As many of you who wrote a complaint to the BBC about their article “Some Trans Women Are Pressuring Us Into Sex” will now be aware, the BBC complaints department has issued a generic copy and paste response to those who complained, basically stating that at the current complaints stage they do not plan to do anything further, in terms of changing the article or issuing any direct apology or acknowledgement of error.

The response sent by the BBC is a boilerplate response, which was not uniquely tailored to any individual complaint. Even our 20,000 signatory open letter, and follow up correspondence, received the same “we did nothing wrong” sentiment response.

Unsurprisingly, we here at Trans Activism UK believe that this response from the BBC is unacceptable.

So, what are the next steps? Well, if you received this dismissive response email to your complaint, you will have also received instructions on how to escalate your complaint to the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit, the ECU.

You have 20 working days to issue your complaint escalation to them. We recommend you do so ASAP, so as to not get dropped out of the system due to not responding quickly enough. It’s a double standard that they have no such obligation of a fast response, but we cannot progress if we fail to meet their deadlines.

Your email will contain a unique link. Use this link to escalate your complaint to the ECU. DO NOT share your link to complain to the ECU, this link must only be used for a single complaint escalation, your own.
We recommend writing your complaint outside of the web form, and copy pasting it in after following the link, as some have had submission errors cause them to lose their complaints and have to rewrite them.

We understand how frustrating this dismissive response is, but do not lose the drive and emotion that fuelled your initial complaint.

We will be escalating our complaint, as well as holding a protest outside BBC Broadcasting House in London on Saturday 8th January 2022, starting at 1PM. We will be joined by a variety of speakers and we encourage those who feel safe and able to come and join us.

Please spread the word, don’t lose your fight, and we’ll see you soon.

You can find more information on our protest, and how to get involved, at the following places:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TransActivismUK
Facebook Event Page: https://fb.me/e/1V1utOEz6
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TransActivismUK
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/transactivismuk/