Myers: Fox Corp pushes LGBT; DeSantis says Woke is Existential Threat; Womens’ Spa..
(1) Fox Corp. pushing LGBT ‘pride’ agenda on employees
(2) DeSantis says Woke is Existential Threat, “Cultural Marxism”, rebukes Trump
(3) Trudeau dismisses parental rights as ‘far right’
(4) New Brunswick pushes back against Trudeau’s demand that schools keep students’ gender identity secret from parents
(5) Texas governor signs bill to criminalize child sex changes; ACLU intends to sue
(6) Christian School Teaching Assistant Wins Case After Being Fired For Posts Alleging Transgender “Brainwashing” of Kids
(7) 13 Year-Old Girl Called “Despicable” by Teacher for Standing Up to Trans Ideology; parents proud
(8) Female-Only Spa With Compulsory Nudity Must Admit ‘Transgender Women’ With Penises: Judge
(9) BBC Faces Backlash as Trans Character in TV series Enthuses About Double Mastectomy
(1) Fox Corp. pushing radical LGBT ‘pride’ agenda on employees
Leaked docs reveal Fox Corp. pushing radical LGBT ‘pride’ agenda on employees
Leaked docs reveal Fox Corp. pushing radical LGBT ‘pride’ agenda on employees
‘Implosion of Fox News is underway, and it shows no signs of stopping’
By Peter LaBarbera
Published June 17, 2023 at 8:04pm
Leaked internal “Pride Month” documents reveal that Fox Corp., the parent company of Fox News, is pushing a radical LGBT agenda on its employees, including urging them to support sexual-left groups that advocate for “trans” procedures for children and tolerance “lessons” on homosexual perversions.
The stunning documents leaked to conservative Daily Wire podcaster Matt Walsh come as Tucker-less Fox News finds itself in deeper trouble with its conservative audience than at any time since it called Arizona early on Election Night 2020. In the last two years the network has started <https://www.wnd.com/2023/06/disturbing-thing-fox-news-joins-pride-party-lgbt-propaganda-oozes/> airing “Pride Month” broadcasts, including one in 2022 in which gay Fox reporter Bryan Llenas champions childhood “gender transitions” in the name of “love.”
Openly homosexual Fox News exec Michael Tammero conducted a very friendly, on-air “Pride Month” interview in June 2022 with Rev. Dr. Stephen Pieters, an AIDS activist who preaches a heretical, homosexuality-friendly version of “Christianity” (screenshot/Fox News)
“It’s clear that the implosion of Fox News is underway, and it shows no signs of stopping,” Walsh said on his podcast Friday.
For the first time in two years, Fox on Friday reportedly lost its top ratings position to leftist rival MSNBC in the key 25-54 viewer demographic. Reports Adweek: “MSNBC, for the first time since 2018, beat Fox News and CNN in primetime among adults 25-54 and total viewers. It was the most-watched basic cable network in primetime this past week, averaging 1.52 million total viewers – its largest average primetime audience since the 2022 midterm elections.”
Robert Knight, author, Washington Times columnist and a longtime intellectual leader on the right opposing the LGBT activist agenda, told WND: “Fox News surrendered long ago to the LGBTQ religion. It’s a myth that this is a conservative network. You cannot be conservative and lend support to a destructive, anti-faith movement bent on criminalizing Christianity.”
Has Fox gone “woke”?
Walsh tweet-storm exposes Fox as massively ‘woke’ company
Walsh broke his story via Twitter June 15 based on documents leaked by employees from the “Fox employee portal.” His <https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1669457286677291008>initial tweet – which had a whopping 14.6 million views at press time – states: “BREAKING: We’ve obtained internal docs from @FoxNews employees. Fox Corp is celebrating Pride by encouraging employees to read about ‘glory holes,’ supporting a group that gives sterilizing hormones to homeless youth, & deployed woke AI to monitor everyone. EXPLICIT CONTENT:”
I have received several off the record messages from current and former Fox employees thanking us for publishing this <https://t.co/EeMQ3EAAP2>https://t.co/EeMQ3EAAP2
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) <https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1669522098723643393?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>June 16, 2023
Walsh continues: “2/ The documents we’re about to show you were produced by Fox Corp, which is the parent company of Fox News. These materials are presented to Fox News employees when they log into their employee portal. Let’s start at the top.”
In the third tweet, Walsh exposes that Fox Corp. directly “encourage [its] employees to donate” to three LGBT activist groups, Trevor Project, Ali Forney Center and the Los Angeles LGBT Center.
3/ Under the heading “Support One Another,” Fox encourages employees to donate to <https://twitter.com/TrevorProject?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>@TrevorProject, <https://twitter.com/AliForneyCenter?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>@AliForneyCenter, and <https://twitter.com/LALGBTCenter?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>@LALGBTCenter. <https://t.co/vWEcGMHpsR>pic.twitter.com/vWEcGMHpsR
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) <https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1669457290435362817?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>June 15, 2023
Fox also recommends giving to the National Center For Transgender Equality and Rainbow Railroad, a group that “helps at-risk LGBTQI+ individuals get to safety around the world.”
4/ The Trevor Project, which Fox says is devoted to helping “LGBTQ young people,” hosts a sexually explicit chat room that connects children as young as 13 years old with “LGBT” adults. <https://t.co/zXsh2I1Le2>https://t.co/zXsh2I1Le2
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) <https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1669457292968828928?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>June 15, 2023
Walsh cites a 2022 <https://nypost.com/2022/09/01/mom-discovers-depravity-in-trevor-projects-trans-chat-room/>New York Post article in describing one of the groups, Trevor Project: “4/ The Trevor Project, which Fox says is devoted to helping ‘LGBTQ young people,’ hosts a sexually explicit chat room that connects children as young as 13 years old with ‘LGBT’ adults.” …
(2) DeSantis says Woke is Existential Threat, “Cultural Marxism”, rebukes Trump
In Rebuke To Trump, DeSantis Says “Woke” Is “Existential Threat To Our Society”
In Rebuke To Trump, DeSantis Says “Woke” Is “Existential Threat To Our Society”
“To say it’s not a big deal, that just shows you don’t understand what a lot of these issues are right now.”
6 June, 2023
Steve Watson
After Donald Trump proclaimed at the weekend that he doesn’t like the term ‘woke’ because nobody knows what it really means, his GOP challenger Ron DeSantis charged that those who do not treat it as an “existential threat” are missing the point.
Commenting to reporters on Trump’s comments, DeSantis noted “Woke is an existential threat to our society,” adding that “to say it’s not a big deal, that just shows you don’t understand what a lot of these issues are right now.”
DeSantis described woke as a “form of Cultural Marxism,” and “basically a war on the truth,” adding “it’s about putting merit and achievement behind identity politics.”
“As that has infected institutions, and it has corrupted institutions. So, you’ve got to be willing to fight the woke, we’ve done that in Florida, and we proudly consider ourselves the state where woke goes to die,” DeSantis urged.
Watch:
Trump said Friday at a Q&A in Iowa “We have school systems that don’t even want to talk to the parents about their children. You talk about changing gender and things where the child can make a choice and the child can be unbelievably young — the country has gone sick. It’s gone sick. And I don’t like the term ‘woke,’ because I hear the term “woke, woke, woke,” … it’s like just a term they use, and half the people can’t define what it is.
Trump continued, “you look at these things like women getting competing with men that were men and are men. And out there swimming and setting records. Do you see the records being broken?”
He added “It is so crazy. And that is all woke. I guess they define that as woke. But that’s all woke. We have to bring common sense back to the country. People say, “You are conservative.” Yeah, I am conservative, but more importantly, I’m a person with common sense.
Watch:
Trump has somewhat flip flopped on this, likely because DeSantis has made it such a central part of his campaign. Trump was more than happy to define woke in 2020 before the election:
Still, Trump is leading DeSantis by 28 points according to a new Rasmussen poll.
(3) Trudeau dismisses parental rights as ‘far right’
Prime minister targets New Brunswick premier over policy of informing parents about their child changing genders
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/michael-higgins-justin-trudeau-dismisses-parental-rights-as-far-right
Michael Higgins: Justin Trudeau dismisses parental rights as ‘far right’
Prime minister targets New Brunswick premier over policy of informing parents about their child changing genders
Michael Higgins
Published Jun 12, 2023
Parental rights are now a “far right” political issue, according to Justin Trudeau.
It may be that the prime minister didn’t mean to disparage millions of parents by lumping them in with other far-right radicals like white supremacists and fascists, but that he did so speaks to his tendency to shoot from the lip.
It is unfortunate that, once again, Trudeau, who has often denounced partisanship while urging conciliation, uses inflammatory rhetoric which will alienate a large portion of Canadians.
Trudeau’s divisive language comes in the wake of the government of New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs making controversial changes to gender rules in the province’s schools.
One major change is that parental consent would be required for trans or nonbinary students under the age of 16 to change their names or pronouns in school. Higgs, who is facing a revolt from some of his own members about the policy, has defended it as “taking a strong position for families.”
(4) New Brunswick pushes back against Trudeau’s demand that schools keep students’ gender identity secret from parents
https://thepostmillennial.com/new-brunswick-pushes-back-against-trudeaus-demand-that-schools-keep-students-gender-identity-secret-from-parents
Jun 12, 2023
New Brunswick pushes back against Trudeau’s demand that schools keep students’ gender identity secret from parents
New Brunswick plans to take a stand for families.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday that parents should not have to be informed if their children under the age of 16 decide to change their gender.
“Trans kids in New Brunswick are being told they don’t have the right to be their true selves, that they need to ask permission,” <https://www.youtube.com/live/dsWRlX6y1jM?feature=share>Trudeau said.
“Well, trans kids need to feel safe, not targeted by politicians.”
“We have to stand against this. We have to stand up for the freedoms we believe in and continue our work of letting love be louder than hate.”
New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs has reversed a provincial policy that would have allowed children under 16 to change genders without telling their parents. Higgs <https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/blaine-higgs-policy-713-new-brunswick-election-pc-caucus-1.6869622>told reporters he won’t budge from the policy because it is “taking a strong position for families.”
Trudeau wasn’t the only one furious that parents should know what gender their children decide to be.
One would-be teacher had a meltdown on social media, where she suggested she might have to leave New Brunswick, rather than being forced to “out” students.
“I don’t know if I want to leave this province and go somewhere else. I don’t want to out students. I know how dangerous this type of sh*t is,” she says, tears streaming down her face.
“I’ve never been so f*cking upset at my government before …I just don’t understand how this can happen here,” she continues.
The appeal has prompted many to comment on the apprentice teacher’s desperation. Journalist Cosmin Dzsurdzsa tweeted, “Tell me this is not a cult.”
At a protest in Ottawa on Friday, Muslim children <https://twitter.com/truckdriverpleb/status/1667193315576487936?s=20>stomped on a Pride flag while their mothers stood by and cheered, saying “Leave our children alone.”
Trudeau has also <https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/government-partners-with-rainbow-railroad-agency-to-seek-out-lgbtq-refugees-1.6433818>partnered the federal government with the non-profit “Rainbow Railroad” and christened Canada as a haven for LGBTQ “refugees.”
He stood by last week to watch the Pride Flag raised on Parliament Hill. He claimed dark forces were threatening those identifying as LGBTQ.
“When we first raised the Pride flag on Parliament Hill seven years ago, I think we all thought it would get easier from that moment,” <https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/transphobia-biphobia-homophobia-rise-trudeau-pride-1.6869803>Trudeau said.
“Transphobia, biphobia, homophobia, they’re all on the rise. It’s been difficult to watch people and institutions still continue to reject who you are, to try to deny members of our communities the rights to be seen and heard and celebrated.”
After raising the flag, Trudeau proceeded to a “drag brunch” on the Hill.
Trudeau has already offered his advice on LGBTQ rights to world leaders, first by <https://thepostmillennial.com/justin-trudeau-humiliates-himself-trying-to-shame-italys-conservative-leader-over-lgbtq2s-rights?utm_medium=email&utm_source=deployer&utm_campaign=newsletter>lecturing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on the gay and trans rights file. It wasn’t clear exactly what Trudeau was objecting to, but Meloni shot back, saying, “Trudeau was reckless; he was the victim of fake news.”
The prime minister <https://youtu.be/Pes7YcZCBk0>did it again when Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki came to Canada. In a news conference, Trudeau apparently surprised the Polish leader by telling reporters at a news conference that he had questioned Poland’s LGBTQ record.
(5) Texas governor signs bill to criminalize child sex changes; ACLU intends to sue
https://thepostmillennial.com/texas-governor-signs-bill-to-criminalize-child-sex-changes
Texas governor signs bill to criminalize child sex changes
The ACLU intends to sue to allow medical sex changes for minors.
Texas governor signs bill to criminalize child sex changes
Darian Douraghy
Jun 3, 2023
Following approval from the Texas State Legislature earlier this month to ban sex change procedures and hormone therapies for minors, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott greenlighted a new law prohibiting minors from being subjected to such treatment.
The ACLU of Texas decried the proposed legislation at the time, arguing that not allowing doctors to medicalize children in service to gender ideology is tantamount to “banning life-saving health care” for youth. By this, they mean that if children and teens aren’t permitted to have puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or surgeries to alter their appearance, they will kill themselves.
“Politicians who voted for this bill cruelly turned their backs on families, science, and the safety and lives of children,” the Texas ACLU posted online. “Trans people have always existed and always will. This is not the end.”
The Lone Star State is reportedly the largest of any state in the country to put such a prohibition into law. Activists have been pushing back against the bill since it was introduced in the legislature.
Senate Bill 14 bans healthcare providers from surgically and chemically altering children’s bodies in order to give patients the appearance of belonging to the opposite sex or from stopping them from undergoing natural puberty. Such procedures will not be allowed for any individual under the age of 18, and those who break the new law may end up stripped of their licenses to practice.
This new law, which commences on Sept 1, comes months after Texas Children’s Hospital revealed it is putting a stop to sex changes for minors in order to abide by an earlier order from Abbott directing state agencies to potential child abuse stemming from such practices.
The initiative was supposed early on by then-Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was seen publicly voicing his opposition to the process and labeling it as child abuse in December 2021.
Earlier that same year, in July, Abbott reportedly proclaimed that the bill had no chance of passing in the Texas House.
The new law notably makes some exceptions for its ban on the aforementioned procedures, including allowing for further hormone treatment for children who started receiving non-surgical treatments before June 1, 2023, and attended 12 or more appointments for mental health counseling or psychotherapy six months prior to being given drugs. It also notes that minors who are being given such treatments must be made to “wean” off it over time.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas has promised to sue should the bill be signed, and is joined by the Transgender Law Center. In a concurrent statement, the organizations argued the new law stands “in direct opposition to the overwhelming body of scientific and medical evidence” that supposedly argues that such procedures are necessary to ensure the health of the recipient.
Texas will now be the sixteenth state to place bans on these types of processes, joining Nebraska, Florida, Montana, Missouri, Arkansas, Arizona, Utah, Oklahoma and others that enacted similar prohibitions.
(6) Christian School Teaching Assistant Wins Case After Being Fired For Posts Alleging Transgender “Brainwashing” of Kids
June 19, 2023
Christian School Teaching Assistant Wins Case After Being Fired For Posts Alleging Transgender “Brainwashing” of Kids
A judge sided with Kristie Higgs.
By Ben Squires
Posted 11:29 am
Kristie Higgs, a 46-year-old Christian teaching assistant, has won an appeal against her 2019 dismissal from Farmor’s School in Fairford, Gloucestershire, England. Initially fired for alleged gross misconduct over Facebook posts criticizing the introduction of gender ideology within education in primary schools, Higgs fought back with the support of the Christian Legal Centre.
A key post by Higgs showcased an article on the rise of transgender themes in American children’s books, adding, “This is happening in our primary schools now,” The Telegraph reported. Her commentary came to light after she discovered that her child’s Church of England school planned to use books dealing with what she called “confusing and harmful gender identity,” including a book titled “My Princess Boy.”
Higgs didn’t stop there. She went on to say that this was akin to “brainwashing our children.”
Farmor’s School denied that her Christian beliefs were the reason for dismissal, and pointed instead to the language she used in her posts.
Higgs took the school to an employment tribunal, arguing unlawful discrimination based on her Christian beliefs. In 2020, the tribunal recognized that her beliefs were protected under the Equality Act but maintained that the school had the right to let her go.
Higgs pressed on with an appeal at the Employment Appeal Tribunal in London, where the tide turned in her favor.
Justice Eady, who presided over the case, stated that the heart of the upcoming hearing would revolve around whether the school’s dismissal was “because of, or related to, the manifestation of the claimant’s protected beliefs, or were due to a justified objection to the manner of that manifestation.”
(7) 13 Year-Old Girl Called “Despicable” by Teacher for Standing Up to Trans Ideology; parents proud
Parents of 13 Year-Old Girl Called “Despicable” by Teacher for Standing Up to Trans Ideology Say How Proud They Are of Her
BY WILL JONES 20 JUNE 2023 11:38 AM
The parents of a 13 year-old girl who was branded “despicable” by her teacher after she rejected a classmate’s claim that she identified as a cat have told of their fury and how proud they are of her. The girl’s mother told the Mail.
I’m so proud of my daughter, she will always stand up for what she believes is right and this is all that she did.
She expressed a view that many, many of her classmates and their parents would share yet she was shouted down and bullied by someone in authority.
For that teacher to tell her to leave and go to another school if she didn’t like what she was being told made my blood boil. What kind of welcome is that for a 13 year-old girl.
My daughter texted me from her class last Friday and said that she was being taught gender identity and asked to fill out a worksheet. We’ve spoken about the issue before and she’s like me you can be whatever you want to be – but facts are facts.
I replied that she could walk out of the lesson if she didn’t feel what she was being taught was right.
She didn’t, however, and stayed in the classroom but her and her friend put their views across and clashed with another girl in the class who identifies as a cat
My daughter told the teacher that what they were learning was ridiculous and the girl identifying as a cat tried to argue that it wasn’t and that anyone could identify as anything.
As she said that my daughter replied “so If I identify as a kangaroo then I can say I’m a kangaroo?!” Some of the others in the class started laughing and the girl who thinks she’s a cat started crying.
My daughter and her friend were told to stay after the class and were given a warning to stop and toe the line. That’s when she started secretly recording the teacher.
I have to say that when my daughter came home from school and told me what happened. I didn’t believe her, I thought she was a typical teenage girl exaggerating.
But then she played me the recording and I was shocked and then horrified and then furious. I still get angry listening to it.
There are girls in her class and at the school who are trans and she has no problem with any of them, she calls them by their preferred pronouns and accepts them for who they are – but there are only two sexes. It’s just science, you are born male or female.
The fact that the school is shielding this young girl who identifies as a cat and reprimanding anyone who challenges that notion seems to me to be completely absurd.
Why on earth are 13-year-old kids being taught about gender identity anyway? They’re just children. It’s not right.
So many people agree with us on this but many are reluctant to put their heads above the parapet, so to speak, because they’ll be labelled a bigot, a TERF or a Tory. But this sort of stuff is messing with children’s heads.
The father added:
We’ve heard absolutely nothing from the school, nobody has called us at any point today or over the weekend, but it’s all over the news.
I think they’re just trying to sweep it under the rug to be honest and are burying their head in the sand because they’ve had such a negative response from people all over the country.
I thought the way my daughter handled it was very respectful but the teacher got very, very irate and just shut down the conversation.
So many other parents have got in touch to say that they agree with what our daughter said and congratulated her for sticking to her guns. …
(8) Female-Only Spa With Compulsory Nudity Must Admit ‘Transgender Women’ With Penises: Judge
https://www.theepochtimes.com/female-only-spa-with-compulsory-nudity-must-admit-transgender-women-with-penises-judge_5325529.html
Female-Only Spa With Compulsory Nudity Must Admit ‘Transgender Women’ With Penises: Judge
By Zachary Stieber
June 10, 2023
Updated: June 11, 2023
A spa that for years has only served women must admit men with penises if they claim to be women, a judge has ruled.
The constitutional rights of the owners, employees, and patrons of the Olympus Spa in Washington state were not infringed when officials in the state ordered the facility to provide services to “transgender women” with male genitalia, Washington District Court Judge Barbara Jacobs Rothstein said in a June 5 ruling.
The spa was described by its owners, who are Christian, as being designed based on the belief that “a male and a female should not ordinarily be in each other’s presence while in the nude unless married to each other,” according to a complaint filed by the owners.
Many services provided by the spa require patrons to be fully naked, and the employees who work on-site are all female.
Requiring admission of men claiming to be women violates the rights bestowed by the U.S. Constitution’s First and Fourteenth Amendments, which guarantee freedom of speech free exercise of religion, and the Bill of Rights protection of free association, the spa owners, workers, and patrons asserted.
Rothstein disagreed, <https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23840808-rothstein-ruling>finding that the state law “does not discriminate on its face, and it does not by its terms favor a particular religion or the non-exercise of religion.”
That means the law survives if it is rationally related to a legitimate governmental purpose. Rothstein said the law’s legitimate purpose is, as stated in the law, to protect “the public welfare, health, and peace of the people of this state.”
She also said that the Washington Human Rights Commission, which investigates complaints of violations of the law, in its order to the spa to remove language about only admitting “biological women,” did not infringe on the plaintiffs’ rights.
“The compelled speech to which Olympus Spa points is ‘plainly incidental’ to the [law]’s regulation of discriminatory conduct,” Rothstein said.
She quoted a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found Congress “can prohibit employers from discriminating in hiring on the basis of race,” and “that this will require an employer to take down a sign reading ‘White Applicants Only’ hardly means that the law should be analyzed as one regulating the employer’s speech rather than conduct.”
The free association claim also failed because the only requirement placed on patrons was that they be female, which is outside the protection based on freedom of association, the judge said.
“The Court does not minimize the privacy concerns at play when employees are performing exfoliating massages on nude patrons. Aside from this nudity, though, there is simply nothing private about the relationship between Olympus Spa, its employees, and the random strangers who walk in the door seeking a massage,” she said. “Nor is there anything selective about the association at issue beyond Olympus Spa’s ‘biological women’ policy. “The Court therefore has little difficulty concluding that the personal attachments implicated here are too attenuated to qualify for constitutional protection.”
Lawyers for the state and the plaintiffs did not respond to requests for comment.
The spa can file an amended complaint within 30 days, the judge said.
Alleged Discrimination
The situation started when Haven Wilvich, a male who identified as a woman yet has not undergone sex change surgery, complained to the state commission, alleging the spa’s policy was in violation of the state law against discrimination.
Wilvich alleged that the spa “denied me services and stated that transgender women without surgery are not welcome because it could make other customers and staff uncomfortable.”
Spa policy dictates only admitting females older than 13.
An investigation by the spa owners found no evidence that Wilvich had ever been to the spa, which has facilities in Tacoma and Lynnwood and has been operating for more than 20 years. Myoon Woon Lee, one of the spa owners, also expressed concern that exposing female customers, especially minors, to male genitalia could open the spa up to criminal penalties based on state laws governing lewd conduct and public indecency.
The commission nevertheless determined the policy violated the law and said it was in violation of the law, which states in part that people have “the right to be free from discrimination because of … sexual orientation.”
“When dress and grooming standards are applied only to a protected class and are applied specifically because of the protected class status, the standards are discriminatory,” a commission representative told the spa in a letter. “This is the case with Olympus Spa’s policy, which denies services to transgender women who have not had surgery specifically because their physical appearance is not ‘consistent’ with the traditional understanding of biological women.”
The spa had to remove language on only serving biological women from its website and undergo training based on commission-provided materials or it could face prosecution, the representative warned.
Lee and others then brought the lawsuit, alleging the state was infringing on their rights.
In the complaint, spa owners said that anybody who “presents in the nude as female” was allowed into the spa, including, theoretically, males who identify as women but have had surgery. Likewise, females who had surgery to obtain male genitalia would not be allowed in, the owners said.
(9) BBC Faces Backlash as Trans Character in TV series Enthuses About Double Mastectomy
BBC Faces Backlash as Trans Character in Casualty Enthuses About Double Mastectomy
BBC Faces Backlash as Trans Character in Casualty Enthuses About Double Mastectomy
BY TOBY YOUNG
5 JUNE 2023 9:00 AM
Campaigners against the normalisation of self-mutilating surgery have said a scene in Casualty, broadcast before the watershed, was a “new low” and questioned whether the BBC is taking its safeguarding responsibilities “seriously”. The Telegraph has more.
The BBC has been criticised over an episode of Casualty which shows a non-binary character discussing top surgery.
The campaign group Safe Schools Alliance posted on social media that this was a “new low” for the broadcaster, adding that it had “continually appeased the ideologues in their organisation rather than engaging with experts who understand child development and safeguarding”.
Others criticised the decision to show the scene before the 9pm watershed when children could be watching the show.
The episode, which aired at 8.20pm on Saturday on BBC One, includes a character discussing their “top surgery” and being presented with a surprise cake shaped like breasts.
‘Top surgery’ commonly refers to a mastectomy carried out on transgender men to remove breast tissue.
The character, Sah, said in another clip released by the BBC:
Fair Play for Women, a female rights charity, questioned if the BBC had taken its safeguarding responsibilities “seriously” in choosing to air the episode.
Posting a screenshot of an FOI sent to the BBC asking for the names of external groups consulted about the “top surgery” storyline, the charity said: “Let’s see whether the BBC team took its safeguarding responsibilities seriously.”