What does trans mean and why is there a debate about transgender people’s rights?
Why we all deserve better from the broadcaster we fund
This week, the BBC published a lengthy explainer titled “What does trans mean and why is there a debate about transgender people’s rights?”1 It’s been widely shared and on the surface it looks like a thorough, carefully researched piece of journalism. The kind of thing the BBC was set up to do well. I have also reviewed their Editorial Policy on Impartiality……
When I sat down and read through the article properly, as a doctor with thirty years of medical experience and over a decade working in transgender healthcare, I found myself increasingly uncomfortable. Not because it was openly hostile, but because the bias is woven into the fabric of the piece in ways that most readers won’t immediately notice. Personally, I think that matters, not just for trans people, but for anyone who relies on the BBC to help them understand the world.
So I want to walk you through what I found, because I think you deserve to see it for yourself.
What we pay for
The BBC exists under a Royal Charter, and its mission is written into law:
“to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain.”
The very first of its public purposes is “to provide impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them.”
We fund this. Every household with a television licence pays £174.50 a year, rising to £180 from April. That isn’t a subscription to an entertainment service. It’s a contribution to a public institution that has a legal obligation to be accurate, impartial and fair. And when the BBC publishes something that presents itself as a neutral explainer on transgender rights, I think we have every right to hold it to the standard it promised us.
The illusion of balance
On the surface, this article does tick the boxes. It quotes trans groups and it quotes women’s groups. It includes legal detail and references both the Cass Review2 and the Supreme Court ruling3. If you glanced through it quickly, you might reasonably think it had covered all sides.
Genuine balance isn’t just about including quotes from different perspectives. It’s about framing, structure, language, and the weight given to each side of the conversation. And when you look at this article through that lens, the picture changes quite significantly.
Framing: who gets to be the starting point?
The article adopts the Supreme Court ruling as its baseline, presenting it not as a legal decision to be examined and understood in context, but as a settled description of how things are. The opening line tells us the court “ruled that the definition of a woman in equalities law is based on biological sex,” and from that point on, every trans perspective is positioned as a reaction to that reality.
Right now, trans people are confused, trans people are devastated, trans people are losing access to services. The consistent framing is one where the existence of trans people creates a problem, rather than one where a legal and political shift has removed protections that trans people previously relied upon. That may seem like a subtle distinction, but it profoundly shapes how a reader understands the situation.
Language: words carry weight
Throughout the article, the BBC uses the phrase “biological male who identifies as a woman” to describe trans women. I know they probably think this is a neutral descriptor, but it really isn’t. It foregrounds one contested definition while treating the language trans people use about themselves as secondary.
You’ll also notice the article never describes cisgender women as “biological females who identify as women.” That particular framing is reserved exclusively for trans people, and the effect is to position trans identities as claims that need to be scrutinised while cisgender identities are simply facts to be stated. The BBC has a style guide precisely because it understands that language shapes how people think about the world, and the choices made here are not accidental ones.
The Cass Review: where the balance really breaks down
For me, perhaps the most revealing part of the article is how it handles the Cass Review.
The review is introduced as a “landmark review” that made “serious criticisms” of existing gender services. It’s given real authority and weight, and its findings are presented as established fact.
The criticisms of the Cass Review, on the other hand, get a single sentence:
“Trans groups have criticised the Cass report, questioning its methodology and saying that Dr Cass is not an expert in gender dysphoria.”
One sentence for the whole of the counter-argument. And it’s attributed to “trans groups,” which makes it sound like a lobby position rather than what it actually is. In reality, those criticisms came from academics, researchers and clinicians. There was a peer-reviewed response published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood4. The systematic reviews commissioned for the report applied evidence thresholds so high that they would have disqualified much of established paediatric medicine. Many of the studies that were excluded by the review were considered robust enough to inform clinical practice in other fields.
None of that context made it into the article. By compressing legitimate scientific criticism into a single line and attributing it to “trans groups,” the BBC quietly does the very thing it claims to avoid: it takes a side.
Who gets the victory, who gets the devastation
It’s really worth looking at the structure of the two sections where the article reports responses to the Supreme Court ruling.
The section on women’s groups leads with phrases like “important victory,” “safeguarded rights” and “watershed moment.” It names multiple organisations and gives them space to explain their reasoning. The tone throughout is one of vindication and achievement.
The section on trans groups leads with the word “devastating.” The tone is one of confusion and loss, and the concerns raised are framed as problems created by trans people’s expectations rather than as legitimate legal arguments about the erosion of rights they previously held.
Both perspectives are included, which is good, but they are not given equal weight or equal dignity within the structure of the piece, and that structural imbalance shapes how a reader feels about each position.
What’s been left out
What an article chooses not to say can be just as important as what it includes, and there are some significant gaps here.
There is no mention of the extensive medical and psychological literature supporting gender identity as a recognised clinical phenomenon. The article presents the position that “some people do not accept the concept of gender identity” as though it carries equal scientific weight, which it does not.
There is no context around the section on detransition. The article notes that some people detransition but says “accurate figures for how many are not available,” which leaves an implication of hidden scale that really isn’t supported by the research we do have, which consistently shows detransition rates are very low.
There is no exploration of how the Supreme Court ruling and the EHRC guidance are actually affecting trans people in their daily lives, whether that’s using a public toilet, accessing a domestic violence refuge, or simply going about their day without being questioned.
And there is no acknowledgement that the UK is increasingly isolated internationally in its approach to transgender healthcare, or that the direction the UK is heading in runs counter to the positions of the World Health Organisation, the Endocrine Society, and numerous other international medical bodies.
Why this matters for all of us
The BBC reaches 94% of UK adults every month and it’s the most widely used news source in the country. When the BBC frames an issue in a particular way, that framing becomes the default understanding for millions of people.
Most people in the UK don’t knowingly know a trans person, so their understanding of trans lives, trans healthcare and trans rights comes almost entirely from the media. The BBC, more than any other outlet, shapes that understanding. And when it presents a structurally biased article as a neutral explainer, it doesn’t just let down trans people. It lets down everyone who trusted it to help them make sense of what’s happening.
What I’d love to see from the BBC
I want to be really clear about this: I’m not asking the BBC to take the side of trans people. I’m asking it to do what its charter requires, which is to be genuinely impartial, genuinely accurate and genuinely fair.
That means giving trans perspectives equal structural weight within a piece, not just dropping in a quote or two. It means providing proper context when reporting on scientific claims. It means not adopting one legal framework as the default while treating another as a reaction. It means acknowledging the breadth and depth of medical evidence on gender identity rather than presenting it as a contested opinion.
We all deserve a BBC that does the job we pay it to do, and I genuinely believe it can do better than this.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Did the BBC article strike you as balanced when you first read it? Have you noticed the way mainstream media coverage of trans issues has shifted? Leave a comment below and let’s talk about it.
If you found this useful, please share it with someone who needs to see it. And if you’re not yet a subscriber, you can join for free to make sure you never miss a Response.