In this era of biology denialism, it is not surprising to see a news outlet like the BBC pandering to woke idiocy.

We have catalogued a number of times when the media were shown to be veering off of the path of facts and common sense and chose to accept the social pressures of the activist community. There has been the Associated Press altering its style book to accommodate new “accepted” terms, or when the Today Show airbrushed images of trans swimmer Lia Thomas to soften the features. In Britain, they have more than taken another step in this direction – this is a stark leap beyond journalism ethics.

In a piece that was assured to place the news organization in the position of puling the pins on hand grenades while standing in a minefield, the outlet explored the dynamic that lesbians are facing in social circles. The BBC wanted to explore the reality of lesbians experiencing pressure to acccept and engage with trans-women. That we would be served the commentary that refusing to consider a trans-woman as a potential partner is a sign of intolerance, is just the start of the upheaval.

The BBC changed the testimony of a rape victim after a debate over the pronouns of her transgender attacker https://t.co/WEo97Pu8I7

— The Times (@thetimes) May 31, 2022

In a later segment of the article, there is a passage involving a lesbian who discusses a violent experience she had with a trans individual in a social setting. After hearing from some in the community who describe being intimidated into accepting trans-women, we hear from one woman describing a disturbing encounter, where, after being intimidated into a night together, she experienced a sexual assault after demuring from taking things further.

“He threatened to out me as a terf and risk my job if I refused to sleep with him,” she wrote. “I was too young to argue and had been brainwashed by queer theory so he was a ‘woman’ even if every fibre of my being was screaming throughout so I agreed to go home with him. He used physical force when I changed my mind upon seeing his penis and raped me.”

We already see some of the disturbing ways women are being coerced into altering their self-worth in the name of tolerance and social acceptance. It is a bizarre scenario where a woman who was previously praised for being true to herself and being an avowed lesbian now has to compromise her feelings and emotions in order to accommodate the arrival of a new segment into their environment. 

But beyond the social construct, the BBC took the actual quotes from this woman and altered them, in the name of social propriety and acceptance of the trans standard. Here is how the news outlet presented the quotes from the victim of the assault.

“[They] threatened to out me as a terf and risk my job if I refused to sleep with [them],” she wrote. “I was too young to argue and had been brainwashed by queer theory so [they were] a ‘woman’ even if every fibre of my being was screaming throughout so I agreed to go home with [them]. [They] used physical force when I changed my mind upon seeing [their] penis and raped me.”

Just from the start, it is a shameful move to alter someone’s direct quotes, in the name of being socially proper. But then consider that this is the description of a violent event, and the paper seeks to change the testimony of this woman, in order to avoid misgendering her attacker. They completely dilute and alter the experience of a victim in order to not be offensive to the rapist. 

The concept of always believing the woman when it comes to rape allegations has been completely dispatched, both in words and in action. Here we have not only a victim seeing her own words becoming disregarded, but there is also the tint that intolerance on her part may have been a contributing factor, therefore suggesting that this was in some way provoked. 

We see this displayed as the paper grappled with complaints and internal debates, leading to this move not being the only breach of journalistic ethics. The BBC could not even stand behind its reporting once it was faced with some outside pressure regarding the balance of this article. The paper received a number of complaints about how the trans community was portrayed and it went back and edited the piece significantly.

Standing behind its decision to publish the piece online last week – headlined “We’re being pressured into sex by some trans women” – the BBC took the decision on Thursday to remove a contribution from a former porn actor, Lily Cade, “in light of comments” she made after its publication, after a week of sustained pressure and criticism.

This is a sad sign of the further decline of the journalism industry. When standard practices can become a fluid core of professional behaviors you are undermining your entire industry. Even if you wanted to correct an individual in a report, this does not mean altering their very quotes is permissible. Yet we hear from other outlets that inside the BBC they had a furious debate over this editorial decision within their own staff.

The Times-UK described how the “woke employees” at the BBC were the loud proponents of changing a woman’s quotes. When reached for comment on the moves, a spokesperson for the BBC was as non-commital as could be found. 

“It’s routine to have editorial discussions about different stories. Our only intention when deciding on language is to make things as clear as possible for audiences,” a BBC spokesperson told Fox News. “As we’ve said before, BBC News makes the final decisions about what it broadcasts or publishes, and we produce our own style guide. All decisions on content are based on news values and with impartiality at the centre of those decisions,” the spokesperson added.

This is the sad path journalism is now choosing to head down, willingly. Altering coverage and quotes to mollify a social movement is remarkably bad form. Doing so on behalf of a movement that has shown the desire to alter facts, language, and science in order to suit its agenda is poison to an industry that subsists on facts and truth. Sadly many journalists are willing to gobble down this toxicity.