Today, November 4th 2021, ten days after the initial publication by the BBC of ‘We’re being pressured into sex by some trans women’, the BBC has issued a small and vague change to their article without any fanfare.

While the BBC have removed the quotes and statements by Lily Cade from the article, they did not mention Lily Cade by name in the retraction, or the nature of her genocidal transphobic manifesto in the days following the BBC’s article, the nature of the sexual assault allegations against her by cisgender lesbians, how they undermine the core point of the original article (that sexual assaults of cis lesbians are specifically being done by trans women as an overall societal group), or that Caroline Lowbridge was well aware of those allegations prior to the publishing of the article and chose to bury that information, as alledged by Chelsea Poe.

The BBC has not issued any kind of public apology, accepted fault, or publicised the fact that they were in error to use Lily Cade as a source.

Further, the BBC has not yet addressed any of the other issues raised in our open letter, signed by 20,000 people, regarding the lack of context for the other transphobic sources cited in the article

The edited article still platforms LGB Alliance without making their harsh anti trans campaigning clear, and platforms Get the L Out without the context of their anti trans campaigning (See highjacking Pride in London to hand out leaflets about how all trans women are rapists). They still do not address that, at the core, they gave anti trans groups with known biases a platform to suggest trans women were potential sexual abusers, without a proper counter argument, or context of the sources cited

By choosing to remove all mention of Lily Cade, rather than contextualise her as a cisgender lesbian accused of the same crimes levied in the piece against trans women, the BBC is again choosing to bury the rebuttal arguement that anyone from any background can be an abuser, and that to paint this as a trans woman specific issue is painting a minority group with a single brush stroke.

This amendment to the piece removes Lily Cade without properly addressing how monumental of a failing her inclusion by the BBC was, without addressing our open letter’s other complaints, and comes across as trying to bury the worst aspect of their coverage to try and appease those who feel the overall piece is deeply flawed.

The BBC spent ten days issuing boilerplate responses to complaints insisting their article was well researched, while ignoring trans activists highlighting glaring issues with the piece.

This is not sufficient as a correction, or apology.

The BBC needs to own up to the fact they have published something deeply dangerous, platformed dangerous individuals, and should not be allowed to quietly sweep this under the rug.

This should not be seen as a victory, but the first step on a long road to getting the BBC to acknowledge the issues inherent to this article.