by Will Jones, The Daily Sceptic
When GB News asked Ofcom to confirm that debates on biological sex are now ‘settled’ following the Supreme Court ruling, incredibly it replied ‘no’. Yet it deems the Net Zero debate to be settled? We’re through the looking glass now, says Toby in the Spectator. Here’s an excerpt.
Earlier this week, GB News again found itself at odds with Ofcom. The channel had written to the broadcast regulator asking if, in light of the Supreme Court judgment affirming that the word ‘sex’ in the Equality Act means biological sex, it could now treat the dispute between trans-rights activists and gender-critical feminists as a “settled” matter. “Broadly settled” was the phrase Ofcom applied to the “theory of anthropogenic global warming” in a guidance note issued in 2013 stating that broadcasters were no longer under an obligation to be impartial when discussing the issue. GB News wanted to know whether the regulator would extend the same latitude to debates about sex- and gender-based rights.
Incredibly, Ofcom’s answer was ‘no’. Indeed, it described GB News’s view that the word ‘woman’ should be defined in reference to biological sex – and that it was acceptable to refer to athletes by their biological pronouns – as “dogmatic propositions”. Such editorial judgements, it said, “require nuanced decision-making”.
So, to be clear, the regulator thinks the view that man-made carbon emissions are causing global warming is so scientifically robust that broadcasters are under no obligation to present alternative opinions, but the notion that sex is binary, immutable and biological is so contentious that if GB News interviews some heretic who thinks trans women aren’t women it has to interview someone alongside them who thinks they are. Presumably, that means if the channel interviews, say, Sharron Davies on why women should not have to compete against trans-identifying men in swimming competitions, it should also feature a bloke with a beard who identifies as a woman making the opposite case. Oh, and if a GB News presenter refers to said bloke as ‘he/him’ rather than ‘she/her’, he could complain to Ofcom and it would likely be upheld.