BBC Radio 4 Today: fun with transphobic soundbites
http://www.birdofparadox.net/blog/?p=9353A few days ago I wrote about an especially clueless article in the New York Times, the writer of which seemed to think that because one trans woman fashion model had had her image printed on the cover of one glossy fashion mag, that 2010 must therefore have been "the Year of the Transsexual" [sic].
I was unconvinced at the time and this morning, on listening to Today – BBC Radio 4′s "flagship news programme" – was reminded quite bluntly that trans people are still considered legitimate targets of hate speech in the name of a jolly anecdote. At a few minutes before 9 o'clock, the presenter – a cis man named John Humphrys, I believe – began an interview with two former politicians, both cis men (Gyles Brandreth and Chris Mullin) about "the sanctity of constituency surgeries".
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And in that respect, the interview was a success: there was indeed laughter amongst the three cis men. Disappointingly, however, that laughter was at the expense of binary-identified transsexual women.
