Trans Media Watch have as their tagline “Accuracy, Respect, Dignity.” The problem with such taglines is that is makes you a hostage to fortune, especially if your organisation is a media watch group. Inaccuracy is the main topic of this article and I will return to that point below. I have already dealt with the disrespect shown to media professional Julie Bindel by their trustee, Paris Lees - on the night that she was supposedly working herself into a state of ill-health organizing the official launch of Trans Media Watch’s Memorandum of Understanding.
Indignation is not quite the opposite of Dignity, but is it a convenient hook on which to hang the problem of using social media to promote professional standards in the media. Unless you heavily edit posts (assuming the social media platform allows you to do so), you will invariably end up with your social media page containing the level of invective that is not conducive to good negotiations with media outlets. Trans Media Watch’s Facebook page declares, “Views expressed on this page do not necessarily represent those of Trans Media Watch.” This is just as well too when you see some of the group members’ posts.
Now to inaccuracy. Trans Media Watch get a good write-up in the June 2011 issue of Diva. Iman Qureshi’s “Lost In Transition” gives a lot of the article over to Paris Lees, her fellow Diva journalist, and a Trans Media Watch trustee. This does not mean that the article is uncritical of Trans Media Watch, as she cites a complaint that their Memorandum of Understanding is toothless. Iman also allows Paris just enough rope to tie herself up in knots. The final paragraph and a half are given over to Paris’ views on transphobia among the lesbian community (who along with bisexual women are Diva’s target audience). This is a rather odd ending to an article on media presentation of trans people, especially as the intention is to encourage lesbian (and bisexual) readers to support trans-positive images in the media.
There is one glaring example of inaccuracy in Iman’s article and if she is taking advice from Paris and Trans Media Watch it is an inaccuracy that is perfectly excusable (for Iman, not for an organisation purporting to provide guidance to the media). The inaccuracy comes when interviewing Keira McCormack about her unsuccessful Press Complaints Commission case against Sunday Life. Iman notes that Keira is entitled to privacy under the Gender Recognition Act, but this is a common fallacy pushed by many trans people and organisations, including Trans Media Watch.
The Gender Recognition Act (2004) is the bill that enabled trans people to be considered to legally be treated for all purposes (with a few exceptions) as being their new permanent gender identity. There is a lot of online misinformation about the Acts’s Section 22, with a chief culprit being Trans Media Watch’s Guidance for the Media – Approaches to Avoid. Under the heading of ‘Previous Names’ they warm media organisations that they face prosecution if they reveal the previous gender identity of someone in receipt of a Gender Recognition Certificate. They press home the fear factor by noting that there is no exemption for journalists.
Unfortunately, for Trans Media Watch (and Iman) the reason that there is no exemption for journalists is that Section 22 does not apply to journalists. It applies to individuals who obtain the information in their line of work with a public body, the trans person’s employer or businesses to whom the trans person has given details of their previous gender identity. Therefore, it does not apply to a journalist as they have not been given the details by the trans person (or if they have it would probably imply consent to publish). For example, if the journalist gains the information from an employer then the employer, and not the journalist, would be liable for prosecution under the Gender Recognition Act.
The typical response on trans online forums to pointing out what Section 22 actually says is that it has yet to be sufficiently tested in court. Trans Media Watch reflect that response when they caution media organisations that “There have been no high profile prosecutions under Section 22, but that situation is unlikely to last.” If there is a successful high profile prosecution it will not be against someone acting as a journalist. It could of course be launched against someone who happens to be a journalist and also has official access to such information.
Trans Media Watch want trans people to receive accuracy from the media and it is hypocritical for them to use inaccurate interpretations of the Gender Recognition Act. The end result of changing media policy about the presentation of trans people might be worthy, but it does not justify the inaccurate means used by this media watch group.
