Workplace Equality Index. The more the BBC reflected Stonewall\u2019s approach in its internal policies, the higher it scored on the Index, and it was keen to do well as the nascent diversity and equality movement took hold within the management. So, when Stonewall added the letter \u201cT\u201d to the \u201cLGB\u201d, giving fresh impetus and credibility to the transgender rights agenda, the BBC found itself aligned with one side of the argument.<\/p>\n

      This seamlessly embedded the politics of transgender self-ID into the BBC\u2019s HR and corporate policy, just as the Style Guide had embedded it into its journalism. The BBC, we should note, wasn\u2019t an outlier. This was happening everywhere. And there was no resistance. As Gavin Allen, a senior manager and member of the BBC News Board from 2014 to 2021, remembers it, people were blinded by the power of the Stonewall brand. \u201cStonewall was a credible organisation,\u201d he tells me. \u201cIf they said \u2018X, Y, Z,\u2019 we thought, \u2018Oh, Stonewall, oh God, maybe they\u2019re right, and we\u2019re on the wrong side of history.\u2019 Then you realize, \u2018Wait a minute. This is horseshit.\u2019 But unfortunately, that was way too late.\u201d<\/p>\n

      \u201cI heard that phrase, the \u2018wrong side of history\u2019, in so many bloody meetings,\u201d remembers one very senior executive I spoke to. Meanwhile, women were speaking up but being ignored. The BBC seemed to work on the basis that if it was OK with Stonewall, then there was no need to check.<\/p>\n

      As a result, many at the BBC unthinkingly placed Stonewall and all its ideas firmly in the basket marked \u201cgood\u201d, with no discussion. Critical thinking \u2014 asking whether you could genuinely draw an analogy between gay rights and transgender rights \u2014 risked putting you on the \u201cwrong side of history\u201d, and so it was best avoided. As one senior presenter tells me, this led to a disastrous category error: \u201cMany people just believed the lie that this was gay rights 2.0. This was the same struggle, unfinished business from the gay rights movement, when it was nothing of the sort. It\u2019s completely contradictory to the gay rights movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

      The two campaigns are fundamentally different. The fight for equal marriage asked nothing of others except the setting aside of discriminatory attitudes \u2014 whether rooted in homophobia or religious conviction \u2014 about gay relationships. It demanded no one alter their understanding of reality. Transgender rights, as advanced by Stonewall, asked something categorically greater: that people accept transgender women as biological women in law, in language, and in practice \u2014 including in single-sex spaces. That is not a prejudice to be overcome. It is a question on which reasonable people, including many gay men and lesbians, profoundly disagree.<\/p>\n

      There are, of course, people who are simply transphobic \u2014 who hate transgender people for being trans. But those who oppose self-ID, the use of puberty blockers, or the opening of women\u2019s spaces to biological males should not be branded as bigots. They are raising legitimate questions about the consequences of a specific set of policies.<\/p>\n

      And yet those who were there at the time struggle to explain how the BBC got itself into this position. \u201cI don\u2019t think I was ever at a meeting where a policy was agreed saying \u2018trans women are women\u2019,\u201d Gavin Allen recalled, \u201cit just sort of seeped in.\u201d<\/p>\n

      And yet, it was there in black and white in the BBC\u2019s Style Guide.<\/p>\n

      \u201cI mean, that\u2019s fucking awful,\u201d Allen says when I remind him. \u201c\u2026 I just don\u2019t remember any debate about it.\u201d It clearly troubles Allen that, to some extent, when inside the BBC bubble, this huge story passed him by. \u201cI genuinely can\u2019t remember how strongly I felt about this issue,\u201d he says. \u201cI certainly felt miles more strongly once I left, weirdly.\u201d<\/p>\n

      In the years that followed, as the debate became more intense and public opinion hardened against the demands of transactivism, the BBC had to live with its decision. Impartiality is difficult at the best of times; it is almost impossible when you appear to have publicly taken a side.<\/p>\n

      ***<\/b><\/p>\n

      In January 2017, the BBC led the news with the commutation by President Barack Obama of the WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning. Cath Leng was a chief writer for the channel, and she was struggling with Manning\u2019s pronouns; Manning now identified as a woman called Chelsea and the BBC scripts, as per the Style Guide, referred to Manning as she\/her throughout. Leng\u2019s position required a commitment to accuracy and impartiality and as she remembers: \u201cIt was my job to make sure everything was true. I said, \u2018You have to give me reasons why I should lie about this person\u2019s sex. Really good reasons.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

      So Leng set to work on the pronouns, changing them from \u201cshe\u201d to \u201che\u201d to the outrage of some of her colleagues. Reaching an impasse, the subject was taken to the \u201chuddle\u201d of news editors in charge that day. Leng was overruled; from then on, for her, everything changed. \u201cI was ostracized,\u201d she remembers. There were some staffers who were sympathetic but they weren\u2019t willing to back her up publicly. She was up against a generation of younger staff who were suspicious of anyone who questioned the right to self-identify, and who were backed up by the Style Guide. \u201cIt was a war of attrition.\u201d she says. \u201cThey wear you down.\u201d<\/p>\n

      Leng argues forcefully that she is neither a bigot nor a transphobe; her objection is based on what she considered to be the principal duty of a journalist: to tell the truth. Her refusal to back down was rewarded with disciplinary action. Ultimately, she won, but left the BBC in 2023, effectively forced out after 25 years, she believes, because of her views.<\/p>\n

      Leng\u2019s objection \u2014 the sacrifice of truth \u2014 is a powerful one. As one long-serving presenter put it to me: \u201cIt\u2019s the only area of our professional life where we\u2019re told you have to say things that aren\u2019t true.\u201d<\/p>\n

      How DEI changed the culture<\/strong><\/h5>\n

      In October 2017, the then-prime minister, Theresa May, put transgender issues on the political agenda by announcing at a PinkNews<\/em> Awards that she wanted to \u201cdemedicalize\u201d the process of applying for a Gender Recognition Certificate: by scrapping the requirement for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. This was \u201cSelf-ID\u201d.<\/p>\n

      On the night May announced her plans, a self-identified transgender woman using the name Karen White \u2014 real name Stephen Wood \u2014 was spending another night in New Hall women\u2019s prison in Yorkshire, where he\u2019d been sent because he identified as a woman. He had already carried out a series of sexual assaults against female prisoners, but remained there while the offenses were investigated. The following year, Wood was sentenced to life in prison for a catalog of violent sexual offenses.<\/p>\n

      This was exactly the danger women concerned about allowing biological men into women\u2019s spaces had highlighted. They weren\u2019t suggesting that transgender women were more likely to offend, but opposed making it easier for men to declare themselves women because it risked making access to victims \u2014 whether in prisons, women\u2019s refuges or changing-rooms \u2014 easier for offenders like Wood. Biological men in women\u2019s spaces was not a popular idea; it just took time to register with the public.<\/p>\n

      Meanwhile, trans-rights activism continued to gain ground. The politics of intimidation and the fear of cancellation were winning, supported by Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) or Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives \u2014 an alphabet soup in which the BBC would slowly drown.<\/p>\n

      On the face of it, it\u2019s hard to argue with the goals of Diversity and Inclusion: a more diverse workforce working in an environment where everyone is heard. The initiative had gripped the corporate world, and it was spreading rapidly into the public sector. But there was a problem: it was so enthusiastically embraced at the BBC that it became part of its brand and shaped its character.<\/p>\n

      The conversation quickly shifted from how to increase representation behind the scenes to the content itself: were the guest choices diverse enough? Did the content reflect the barriers and prejudices faced by a given community? How did the content sit with the BBC\u2019s statements on diversity and inclusivity?<\/p>\n

      Across the organization, and way beyond news, content became noticeably more diverse. This was not a bad thing. But problems arose when the content began to lean towards propagandizing. Coverageof the emerging movement opposing May\u2019s Self-ID plan, for example, was essentially nonexistent, and the films I commissioned for Politics Live<\/i> represented the sum total of BBC TV coverage over the consultation period. As one BBC staffer recalled: \u201cYou\u2019d switch on your computer in the morning, and there would be a message from Stonewall, effectively, saying, \u2018We\u2019ve cracked it. We\u2019ve become diversity champions!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

      Meanwhile, though BBC drama, entertainment and kids\u2019 programming worked to highlight the transgender experience, a feminist concerned about single-sex spaces was unlikely to be heard \u2014 or even allowed to articulate a view. \u201cThere\u2019s no two ways about it,\u201d Allen says. \u201cIt was definitely a kind of capture.\u201d<\/p>\n

      There is an obscure but extraordinary document on the BBC website, which tells you a lot about the character of that capture and how antithetical it is to BBC values. \u201c\u201d summarizes a 2018 study into the culture and work environment for LGBT staff at the BBC. It assessed their career progression, and whether the working culture discriminated against them. Designed by Stonewall, the project was overseen by the former cabinet minister James Purnell, then the BBC\u2019s director for radio and education, and whose foreword points out that almost half of 18-24-year-olds identify as something other than heterosexual. The foreword adds that \u201can organization that appears to have a heteronormative culture is not one that is going to cut ice with them either as a consumer or an employee\u201d.<\/p>\n

      The BBC\u2019s pride co-chairs at that time \u2014 Karen Millington and Matt Weaver \u2014 also wrote a foreword. In it, they announced a decision to drop the use of \u201cLGBT\u201d and move to \u201cLGBTQ+\u201d, to ensure that everyone identifying as \u201cgenderqueer, bisexual, gay, lesbian, transgender, non-binary, pansexual, intersex, asexual, queer and questioning\u201d feels included. In addition, the pair make several recommendations to improve the lot of LGBT people working for the BBC. All were granted and signed off at the very top of the organization.<\/p>\n

      The report is really interesting because it openly states a position that is rarely committed to paper:<\/p>\n

      \u201cThere was a general feeling that News & Current Affairs output often presents balanced debates on LGBT issues, which were at odds with the BBC\u2019s corporate stance on LGBT inclusion, which seemed to be invisible.\u201d<\/p>\n

      This line has been described to me by a senior presenter at the BBC as a \u201csmoking gun\u201d. It reveals that these BBC employees were hostile to the journalistic principles of impartiality and balance when it came to debates about LGBT issues. Instead, they believed that the BBC\u2019s corporate position on LGBT inclusion should be promoted and valued over and above \u201cbalanced debates\u201d.<\/p>\n

      This statement, which contravenes the BBC\u2019s core value of impartiality, is presented without comment as a \u201cfinding\u201d in a document signed off by the Executive Board. In case there is any doubt about what was being said, Andrew Young, the BBC\u2019s head of workplace diversity, inclusion and belonging, said the quiet part out loud during a Zoom meeting with LGBT allies in 2019: \u201cI\u2019m not going to get into impartiality. It\u2019s not my view, it\u2019s the BBC\u2019s view that we need to present a balanced view and debate. Hopefully, that kind of thing might change over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

      According to Allen, there was something else impeding impartial coverage \u2014 what he describes as the \u201cconstant thumping drum in the background saying we must reach out to younger people\u201d. The result, he says, was a news operation \u201cpandering\u201d to younger journalists whose opinions on trans and identity began to dominate. Decades of experience, particularly if gathered by \u201ccis\u201d straight white men over 40, were dismissed. \u201cNo one could say what they honestly thought,\u201d Allen tells me, \u201cyou\u2019d be a kind of pariah and reactionary if you did.\u201d<\/p>\n

      Leng had discovered this to her cost two years before. And things were about to get worse.<\/p>\n

      A disastrous reorganization<\/strong><\/h5>\n

      Tim Davie arrived as Director General in September 2020, and quickly decided to push through a disastrous reorganization of BBC News \u2014 drawn up by the Director of News Fran Unsworth \u2014 before the Covid pandemic delayed its implementation. The cuts centralized editorial decision-making while also hollowing out the ranks of experienced editorial staff. The editorial risks involved were significant, but Davie pressed on regardless.<\/p>\n

      Those who remained tell me that the effect was felt swiftly, as the mass cull of journalists led to the rapid promotion of junior staff \u2014 or \u201cMuppets\u201d as one veteran unfairly put it \u2014 and an over-reliance on freelancers. One senior producer recalls returning to BBC News after the reorganization to find the BBC \u201chad changed beyond all recognition. The foot soldiers were very, very young and very different.\u201d<\/p>\n

      Another staffer on Newsnight<\/i> recalls open hostility from younger colleagues towards the BBC board member and former adviser to Theresa May, Sir Robbie Gibb, when he went to visit the team at the invitation of the show\u2019s editor. \u201cI just remember really vividly coming out of that meeting, and these two young producers were saying, \u2018Oh, who the fuck does he think he is? He hates the BBC. He\u2019s a \u2018fucking Tory\u2019.\u201d This was, the staffer remembers, a completely new breed of journalist: \u201cThey were complete activists. They had no concept of impartiality or what the purpose of the BBC was.\u201d<\/p>\n

      Amid the cull, the BBC lost a large cohort of journalists who were genuinely interested in impartiality \u2014 a more suburban, less transgressive group. With them, a whole set of attitudes disappeared.<\/p>\n

      And while many senior positions were axed, some new ones were created. The BBC\u2019s first LGBT correspondent started work in 2018. Ben Hunte would report on \u201cstories, issues and debates surrounding sexuality and gender\u201d, and provide \u201cinsight and analysis on matters affecting the LGBT community in the UK\u201d.<\/p>\n

      The BBC has always denied that it created the post at Stonewall\u2019s behest, but Hunte was openly sympathetic to one side of the argument \u2014 their side. The effect was to magnify the sense that the BBC was a participant in Stonewall\u2019s campaign. It wasn\u2019t really Hunte\u2019s fault; it was an impossible job that shouldn\u2019t have been created. Another journalist sums it up: \u201cIt was a complete disaster, and actually senior management would accept that. They wouldn\u2019t go on the record and say it, but they\u2019ve said it to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

      As a result, Stonewall, channeled through the BBC\u2019s diversity team, was able to pursue its agenda across the organization unchallenged. \u201cWe were like kids who had got off tricycles and were trying to ride motorbikes,\u201d one senior manager tells me. \u201cPeople just didn\u2019t know enough about how to deal with this new world of equality. I don\u2019t think anyone took time to try and understand it.\u201d<\/p>\n

      As D&I thrived, impartiality was an after-thought. Davie always sounded like he was reading someone else\u2019s script when he talked about impartiality and journalism, but was more authentic when it came to D&I. He constantly reaffirmed the importance of diversity and told managers (including me) that they \u201cwill not get promoted without us assessing how happy your staff are<\/i> and how you\u2019ve delivered against diversity targets\u201d. Hardly a manifesto to deal with the problem of groupthink.<\/p>\n

      One veteran journalist at the BBC who knows Davie well thinks he understood the problem. \u201cTim is a classic,\u201d he tells me. \u201cHe\u2019s a normal guy, normal instincts, and a perfectly nice fellow. He understands intellectually what\u2019s going on, but can\u2019t do anything about it because he feels himself cornered in a way that I don\u2019t think realistically he was.\u201d<\/p>\n

      The Nolan podcast and the BBC\u2019s Stonewall reckoning<\/strong><\/h5>\n

      Luckily the BBC is not its Director General. It is its journalists, its mission of delivering impartial coverage, its commitment to the truth. Those, like me, who are critical of the way that the BBC has handled the transgender issue aren\u2019t primarily concerned with the substance of the debate so much as the principle that a service paid for by everyone should not favor one side of the argument and marginalize the other. Nor can that be excused because the favored side is more progressive or fairer or more forward-thinking. Those are opinions not facts.<\/p>\n

      While the BBC\u2019s management lost sight of all of that, it fell to what Cath Leng calls the \u201crogue\u201d elements in the BBC \u2014 from the English regions, Northern Ireland and Newsnight<\/i> \u2014 to save the BBC from itself. \u201cNone of it came from the center,\u201d Leng tells me, \u201cand everything that came from the center was very affirmative.\u201d<\/p>\n

      No wonder David Thompson, producer of a 2021 BBC Radio Ulster podcast series Stonewall<\/i>, Nolan Investigates<\/i>, thought his podcast might never air. For one thing, his series was a masterclass in impartiality \u2014 risking ferocious accusations of transphobia. For another, it was utterly damning for the BBC. The podcast, presented by Stephen Nolan, focused on the worryingly close relationship between Stonewall and all the public institutions that had signed up to its Diversity Champions Scheme \u2014 awkwardly including the BBC. Across the 10-part series, it laid bare the intimate relationship between the Corporation and the charity, and how that might affect editorial content.<\/p>\n

      Before the project got its official go-ahead, Thompson and Nolan submitted to an unprecedented pitching session to the BBC\u2019s great and good on Zoom \u2014 unprecedented because London rarely paid much attention to something that was being made in Northern Ireland. The virtual room, Thompson remembers, was not enthusiastic.<\/p>\n

      One senior manager was furious, asking Thompson who he thought he was to question people\u2019s gender identity \u2014 despite the fact that this wasn\u2019t a part of the pitch. Crucially, however, the most senior person in the room took a different view. Fran Unsworth, whose reputation for cautiousness had worried Thompson, spoke up and settled the matter: \u201cThis is a really important piece of journalism, and we will back it.\u201d<\/p>\n

      Unsworth\u2019s intervention meant that the series ran, but many employees weren\u2019t happy about it. \u201cOverwhelmingly, people in the BBC didn\u2019t like the fact that it happened,\u201d remembers Thompson, \u201cthey felt it was some sort of Right-wing plot against trans people or something.\u201d At every stage, he says, there was push-back and even sabotage with promises of accompanying online pieces being made and then broken.<\/p>\n

      Read more How Trump and the neocons beat Thomas Massie<\/a><\/p>\n

      \u201cIn London,\u201d he continues, \u201cBBC online stripped back the online version of the story so far that the article became neutered. But by that stage, I couldn\u2019t be bothered with the fight. At every stage there was resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n

      But the resistance receded when the listening numbers came through. Despite minimal promotion, and all that difficulty with BBC Online, Nolan and Thompson had a hit on their hands. \u201cAnd then,\u201d Thompson told me, \u201ceveryone wanted a piece. And some people who had not wanted anything to do with it were attaching themselves to it and congratulating themselves on their bravery\u201d<\/p>\n

      The podcast made such a convincing case of a conflict of interest that the relationship between the BBC and Stonewall became untenable. By November, the BBC, very reluctantly, left the Diversity Champion\u2019s Scheme, not because there was undue influence coming from Stonewall, you understand, but because it might look that way. Nolan Investigates: Stonewall<\/i> should have marked a turning point, but insider attitudes didn\u2019t shift.<\/p>\n

      The battle for BBC Online<\/strong><\/h5>\n

      The real problem, as David Thompson found, was online. \u201cIt\u2019s been known about for years\u201d one senior BBC journalist told me \u201cnobody did anything, and they were warned.\u201d<\/p>\n

      In 2021, one senior manager wrote a confidential memo expressing concern about the volume of trans-related content appearing on the BBC News website\u2019s homepage. It was, he wrote, disproportionate, always affirmative and dangerous: \u201cin doing so we perhaps fail to explore more fully the wider debate over the important societal issues involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

      Numerous members of staff I have spoken to have echoed those concerns. Online is the part of BBC News where the sense of capture is most acute. Staff would describe it as a place where metropolitan identity politics is the norm, and where women worried about single-sex spaces and the risk of violence were disdained and regarded as extremists. \u201cThe level of hatred for women who raise these issues is quite shocking,\u201d one tells me. \u201cIt\u2019s actually quite upsetting. I find it very, very hard on a personal level, both professionally and actually personally, to be perceived in this way.\u201d<\/p>\n

      Caroline Lowbridge, a BBC journalist based in Nottingham, found this out the hard way. She came to the website in 2021 with a feature about lesbians who were facing pressure to have sex with transgender women, and who were being called transphobic if they didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

      Her story represented one of the most troubling and bizarre aspects of the transgender argument:\u00a0Stonewall, of all organizations, was castigating lesbians for not being sexually attracted to penises. The chief executive of Stonewall at the time, Nancy Kelley, even suggested that same-sex attraction was akin to sexual racism, when people exclude potential romantic partners on the grounds of their ethnicity.<\/p>\n

      Kelley was alerted to the article when Lowbridge contacted Stonewall for comment. Kelley swiftly followed up with Kamal Ahmed, the editorial director of BBC News, expressing concern that the allegations in the piece \u201cneatly intersected with the component of transphobia that is representing trans women as sexual predators\u201d<\/p>\n

      Ahmed passed the concern onto Lowbridge\u2019s line manager, commenting that the territory was a \u201cbit niche\u201d, but he didn\u2019t try to stop the story. The same can\u2019t be said for numerous others within the BBC who accused Lowbridge of transphobia and her piece of misgendering and mis-use of language. One senior staffer told Lowbridge in an email that the trans community \u201cis already massively under attack, both physically and culturally\u201d.<\/p>\n

      Lowbridge\u2019s response was weary but determined: \u201cI\u2019ve been attacked on social media, and the chief executive of Stonewall has contacted the BBC News Editorial Director to complain about me. The story has now been through 18 different people within the BBC (at the last count) and has still not been published.\u201d<\/p>\n

      Once again, Fran Unsworth had to intervene to get the story out. And when it finally appeared, there was a sting in the tail: the article carried Lowbridge\u2019s name in the byline. Given the nature of the story and the strong opposition to it, it would be reasonable to be given the opportunity to remain anonymous. But I have heard reports that Lowbridge\u2019s bosses were insistent that she put her name to it. Perhaps they thought she might finally back down and decide against publishing the story.<\/p>\n

      When the article was finally published, there were anti-BBC protests on the streets of Lowbridge\u2019s hometown, Nottingham, and a demo outside New Broadcasting House. But the fact that it made it at all was a minor miracle. One BBC online staff member couldn\u2019t believe their eyes: \u201cI thought, Wow! Finally, we\u2019re actually covering it.\u201d<\/p>\n

      We will never know how many stories were quietly abandoned or actively suppressed.<\/p>\n

      The Tavistock Files<\/strong><\/h5>\n

      Perhaps one of the most consequential stories that actually made it through to broadcast examined one of the most worrying aspects of the whole transgender debate: children.<\/p>\n

      Deborah Cohen and Hannah Barnes \u2014 both Newsnight<\/i> journalists \u2014 had spent two years doing what the rest of the BBC\u2019s news operation conspicuously wasn\u2019t: investigating concerns, first raised in 2019, regarding the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at the Tavistock Clinic in London \u2014 Britain\u2019s only specialist service for children seeking to transition. Backed by an independent editor, Esme Wren, their forensic reporting revealed that puberty blockers were being prescribed without sufficient evidence of benefit; that there was an overly affirmative culture that reinforced patients\u2019 desire to transition; and there was a climate in which staff were discouraged from raising doubts. Delivered amid the usual accusations of transphobic bigotry, their work triggered an official investigation into the service and significantly contributed to its closure.<\/p>\n

      In April 2024, the Cass Report \u2014 four years in the making \u2014 delivered its damning verdict. It was the lead story on Newsnight<\/i>. Cohen and Barnes had both left the programme by then, but Barnes returned as a guest to discuss it with Victoria Derbyshire.<\/p>\n

      The first person asked to comment was Hannah Philips, a transgender woman who\u2019d had a positive experience at the GIDS clinic. This was nothing new. Whenever Cohen and Barnes had reported on the service, there was pressure to include \u201cpositive\u201d transgender voices to offset the negative nature of the story. Even when the evidence was in and the verdict delivered, the instinct was still to soften it.<\/p>\n

      Barnes was genuinely angry as she talked about how long it had taken for anything to be done. Where were the politicians? \u201cWhere have large swathes of the media been? And sadly, I include the BBC in that, outside of this programme.\u201d<\/p>\n

      It was clear that an NHS scandal of the first order had been ignored entirely by the BBC\u2019s health team. One senior staff member at the BBC I spoke to thinks it was simply down to fear. \u201cI do think the department has just dropped the ball. I have a lot of time for Hugh Pym [the BBC\u2019s health editor]. He\u2019s a sweet guy, and the other health correspondents are good, but my God, what an absolutely extraordinary fact that they just avoided this subject for all those years.\u201d<\/p>\n

      Exclusive: Fran Unsworth on \u201cprogressive madness\u201d inside BBC News
      \n<\/b><\/h5>\n

      As I came to write this piece, I wanted the most senior managers of BBC News to be held accountable and to explain their side of the story. Only one, Gavin Allen, was willing to go on the record. But then, my long-shot interview bid for the former director of news at the BBC, Fran Unsworth, came off.\u00a0She is closely associated with the failure of BBC News to get a grip of the problem, and yet was also instrumental in supporting the journalism that salvaged BBC News\u2019 reputation.<\/p>\n

      Unsworth was never your average BBC News executive. She was a grammar-school girl from Stoke-on-Trent and she went to Manchester University, not Oxbridge. Only the second woman to reach the pinnacle of BBC News, she succeeded James Harding, a charismatic former editor of The Times<\/i> who had failed to address that big question: how could BBC News make the huge savings required after the depletion in the licence fee? This was Unsworth\u2019s unhappy inheritance, and the reorganization she delivered was her malign legacy. It saved money but left BBC News editorially exposed.<\/p>\n

      It has been four years since Unsworth left her post as the most senior person at BBC News, and her account of the job feels like a trauma relived. This exclusive interview is the first she has granted since leaving the newsroom, and is the first account from the very top of the organization of how the culture wars buffeted the BBC. She\u2019s still raw from the experience of doing something she loved in an environment she began to hate. \u201cIt was bullying,\u201d she tells me from Australia, where she now spends half her year. \u201cBut it wasn\u2019t just the trans issue. There was lots and lots of bullying going on about all sorts of things: people didn\u2019t want to hear from certain points of view; they\u2019d \u2018no platform\u2019 them; all that safe-spaces shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

      If you were to identify the high-water mark of what, in the absence of a better word, you might call \u201cwoke\u201d, it would align pretty much exactly with the period between 2018 and 2022 when Unsworth ran BBC News. She believed in the finest traditions of BBC journalism: editorial independence, open and robust internal debate, and impartial and accurate output that doesn\u2019t shy away from difficult subjects.<\/p>\n

      In theory, at least, this combination of old-school BBC editorial toughness and political know-how made her the right leader for the moment. The reality was more complicated. Looking back, she concludes that BBC News had become \u201cincreasingly unmanageable\u201d.<\/p>\n

      In seeking to explain why \u2014 with the handling of the transgender issue in mind \u2014 she returns to the unique environment she encountered in 2018, a time of what she calls \u201cprogressive madness\u201d. \u201cThis wasn\u2019t something that just affected the BBC,\u201d she says. \u201cThe world went mad, and the BBC, because it is part of the world, went a bit mad with it. This was going on in every institution in society; there was a kind of national bullying going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

      I have heard this a lot from other senior executives within the BBC. But it\u2019s a weak defense. The BBC should stand up to bullying, not be driven by it.<\/p>\n

      \u201cIt\u2019s what you might expect of arts institutions or universities,\u201d I say to Unsworth, \u201cbut we are journalists. Journalists are skeptical people. They don\u2019t just lie down. They\u2019re supposed to stand up there and think about it first. And there was an absolute absence of that, and just a complete caving. <\/b>We shouldn\u2019t have done that. That\u2019s not us!\u201d<\/p>\n

      \u200b\u201cI don\u2019t feel I completely caved,\u201d she says, sounding a little stung. \u201cI really don\u2019t, but I do think that it could have done something more robust. The BBC needed to be better than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

      But Unsworth is keen to defend her own staff. She says there was an \u201cawful lot of pressure\u201d from \u201cother parts of the BBC if they felt that the editorial direction of the story was not supporting their particular point of view on it. And maintaining impartiality became quite difficult.\u201d In particular, drama and light entertainment approached the subject from a \u201cmono perspective\u201d, pressuring her staff when dissatisfied with coverage. In this climate, \u201cmaintaining impartiality became quite difficult\u201d.<\/p>\n

      Unsworth\u2019s suggestion that the rest of the BBC was more radical than BBC News echoes what other senior figures have told me. The children\u2019s documentary My Life: I Am Leo<\/i> (2014), for example, could have been scripted by the charity Mermaids. But the suggestion that News\u2019 missteps were driven by pressure from those colleagues is a stretch. Nor is it supported by the experience of the Nolan team or Cath Leng or Caroline Lowbridge. I have spoken to too many people about the concerted pushback from within<\/i> BBC News to believe that employees were doing so under pressure from their right-on friend in the drama department rather than from their own convictions.<\/p>\n

      \u201cAs you well know,\u201d Unsworth tells me, \u201ceditorial decision-making in the BBC isn\u2019t top-down. It\u2019s about editors deciding what they want to put on their programs. And one of the big factors in it is because they took so much heat whenever they went near this subject.\u201d<\/p>\n

      This implies that program editors only avoided the subject out of fear. But, in reality, we know that their decisions were more deliberate. As I put it to Unsworth, on transgender issues some BBC News journalists, including editors, thought that there was only one legitimate viewpoint and that everyone else was wrong. \u201cYeah,\u201d she says, \u201cthat was how it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

      We also know that Stonewall was deeply embedded in the corporation. But Unsworth rejects the accusation that the charity had a direct impact on editorial output: \u201cNobody, ever, ever said to me as Director of News, \u2018you need to get points in the Stonewall league table\u2019.\u201d But, more importantly, she acknowledges that \u201cthere was a sea in which we all swam\u2026 an atmosphere. We need to be kind to transitioning people. It\u2019s a social phenomenon. And I think this \u2018be kind\u2019 <\/i>thing was at the heart of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

      \u201cDo you think that\u2019s a problem journalistically?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n

      \u201cI do, yes. I do,\u201d she replies.<\/p>\n

      \u200b\u201cI think we could have done a lot more,\u201d Unsworth continues. \u201dBut we did set up a whole impartiality training thing, don\u2019t forget, to remind people what impartiality looked like. People went through the whole course. One question you can ask yourself is: why was it so ineffective?\u201d<\/p>\n

      While Unsworth agrees that the problem \u201cwasn\u2019t gripped\u201d, she offers an audacious explanation based on a technical interpretation of impartiality and \u201cdue impartiality\u201d.<\/p>\n

      According to the BBC\u2019s Editorial Guidelines, impartiality means \u201cnot taking sides, reflecting all relevant strands of public debate and challenging them with consistent rigor\u201d. The need for \u201cdue impartiality\u201d arises when treating the two sides of a question equally is inappropriate: the classic example being a discussion between someone who believes the Earth is flat and someone who believes it\u2019s round. Strict impartiality would not be appropriate in such a discussion, because of the overwhelming balance of evidence. There are, of course, less clear-cut issues where the evidence is contested and inconclusive. That doesn\u2019t mean those subjects aren\u2019t covered, of course, but program makers must ensure they are fair.<\/p>\n

      \u200bIt turns out that this concept of \u201cdue impartiality\u201d is the crux of Unsworth\u2019s explanation and defense of BBC News\u2019 handling of the transgender story. Here\u2019s how: \u201cImpartiality only operates when you can look at evidence and facts and point to them as the basis of your reporting on this. And the facts at this point were incredibly disputed.\u201d<\/p>\n

      \u200bBut this changed in April 2025, she tells me, when the Supreme Court made clear that a woman \u2014 for the purposes of the Equality Act \u2014 meant a biological woman. This provided BBC journalists with a \u201cbasis of challenge\u201d against those who insisted men could decide to be women. Prior to the ruling, producers couldn\u2019t judge if one assertion (\u201ctrans women are women\u201d) was any more true than another (\u201ctrans women are not women, they are biological men\u201d).<\/p>\n

      Can this absurd assertion really lie at the heart of the BBC\u2019s trans tangle? Well, Unsworth tells me, \u201cuntil the Supreme Court ruling on it, Keir Starmer himself was saying trans women are women\u201d.<\/p>\n

      Starmer seems a perverse choice of lodestar and the argument seems to make no sense. But then it struck me: the BBC\u2019s Style Guide said that inside the BBC you were a woman if you said you were. It still does. It had already made its choice. The Supreme Court has upended that, Unsworth is saying, so now it\u2019s up for grabs.<\/p>\n

      Unsworth similarly notes that only since the 2024 Cass report on the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust has there been evidence to support judgments about transitioning, detransitioning, puberty blockers, surgery, and cross-sex hormones. While valid, this is an immense simplification of longstanding concerns about GIDS \u2014 concerns that Newsnight<\/i> journalists were investigating long before 2024. Surely producers should have approached content about young people and gender reassignment with caution and a duty of care.<\/p>\n

      \u200bInstead, coverage had been constantly, wildly affirmative. BBC Three pumped out content throughout the 2010s that told only one side of the story. CBBC aired I Am Leo <\/i>in 2014 (it\u2019s since been removed from the BBC iPlayer). Then there was BBC News\u2019 weekday news program, Victoria Derbyshire, <\/i>which launched in 2015. It was obsessed with the transgender issue, and transgender kids especially, from the start. After just six months, Victoria Derbyshire was crowned Broadcaster of the Year by PinkNews,<\/i> which stood proudly as a pro-trans publication. Louisa Compton, the editor of Victoria Derbyshire<\/i>, declared herself \u201creally proud that our first and probably only ever award is a PinkNews<\/i> award\u201d. Fair enough, who wouldn\u2019t want an award? But on this subject the program, particularly in those early days, felt uncomfortably aligned with one side of the argument.<\/p>\n

      \u201cDerbyshire<\/i> was a sort of an \u2018I feel your pain\u2019 type show,\u201d Unsworth says. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t \u2018Let\u2019s look at the issue in the round\u2019. It wasn\u2019t a current affairs program in the same way that Panorama<\/i> is or Newsnight <\/i>was. It was a perfectly legitimate journalistic endeavor.\u201d \u200bThe implication of her answer is that a human-interest-led show doesn\u2019t need to worry about balance and fairness like other news programs.<\/p>\n

      The first item on the first edition of this \u201cperfectly legitimate journalistic endeavor\u201d, aired in 2015, was an \u201cexclusive interview\u201d with two boys who were living as girls, aged six and eight. The conversations with the children focus on \u201cgirl stuff\u201d, \u201cboy stuff\u201d, and being \u201cborn in the wrong body\u201d. There is praise for the Tavistock clinic and discussion of when parents might consider surgery. A follow-up film included the moment when a transgender girl, Jessica, tells Derbyshire about her fear of growing up with a beard and mustache. \u201cWhat do you think you could do, possibly, to stop that happening?\u201d asks Derbyshire. \u201cI\u2019ll get blockers,\u201d said Jessica, aged nine.<\/p>\n

      Cath Leng worked on the program during its early years. She confirms that: \u201cIt was really, really affirmative, and it was impossible to get items or guest ideas that came from a more gender-critical perspective on air.\u201d \u200bUnsworth\u2019s argument is that before the publication of the Cass report in 2024, editors didn\u2019t have the evidence to achieve \u201cdue impartiality\u201d when covering stories about children presenting with gender dysphoria. That would be fine if the programs were scrupulously cautious, neutral and impartial, but, then, that wouldn\u2019t win you a PinkNews<\/i> award.<\/p>\n

      Unsworth says that the BBC couldn\u2019t ignore \u201cthe number of children that were presenting as gender dysphoric\u201d. This is true but I wonder whether the BBC might have contributed to the increase in numbers by airing such affirmative content. Unsworth doesn\u2019t dismiss the idea. \u200b\u201cWe\u2019ll never really know that, will we,\u201d she says, \u201cwithout looking at the timelines on it?\u201d<\/p>\n

      Between 2014, the year I Am Leo <\/i>was broadcast, and 2015, the year Victoria Derbyshire <\/i>began, the number of referrals to GIDS almost doubled. Between 2015 and 2016, that number doubled again. Obviously it\u2019s impossible to ascertain what role, if any, BBC content played in influencing under-18s to transition, given the other complex factors at play. But in any case, Cath Leng believes it was harmful: \u201cI\u2019m convinced that those two programs are responsible for harming children. They need to acknowledge the mistakes they made.\u201d<\/p>\n

      \u200b\u200bUnsworth continues to insist, though, that it wasn\u2019t until last year\u2019s Supreme Court ruling that there were facts that you could use to challenge the \u201ctrans women are women\u201d loyalty test. But I challenged her, suggesting that there were indeed facts: facts about the reality of sex. Asked whether it is not<\/i> a fact that trans women are women, she pauses, before reluctantly answering: \u201cNo. They\u2019re trans women.\u201d<\/p>\n

      I ask whether this made it a lie that BBC staff were asked to tell.<\/p>\n

      \u201cWhat I\u2019m saying to you<\/i>,\u201d Unsworth fires back, \u201cis that if the BBC had decided to say, \u2018Do you know what? We\u2019re not having any truck with this,\u2019 that would have meant the BBC was on one side of the argument. At a time when certain things weren\u2019t determined.\u201d<\/p>\n

      \u200bOf course, the opposite was true: the BBC had already put itself on one side of the controversy, \u201cuntil\u201d, as Unsworth concedes, \u201ccertain stories bubbled up, which meant [we] couldn\u2019t hold the Stonewall point of view any longer.\u201d<\/p>\n

      It\u2019s hard to avoid the sense that Unsworth is constantly hedging on the transgender issue by deploying a useful ambivalence. \u201cI seek to influence and change and bring people along with me,\u201d she says, \u201cthat\u2019s how I operate.\u201d And it would have been risky to lay down the law: \u201cIf Directors of News are seen as partial in any way, they have no role at the BBC.\u201d (And yet some of Unsworth\u2019s former colleagues have told me they\u2019d sometimes leave a meeting feeling certain she was on their side only to realize the hard way that she\u2019d made no firm commitments.)<\/p>\n

      There is, then, a sad paradox to Unsworth\u2019s tenure. She pushed through the catastrophic reorganization in 2021 from which, as she admits, \u201cmany of the problems the BBC faces actually stem\u201d. But she also did more than anyone else in very senior management, with the exception perhaps of David Jordan, the director of editorial policy and standards, to ensure the most impactful pieces of work on the transgender debate did appear \u2014 most notably the Stephen Nolan podcast that helped end the BBC\u2019s relationship with Stonewall. Unsworth admits she saw the podcast as an opportunity to make up for coverage that had been \u201clargely skewed to one side\u201d. And with Lowbridge\u2019s much delayed piece on the \u201ccotton ceiling\u201d, she attempted to demonstrate that staff power did have its limits.<\/p>\n

      Nonetheless, her overwhelming preoccupation was to remain neutral because she knew, from numerous examples, how that same \u201cstaff power\u201d often prevailed at BBC News. \u201cI was only too aware,\u201d she says, \u201cthat I could have been cancelled by my own staff, not just on this subject, but on all sorts of subjects.\u201d The fact that she thought she might be taken down by progressive staff by forcing them to get to grips with a contested subject tells you everything you need to know about where the BBC had ended up.<\/p>\n

      This fear of the threat from some staff to her position and well-being hastened her departure: \u201cI would actually say it drove me out, just dealing with the progressive editorial issues and the bullying around them all. It was incredibly difficult. Actually, it was quite miserable dealing with this hard pounding in the trenches. The BBC is an absolutely fascinating, fantastic place. But I think in this particular period, there was an intensity I hadn\u2019t really experienced throughout my 40-year career there.\u201d<\/p>\n

      Matt Brittin\u2019s challenge: can the BBC recover trust?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

      Fran Unsworth still cares deeply about the BBC and worries about its future. \u201c<\/b>We absolutely need the BBC more than ever in these polarized times,\u201d she tells me. \u201cAnd I think it really does need to be preserved and cherished, not just attacked.\u201d<\/p>\n

      I share her view of the importance of the BBC, but it can\u2019t be an organization that unites people in a time of division if it is seen to represent and promote one particular perspective above others.<\/p>\n

      Even though the overt transactivist presence in the BBC might be more muted in 2026, there are still problems within the organization, including at the Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) \u2014 the part of the BBC that adjudicates on complaints about its output. Last November, in the middle of the crisis surrounding Michael Prescott\u2019s dossier of alleged BBC bias, the ECU upheld a complaint against newsreader Martine Croxall. The intervention chimed with Prescott\u2019s claims that transactivism remained an issue at the BBC.<\/p>\n

      In June 2025, Croxall was live on air when she was confronted with a script line \u2014 apparently lifted directly from a press release \u2014 which referred to \u201cpregnant people\u201d. As she realized what she\u2019d said, she corrected herself and said \u201cwomen\u201d. Then she rolled her eyes. Some viewers, interpreting her eye roll as an expression of deep-seated transphobia rather than simply exasperation, complained. In November, the ECU upheld the complaints on the grounds that \u201cthe facial expression which accompanied the change of \u2018people\u2019 to \u2018women\u2019 laid it open to the interpretation that it indicated a particular viewpoint in the controversies currently surrounding trans identity\u201d. This was evidenced, the ECU suggested, by responses on social media that either congratulated her or castigated her, depending on where they stood on the issue.<\/p>\n

      \u200bIn the middle of that seismic November week for the BBC, the one which took out both the director of news and the Director-General and saw them being sued by President Donald Trump, the Croxall ruling was emblematic of lessons not learned. \u200bThis was not the ECU\u2019s first rodeo. Back in August 2023, during an interview on BBC Radio Four\u2019s Today<\/i> program about an International Chess Federation ban on transgender women from competing in women\u2019s events, veteran Today <\/i>presenter Justin Webb referred to \u201ctrans women, in other words, males\u201d. Since the discussion was about how male brains have an advantage in chess over female ones, it required clarity.<\/p>\n

      Inevitably, there were complaints; extraordinarily, they were upheld by the ECU, which said the phrase Webb used \u201ccould only be understood by listeners as meaning that trans women remain male, without qualification as to gender or biological sex\u201d and that Webb \u201ceven if unintentional, it gave the impression of endorsing one viewpoint in a highly controversial area\u201d. Asked about the ruling in a Select Committee appearance in the aftermath, the then Director-General Tim Davie characterized it as a foot fault \u2014 a very minor offense by Webb \u2014 but a fault nonetheless. In light of last year\u2019s Supreme Court ruling, the verdict looks ridiculous, but it stands.<\/p>\n

      Those close to Webb say he is irritated and a little bruised by the process and is clear that he has done nothing wrong. But he does realize he has got off lightly compared to women such as Cath Leng, who were effectively forced out of their jobs for taking a stand. I understand Webb has taken legal advice and is mulling whether to revisit the matter.<\/p>\n

      I\u2019d suggest the ECU brace itself in the light of email correspondence I have read in relation to the Webb case, which reveals that the body gives credibility to the fantastical theory that men can actually change into women. In one email, the deputy head of program complaints, Dominic Groves, stated to colleagues regarding the Webb case that the belief that sex is \u201cbiological and genetic and therefore cannot be changed\u201d was \u201cvulnerable to the point that many trans advocates (some doctors and scientists among them) say sex isn\u2019t biological and can be changed\u201d.<\/p>\n

      The idea that the overwhelming body of evidence that sex is immutable is vulnerable to a fringe view like this is absurd. The fact that the BBC\u2019s complaints department even entertains it is extraordinary. Let\u2019s hope the new director-general, Matt Brittin, does the decent thing by reversing the decision and issuing a public apology to Webb and the team at Today<\/i>, which is one of the few outlets with a record of journalistic bravery on this story)<\/p>\n

      The question now, as Brittin finds his feet, is how much of a problem the BBC has with activist journalism in its ranks in 2026.<\/p>\n

      Many I have spoken to think there is still a significant problem and believe an active purge is required. Others believe that the Supreme Court ruling a year ago changed the conversation internally. For instance, director of news content Richard Burgess admitted to staff that they \u201chadn\u2019t got everything right\u201d in their handling of the trans story.<\/p>\n

      That\u2019s been built on with a new approach to trans coverage in the current style guide whereby, if it helps the audience\u2019s understanding of a story, the biological sex of an individual will be mentioned. When I asked Unsworth about what regrets she had she immediately said \u201cthat we didn\u2019t have a really, really, really hard look at language\u201d. Brittin could decide to do just that.<\/p>\n

      The DG\u2019s other big challenge is deciding where to find those 10% of cuts. More salami slicing of BBC News is not the answer. He should protect news, current affairs and political programs from further pain. The BBC needs to be a bastion of free speech and diversity of opinion. Politics Live<\/i> and Newsnight<\/i>, while diminished, must not face further cuts and the BBC should offer a serious long-form political interview program once again.<\/p>\n

      Brittin should also demand an audit of the skills and experience of the staff that work in News. The BBC needs to make sure it has sufficient experience and then re-empower program editors to operate independently. Paying for all this will be challenging, but perhaps Brittin should look to non-program-making functions and ask whether the BBC really needs them. Only by rebuilding BBC News intelligently and by insisting every employee signs a pledge to uphold the principle of impartiality can another debacle be avoided.<\/p>\n

      Another idea, suggested by Gavin Allen, is for the BBC to do as it did with climate change and make clear that it operates on the basis of evidence. Just as the BBC declared it would no longer debate whether man-made climate change was real because the evidence meant there was nothing to debate, Allen argues that the BBC could state that there are two sexes and that people can\u2019t change sex. Once that is taken off the table a constructive conversation about what the transgender community needs that moves beyond the rhetoric of placards and social media might be possible.<\/p>\n

      A decade ago, transgender people in Britain enjoyed broad public sympathy. In 2016, almost six in 10 people agreed that a transgender person should be able to change the sex on their birth certificate. Only around one in five disagreed. The British Social Attitudes survey revealed a country that was overwhelmingly tolerant on the subject and becoming more so.<\/p>\n

      But then the discourse shifted. The activists took over. The placards. The threats. The cancellations. Women were hounded out of their jobs for stating biological facts. Academics were driven from their universities. Lesbians were told they were transphobic for not wanting to sleep with people with penises. And the BBC, rather than standing firm as the world went mad, went along with it.<\/p>\n

      By 2023, support for changing sex on birth certificates had ; half the country was now opposed. Nearly half of Britons said attempts to ensure equal opportunities for trans people had gone too far. After the Supreme Court ruling in April 2025, almost six in 10 agreed that a transgender woman was not legally a woman.<\/p>\n

      The transactivists, with their refusal to engage and their taste for intimidation, have achieved the precise opposite of what they said they set out to do. They have reversed years of goodwill and left transgender people more exposed than they were before any of this started. And the institutions that should have held the line instead capitulated. Let\u2019s hope Matt Brittin, when he starts his new job next week, will take the opportunity to remind those who remain at the hollowed-out BBC, ravaged by cuts and undermined by political enemies, that its demise will be assured unless advocacy journalism for any cause, whenever it rears its head, is stamped out and \u2014 well \u2014 canceled.<\/p>\n

      ***<\/p>\n

      A BBC spokesperson said in response to this article: \u201cBBC News has taken a number of actions relating to our reporting of sex and gender including updating the news style guide and sharing new guidance, making our Social Affairs Editor responsible for this coverage, and where there have been concerns about particular stories, we have addressed them. We continually review our coverage to reflect developments such as the Supreme Court Ruling<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

      \u201cWe recognize the strong feelings and concern felt by many people about the reporting of sex and gender. Our intention is to give clear, accurate and duly impartial information to audiences and to reflect the different viewpoints on the issue.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

      Read more Is this the end of Hezbollah?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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