Channel 4 broadcasted the first instalments of their ‘Genderquake’ series On the 7th & 8th of May 2018, with the intention of casting a light on the gender debate in Britain. Channel 4’s deputy director of programmes Kelly Webb-Lam has suggested that the series is an exploration of the issues of gender and gender identity, describing them to be ‘some of the most charged and hotly debated of our time’. Despite clearly recognising the contentious nature of the topic, I doubt that Webb-Lam had any idea of the level of controversy that the show would cause, having initiated seismic waves of criticism across social media and attracting over 200 complaints to Ofcom.
Two of the three episodes are a reality-style show in which a group of millennials of different gender identities and sexualities live together, described by Guardian writer Fiona Sturges as ‘Channel 4’s non-binary answer to Big Brother’. This part of the show led to heated discussions on topics such as, ‘What makes a woman?’, in which straight cisgender woman Filomena clashed with transgender woman Cambell over whether the ability to reproduce and to carry a child defines your gender.
Despite this initial clash there was little further conflict of opinion expressed by the cisgender members of the house. In fact Tom, a straight, cisgender man who had never met anyone transgender before, was arguably the most sensitive and respectful in the house, showing a genuine desire to learn more about the experiences of the transgender members of the house and providing them with comfort and support. In giving a platform to transgender, non-binary and LGBTQ+ people to voice their experiences and their feelings and by offering an emotional insight into the process of transitioning, the show has the potential to have a similarly enlightening impact on its audience, leading to more understanding of gender issues.
Nevertheless, not all members of the house were as sensitive and understanding. This was exemplified by Markus, a cisgender homosexual man, confronting Romario, who presented as a cisgender male, over his gender identity. Markus came across as incredibly insensitive in attacking Romario for not telling everyone that he was in fact transgender, and his argument that he felt betrayed due to his trust issues from being cheated on came across as pathetic, and highlighted Markus’s true lack of understanding and empathy of the feelings of transgender people.
The ‘outing’ of Romario as transgender also lead to his raising of the question of when do you stop being transgender, questioning when he can be seen simply as ‘a man’ and not ‘a transgender man’. This is a very interesting conversation and I would love to hear the opinions of more of the transgender community on this topic. I think that because the majority of the transgender voices that we hear in the media or see on social media are open and proud of their gender identity we assume that this is the case for all of the transgender community. In doing this we forget that there is a much larger percentage of transgender people who just go about their daily lives without projecting their transgender identity and perhaps like Romario just want to be accepted as the gender to which they identify.
The final episode of the ‘Genderquake’ series was a live debate in which a panel discussed gender issues and the prospective changes to the Gender Recognition Act in front of an audience. This debate proved to be controversial before it had even taken place with many transgender, genderqueer and LGBTQ+ activists refusing to partake. This may be surprising to many as surely a debate would provide a platform for them to raise awareness of the issues that they face? Unfortunately, this is often not the case in many television discussions and often these debates question and undermine the right of transgender people to identify as their chosen gender. Amrou Al-Kadhi, a genderqueer actor who refused to partake in the debate, expresses this in their article for The Independent, saying, “It’s deeply irresponsible to suggest that the right to self-identify your gender is up for “debate”. It isn’t.”
Nevertheless, the debate went ahead with a panel including Olympic gold medalist and reality television star Caitlyn Jenner, model and transgender activist Munroe Bergdorf and writers Germaine Greer and Sarah Ditum, among others. In her article for The Guardian Ditum notes that this was an achievement for Channel 4 because of the resistance that forms on both sides of the ‘debate’ when gender issues are discussed in the media. She states that not only do anti-transgender rights campaigners pressure venues into cancelling events but that, “trans people willing to debate these issues are often ostracised by their own communities, deemed to be collaborating with their oppressors”. The fact that, despite these difficulties, Channel 4 was able to present a broad range of panelists is commendable, however what actually went on air was not.
The debate itself was heavily dominate by both Greer and Ditum who steered the debate towards whether or not transgender rights and feminism are compatible. Ditum, in particular, was fixated on the fact that reforming the Gender Recognition Act would make it easier for men to prey on women in toilets, ignoring the fact that transgender women are some of the most oppressed in the patriarchy. To me this highlighted the ignorance of some of the feminist movement who appear to have forgotten that Second Wave Feminism fought for universal social rights, regardless of our genitals or reproductive biology, and it is clearly illogical to separate the aims of feminism and transgender rights.
During the latter part of the debate the audience became increasingly vocal, hurling transphobic abuse at Caitlyn Jenner and Munroe Bergdorf. I was shocked that these audience members were not removed, especially after Bergdorf requested it. In my opinion transphobic abuse should be treated in the same manor as racism, sexism and homophobia and it is undeniable that if racist slurs had been shouted by an audience member that they would be removed and likely arrested. Stonewall, an LGBT+ rights charity, expressed it’s disgrace that this transphobic hate speech wasn’t called out on the show, writing on twitter, “The trans community had deep concerns about last nights #Genderquake debate and we wrote to @Channel4 to impress the importance of calling out hate speech if the programme went ahead. These concerns were ignored. We’re now making complaint to @Ofcom. We encourage you to do so too.”
Ultimately, Channel 4 do deserve some credit for opening up such a difficult and controversial discussion and for providing a platform to enlighten and inform the public on the discussions surrounding gender identity. However, despite their good intentions the way that they presented the debate was very irresponsible as it could be interpreted to have questioned the rights of transgender people, not to mention the fact that it gave a platform to transphobic abuse and hate speech. Although discussion and awareness on gender issues is much needed, it should not come in the form of an inflammatory debate and perhaps the series would have been more beneficial if it only consisted of the reality-style show or if the live show had been better structured, without an audience and actually gave the transgender and LGBTQ+ community a voice and a platform to express their opinions.
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