Following weeks of criticism from Disney staff, writers and fans, Chapek argued that “diverse stories” are more impactful than a company statement against the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, SB 1834, also known as the Parental Rights in Education bill.
“As we have seen time and again, corporate statements do very little to change outcomes or minds,” he wrote in the memo, published in full by the Los Angeles Times
“Instead, they are often weaponised by one side or the other to further divide and inflame. imply put, they can be counterproductive and undermine more effective ways to achieve change.”
He went as far as to list these “diverse stories” – most of which feature no canonically LGBT+ characters.
“Encanto, Black Panther, Pose, Reservation Dogs, Coco, Soul, Modern Family, Shang-Chi, Summer of Soul, Love, Victor. These and all of our diverse stories are our corporate statements — and they are more powerful than any tweet or lobbying effort,” the Disney CEO wrote.
Michael Cimino in Love, Victor. (Gilles Mingasson/Hulu)
“I firmly believe that our ability to tell such stories — and have them received with open eyes, ears, and hearts — would be diminished if our company were to become a political football in any debate.”
Disney ‘both sides’ Don’t Say Gay politician donation criticism
Chapek said he had met with LGBT+ leaders within Disney who expressed their “disappointment” at the company’s silence.
As much as he found such concerns “meaningful, illuminating, and at times deeply moving,” Chapek did not commit to taking direct action against the bill.
“While we have not given money to any politician based on this issue, we have contributed to both Republican and Democrat legislators who have subsequently taken positions on both sides of the legislation,” he said.
He added that Geoff Morrell, the company’s chief corporate affairs officer, “will be reassessing our advocacy strategies around the world — including political giving — as he begins to integrate the communications, public policy, government relations and CSR teams”.
Chapek’s words echoed a previous Disney statement that stressed the importance of the “inspiring content” that Disney sells rather than publicly opposing cruel, dehumanising legislation.
Disney staff slam Bob Chapek for not taking a stand against ‘hateful’ bill
Employees were less than impressed by Chapek’s statement. Many expressed disappointment and frustration.
“I LOVED being a part of a Disney Channel show known for featuring gay characters AND storylines,” tweetedAndi Mack star Lilan Bowden.
“The ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill will be DETRIMENTAL to LGBTQIA+ kids,” she said, adding: “Hoping the company or more ppl in the company take action against this hateful bill. #DisneySayGay.”
Brock Powell, a Mickey Mouse Funhouse voice actor, tweeted: “Never been quiet about my love of Disney over the years but being loud about my own identity as a queer human took YEARS.
“Breaks me in pieces that a company that literally pays me to speak is paying to keep me silent by funding puritanical Anti-LGBTQIA+ politicians. #DisneySayGay.”
Animation writer Benjamin Siemon in a video posted on Twitter: “[Disney is] starting to include more LGBT characters that let kids know that being gay is all right.
“But when they have donated to the sponsors and co-sponsors of the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill and they have made no position against this bill, and they are going to continue donating to these politicians, they are essentially saying that this bill is OK.”
Dana Terrace, creator of the acclaimed, LGBT-inclusive The Owl House, said: “I’m f**king tired of making Disney look good.”
“Disney was recently found out to be donating large sums of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars, to the sponsors and co-sponsors of the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, a bill that effectively tells LGBT+ kids: ‘You don’t exist. You don’t deserve to exist. You shouldn’t even be talked about.’”
A beloved trans Latina woman allegedly killed in Lubbock, Texas, has become 2022’s third victim of an unceasing “epidemic of violence” in the US.
Cypress Ramos, a 21-year-old who could always be found smiling and cheering on her friends, was found dead in a storage unit on the morning of 12 February.
She died of blunt force trauma to the head after being struck by an unspecified hard object, according to the murder warrant for 32-year-old Allan Montemayor, who has been charged for Ramos’ murder, KCBD reported.
Ramos was found inside a locked container in the 2700 block of North Frankford Avenue after a fire was reported by a neighbour. Lubbock Fire Rescue put out the blaze only to discover a “dead body” inside at 11.30am.
As police arrived at the storage unit, officers elsewhere were dispatched to Montemayor who told cops he “f**ked up” and that there was a body in a storage unit set on fire.
Surveillance footage showed Montemayor’s pickup truck parked outside the unit. Both he and Ramos entered the unit – one hour and 20 minutes later, only he left and drove away.
When pressed by police about what took place inside, the warrant said he simply “shrugged and stated: ‘Isn’t it apparent?’” He alleged that Ramos has set a fire before coming at him with a bat and, “at this point, it was either me or [her],” Montemayor added, misgendering the victim.
Montemayor later told detectives that he believed a “song” had compelled Ramos to launch an attack against him in the unit. He also said, however, that the same song gave him instructions to kill the victim.
Lubbock County Sheriff investigators said that Montemayor had blood on his legs as well as his pants, said Ramos’ friend, drag queen Camilla Urbina, to KCBD.
“He tried to burn my friend, literally,” she alleged. “Like burn, burn them up.”
“There was blood on his pants, I believe that something else happened. And the truth will come out. And you will pay, promise.”
Montemayor is currently in the Lubbock County Detention Center where he is held on a $500,000 bond for a charge of murder.
Cypress Ramos was ‘always smiling’ and ‘loved everyone,’ friends say
According to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT+ campaign group that has been monitoring trans homicide rates since 2013, Ramos is “at least” the third trans, non-binary or gender non-conforming person violently killed in 2022.
It comes after last year’s record-breaking death tally of at least 56, many of them Black trans women, an already dizzyingly high figure that has continued to climb as more homicide cases emerge months after 2021 came to an end.
HRC has long warned that its own count is likely inaccurate, given that three-fourths of trans victims are misgendered and deadnamed by the police and press.
The American Medical Association has warned of an “epidemic of violence” against trans Americans – a statement repeated by president Joe Biden. The latest victim of this wave of violence, Ramos, was to those who knew her a “friend, a sister, a daughter”.
“Cypress was always smiling,” a friend of Ramos told Equality Texas in a statement on Saturday (19 February). “She was so tiny, so it felt like my arms wrapped around her three times.
“She just loved everyone,” the friend said before Equality Texas added: “A bright light like Cypress deserved to shine bright for much longer.”
The state-level advocacy group said a candlelight vigil in honour of Ramos’ life was held later that day at Tim Cole Memorial Park.
“Cypress Ramos’ death was an awful end to such a young life,” Tori Cooper, who leads HRC’s Transgender Justice Initiative, said in a statement.
“Her story highlights how trans women of colour are still devalued in our society.
“We must all work to end the epidemic of violence against transgender and non-binary people. May justice be served in this case.”
Australian prime minister Scott Morrison has vowed to stop students from being expelled for their sexuality or gender identity by religious schools.
In an unexpected turnaround, the right-wing leader who has long been upfront about his evangelical Christian faith, promised to stop faith-based schools from discriminating against pupils, parents and guardians.
Morrison made the surprise remarks that left fellow lawmakers and religious activists stunned to Brisbane’s B105.3radio station on Thursday (3 February).
It required families to sign enrolment paperwork that said being LGBT+ is “immoral” and compared it to incest, bestiality and paedophilia.
“No, I don’t support that,” Morrison told the station. “My kids go to a Christian school here in Sydney, and I wouldn’t want my school doing that either.”
Morrison said he will introduce amendments to the Religious Discrimination Bill – which has been a thorny issue for both faith groups and LGBT+ rights campaigners – to prevent religious schools from discriminating in this way.
The bill, introduced last November, would allow faith-based organisations like churches, schools and workplaces to offset anti-discrimination laws, as long as their “statements of belief” don’t “threaten, intimidate, harass or vilify a person or group”.
“The bill we’re going to be taking through the parliament,” Morrison added, “we will have an amendment that will deal with that to ensure kids cannot be discriminated on that basis.
“I’ve been saying that for years. That’s always been my view.”
Scott Morrison (C) attends a virtual summit with Japanese premier Kishida Fumio. (AFP via Getty Images)
He added said that schools “should be able to teach kids” in a way that aligns with their faith, from Christianity to Islam.
The Religious Discrimination Bill, he said, would protect Australians “whether they have a faith or they don’t”.
Morrison’s comments signal a fallback by his government, whose hardline Liberal Party MPs have pushed the Religious Discrimination Bill in parliament.
Federal attorney general Michaelia Cash only recently claimed that scrapping the exemption from the bill was not feasible. Instead, she said, the Sex Discrimination Act would be amended to shield LGBT+ students – in 12 months, that is.
But it has faced an uncertain future, with moderate Liberals saying they will not vote for it unless the exemption allowing faith-based schools to turn away queer students is removed.
Morrison has supported better protecting queer students since 2018, but policy-makers struggled to roll out reforms at the time that wasn’t shot with loopholes that would have allowed schools to discriminate LGBT+ people in different ways instead.
Christian groups say Scott Morrison has ‘betrayed’ them
Choosing a pretty weird hill to die on, Christian groups recoiled in rage at Scott Morrison’s vow to close religious school exemptions.
“Scott Morrison has betrayed the foundation of the Religious Discrimination Bill,” said Greg Bondar, FamilyVoice NSW director, in a social media statement.
Bondar said it is a “sad day for all Australians” – certainly not for students expelled for being LGBT+, however – and that it has “put religious freedom and free speech at risk”.
Equality Australia, the nation’s top queer rights group, welcomed Morrison’s comments with cautious optimism and urged his administration to “scrap the flawed” bill altogether.
“The prime minister made a commitment in 2018 to remove the outdated carve-outs in national anti-discrimination laws which allow discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in religious schools,” said the group’s legal director Ghassan Kassisieh in a statement.
“This reform is long overdue, and better protections must apply to both teachers and students.
“But the Morrison government’s Religious Discrimination Bill will invite exactly this type of practice in employment across faith-based organisations, from schools, aged-care services, emergency accommodation and hospitals.
“The prime minister may be putting out one small fire, but his Religious Discrimination Bill will unleash a firestorm of discrimination in religious organisations against anyone that holds a different belief from their faith-based employer – even when they can faithfully do the job that is required of them.”
Young LGBT+ people who have experienced sexual assault have reported being afraid to seek help because of prejudice.
A survey released Monday (7 February) by the NHS asked 4,000 people in England about their experiences of sexual assault.
Two in five people said they did not know where to get help after being sexually assaulted, while 56 per cent of sexual assault survivors sought no help from support services following the attack.
The NHS offers support for people who have experienced sexual assault including through specialised sexual assault referral centres, or SARCs. However, 72 per cent were unaware the NHS even offered such help.
Of the 150 LGBT+ people aged 18-33 surveyed, the trend remained the same. Two-fifths sought no support at all, and three out of five were not aware that the NHS provides various support services for sexual assault survivors.
Among LGBT+ people who had been sexually assaulted who did not report the attack, many cited a fear of not being believed or of being judged.
The poll was conducted as part of the NHS’ £20 million bid to boost awareness of SARCs and other support services for sexual assault survivors.
Across the next three years, millions will be injected into both sexual assaultand domestic violence services.
Such funding comes in response the troubling decline in the number of people receiving help from SARCs. Statistics from the NHS show SARC service-use halved after the first lockdown compared with the previous year, despite figures from the Office for National Statistics showing that domestic abuse and sexual assault sharply increased across 2020 in has been called a “shadow pandemic“.
Again, only 14 per cent of the 505 queer men surveyed by SurvivorsUK reported the incident to the police. Almost a third of LGBT+ people who told the police said the cops “disbelieved” them or refused to take their claims seriously.
In England, those who have been sexually assaulted can seek free medical, practical and emotional support from SARCs.
The 24-hour centres are staffed by healthcare workers and advisors, according to the NHS. Survivors can be connected to police officers and forensic examiners who support them as they report the assault to law enforcement.
Other options include people’s general practitioners (GP), sexual health clinics and hospital emergency departments as well as voluntary organisations such as Rape Crisis and Male Survivors Partnership, many of which operate freephone helplines.
“Sexual assault or domestic abuse can happen to anyone – any age, ethnicity, gender or social circumstance – and it may be a one-off event or happen repeatedly,” said Katie Davies, NHS director of sexual assault services commissioning.
“But sadly, thousands of people aren’t sure where to turn to get the help they need, and today the NHS is making it clear that you can turn to us.”
A worrying report has shown that just a third of LGBT+ Christians feel safe to be themselves at church, fearing “hostility and discrimination”.
The report from the Ozanne Foundation, in collaboration with nine LGBT+ Christian organisations, is the result of research conducted last year and overseen by Dr Sarah Carr, a mental health and social care research specialist.
The survey received around 750 responses from queer Christian adults in the UK, with the majority (59 per cent) attending Church of England churches, and the remaining respondents belonging to other Christian denominations.
It found that less than a third (31 per cent) of LGBT+ Christians felt they could “be themselves” at church, with gay men the most likely to “feel safe to be out to everyone in their local church” (45 per cent).
This figure dropped significantly for lesbians (35 per cent), even further for trans and non-binary folk (28 per cent), and just 23 per cent of bisexualChristians said they felt safe to be out at church.
Most respondents felt that while their physical safety was prioritised by church leaders, far less attention was given to their “spiritual”, “sexual”, “psychological” and “emotional” safety.
Dr Carr said: “The findings show that fear and anticipation as well as experiences of hostility and discrimination can make churches feel unsafe, exclusionary environments where many LGBT+ people state they ‘feel scared to be themselves’.
“While there was a recognition that churches focused on physical aspects of safeguarding, attention to emotional and psychological safeguarding was found wanting – which the findings imply are just the type of safeguarding LGBT+ Christians need!”
Asked what being safe at church looked like, three quarters of LGBT+ Christians described it as not being “worried what might be said in the sermon” and being able to be “open with the clergy about my sexuality and/or gender identity”.
The role of clergy in safeguarding LGBT+ Christians was clear, with others saying that church leaders “openly affirming same-sex relationships”, having an “inclusive statement on our church website” and having “positive recognition of LGBT+ people in sermons” would make them feel safer.
The right reverend Paul Bayes, Bishop of Liverpool and former chair of the Ozanne Foundation, said the research “shows just how important it is for church leaders to be clear about where they stand on LGBT+ matters”.
“Silence has a price – and we now see clearly who has been paying it,” he added.
“I long for the day when all LGBT+ people can enter a church and not feel apprehensive or anxious about how they might be treated.”
Dave Moreton of Oasis Open House, an organisation supporting LGBT+ people of faith, described the worrying findings laid out in the report as “the outcome of faith-based rejection and conversion therapy“.
Moreton said: “Safeguarding is one of the most challenging topics before the Church today, especially as many of our LGBT+ siblings tragically harm themselves, leave the church and even take their own lives.
“It is a shame that many of our LGBT+ siblings feel safer in a gay bar than in one of our church congregations.”
The report included recommendations for church leaders, and stated that churches need “to be far more proactive in helping LGBT+ Christians feel safe enough to be themselves”, “to broaden their concept of safety to include matters that impact the emotional and mental health of their members” and “to be clear where they stand on LGBT+ matters”. Wider faith communities must also “drive awareness of pressures faced by LGBT+ Christians”.
Jayne Ozanne, director of the Ozanne Foundation, said: “This research shows just how vulnerable LGBT+ Christians feel in our churches.
“The fact that so many are apprehensive about attending church and are worried about what might be said in the sermon should come as a serious wake-up call to church leaders.
“It’s time we took the wellbeing of LGBT+ people in our care seriously and look at ways in which we can help them feel safe.”
A defiant but still very much defeated Donald Trump vowed to ban trans athletes nationwide if elected to a new term as president.
Trump, the former firebrand Republican president, took to Conroe, Texas Saturday night (29 January) for his first Texan MAGA rally since 2019.
In a meandering speech that stretched more than an hour-long, Trump laid out a string of promises certain to roil his critics – LGBT+ people included – at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds.
“We will ban men from participating in women’s sports,” he told his toadying supporters dressed in “Trump 2024” t-shirts and hats. “So ridiculous.”
“Have you heard about the man who is on the swim team that I know well?” he said, misgendering Thomas and doing so as he mention how Thomas shattered two women’s records with a 38-second margin against her closest competitor.
Trump then took aim at trailblazing trans weightlifters such as Laurel Hubbard, who, like Thomas, saw their wish to compete in the sport they love turn them into walking targets for a snickering right-wing media.
“But the best is the weightlifting records – they’re going,” Trump said. “One guy walks in with one hand [and] he broke the record that held up for 20 years.”
“Take a look at the weightlifting record,” he told bystanders, “two ounces is unacceptable. They beat ’em by many, many, many, many, many, many pounds.”
Hubbard, who became the first openly trans woman to compete in the Olympics, raised alarm among right-wing weirdos for existing last year. She bowed out of the competition after failing to lift 125kg in the +87kg women’s weightlifting final.
Donald Trump promises to pardon 6 Jan rioters in roiling rally speech
To Trump, a second term in the White House would be a return to law and order. To squash undocumented migrants, criminals and, er, those not prosecuted for attacking the Capitol on 6 January last year.
“If I run, and if I win, we will treat those people from Jan 6 fairly,” he said near the end of his inflammatory and vastly incoherent speech. It’s Trump, after all.
“And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons, because they are being treated so unfairly.”
Speaking of unfair treatment, Trump singled out immigrants with a level of vitriol all too typical among populist leaders, saying they are “invading” the US and causing the death of “countless” Americans.
Thousands of onlookers cheered after.
In what amounted to a MAGA Reddit user bingo card, Trump rattled on about critical race theory, his controversial tax dealings, Joe Biden and his completely debased claims of electoral fraud.
“We will take back America and in 2024 we will take back this beautiful, beautiful home that is white,” Trump ended. “He’s so great. We all love him.”
A group of rowdy men told a gay man and a trans women they would stab them and demanded they leave a London takeaway all while filming them.
An alarming and since-deleted TikTok video shows the moment Valentino Kyriakou and Naya Martinez were targeted by a group of men in Wembley, west London.
According to the BBC, the pair said that as they waited for their food at Tasty Chicken along Bridge Road on Saturday (29 January), the group targeted them.
A Metropolitan Police Service spokesperson confirmed to the BBC that “inquiries are underway to identify those shown in the video”. PinkNews has also contacted the police for comment.
“They were calling us every name and then threatening to ‘shank’ us,” 20-year-old Kyriakou told the broadcaster, “which is obviously stab us in the shop, so we just had to leave without even getting all our food.”
Grabbing the food they’d been served so far, Kyriakou and Martinez fled from the shop – but the incident soon spilt out onto the street, as the men yelled: “Get the f**k out not. Get out now. Get out the shop now.
“You come back, I’ll shank you both. I’ll shank you up. Get out. Take your f**king bag and get out.”
“Don’t f**king come here again,” one of the hooded men added. “Don’t f**king come here again.”
“They were so, so angry, I don’t know why,” Martinez recounted. “They literally were so threatened by us – it was crazy. And all we were doing was standing there waiting to pick up our food.
“All I felt in that moment was: ‘Oh my God, I am going to get touched soon, this is going to be physical.’”
During the incident, the men brashly videoed themselves abusing the pair. The clip later went viral on Twitter and Facebook.
Seemingly comfortable enough to film himself hurling abuse at two people, the TikTok video, Kyriakou and Martinez said, shows the impunity homophobic people increasingly feel in Britain to openly hate.
“Stuff like this within London in the LGBT+ community happens every day,” Martinez said.
“I was surprised the video went that viral and it’s getting people’s attention.”
Hate crimes against LGBT+ people overall have soared by 210 per cent in the last five years. The greatest and most startling surge was seen with transphobic attacks that have quadrupled in the last six years.
Only 14 per cent of reported anti-LGBT+ hate crimes are actually resolved by the police, the investigative journalism unit Liberty Investigates found.
But Martinez, for one, refuses to feel defeated.
On Instagram Monday (31 January), she uploaded a bathroom mirror selfie wearing a breathtaking bodysuit in defiance of her attackers.
“I see why they wanted me out of the chicken shop,” she joked.
“We were made aware of this video on Saturday, 29 January which shows an incident at a takeaway restaurant in Bridge Road, Wembley,” a Met Police spokesperson told PinkNews. “The incident happened on Thursday, 20 January.
“Officers have now spoken to the victims and enquiries are ongoing to identify others in the video.
“The incident is being treated as a hate crime. No arrests have been made.
The horrific spate of anti-LGBT+ killings that have fuelled fear in Jamaica is to be investigated as part of a new podcast series.
Ring The Alarm, an Apple Podcasts series that will explore what it’s like to be LGBT+ in the island country, will be hosted by Jasmyne Cannick, one of Los Angeles’ most recognisable Black political strategists and journalists.
Cannick helped capture national attention to the sordid killings by small-time American Democratic donor Ed Buck – now she’s training focus on the creeping homicide rates of LGBT+ people in Jamaica.
“I have always used my platform to elevate Black stories and issues I felt were being ignored and Ring the Alarm is no different,” Cannick told The Advocate.
“When I was asked to come to Jamaica to speak to the LGBTQ+ community and share their stories, I immediately said yes.
“I said yes because American’s have had so much to say about the plight of queer people in places like Iran and Afghanistan but for decades have ignored the murders of lesbian women, gay men, and trans men and women in Jamaica.
“Well not anymore.”
The world ‘can’t keep ignoring’ wave of LGBT+ murders in Jamaica
In Jamaica, it is illegal to be gay, punishable by up to a decade in prison with hard labour. Some take the law into their own hands, carrying out brutal torture and murders that capture the deepening homophobia in the country.
Many queer Jamaicans live in fear, with more than half saying they have been victims of some form of violence fuelled by hatred for their sexual orientation or gender identity, according to the Human Rights Watch.
Contempt towards LGBT+ people is entrenched in the Jamaican state, the group warned.
Queer youth rejected by their families remain among the most vulnerable in society and battle to survive as the public and police target them.
But described by Cannick as like a modern-day underground railroad, countless safehouses provide LGBT+ people with a place of safety, healing and camaraderie.
Cannick hopes to tell the stories behind the safehouses and those who run them while raising money for the organisers. Above all, she hopes to raise national attention once again to a pressing issue – the killing of the most vulnerable.
“Americans love vacationing in Jamaica,” she added, “but just beyond the carefully curated tourism corridor, people are being murdered for being queer.
“We can’t be okay with that. We can’t keep ignoring that.”
More than 120 German Roman Catholic priests and officials have jointly come out as LGBT+ and called on the church to do better by queer Catholics.
Presenting a fresh test for the church, which has long resisted calls to modernise when it comes to LGBT+ rights, 125 former and current priests, teachers, church administrators and volunteers came out on Sunday (23 January).
In a Change.org petition, the group wrote that while some have “bravely and dared” to come out in the past, others have only “just taken the step”.
“We no longer want to remain silent,” they wrote.
Jointly, the group is demanding that church leadership bring an end to “outdated statements of church doctrine” when it comes to sexuality and gender.
“We want to be able to live and work openly as LGBTIQ+ persons in the church without fear,” the statement read.
The initiative, called Out In Church, posted Sunday evening a lengthy list of demands addressed to the Roman Catholic Church.
LGBT+ Roman Catholics must have access to “all fields of activists and occupation in the Church without discrimination”, they said.
Out In Church also took aim at Church employment rules that consider being openly queer as a “breach of loyalty or a reason for dismissal”.
“Defamatory and outdated statements of church doctrine on sexuality and gender needs to be revised on the basis of theological and human scientific findings,” the officials continued.
“This is of utmost relevance especially in view of worldwide church responsibility for the human rights of LGBTIQ+ persons.”
Among the group’s other calls is a plea for the church to give LGBT+ people of faith access to God’s blessings and sacraments, and to oppose LGBT+ discrimination in all its forms.
Above all, the group urged church leaders to shoulder accountability for the institution historic discrimination of LGBT+ people.
“In dealing with LGBTIQ+ persons, the church has caused much suffering throughout its history,” Out In Church concluded.
“We expect bishops to take responsibility for this on behalf of the church, to address the institutional history of guilt and to advocate for the changes we call for.”
It’s the latest example of Catholics challenging the Vatican’s increasingly mixed messages on LGBT+ inclusion.
The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith said that it does not “discriminate” but that God “cannot bless sin”.
The Vatican even objected to a proposed bill in Italy that would protect queer people from discrimination, with the unprecedented intervention sparking outrage.
Francis himself has flip-flopped on the issue of LGBT+ rights. While he once appeared to suggest support for civil unions, he has previously said that parents of queer children should “consult a professional” and referred to “gender ideology” as a “move away from nature”.
As the beleaguered BBC faces backlash from government ministers, PinkNews takes a brief look back at the broadcaster’s track record on LGBT+ rights.
Tory culture minister Nadine Dorries fuelled alarm over the weekend after she questioned the BBC’s main source of funding, a license fee charged to all TV viewers in the nation.
On Monday evening (17 January), Dorries confirmed that the BBC budget will be frozen for the next two years, adding that the future of the public-owned broadcaster’s funding will be “up for discussion”.
It’s the latest salvos against the BBC fired by a minister in Boris Johnson’s government – one that has increasingly smeared the public broadcaster as a megaphone of the metropolitan elite that is anything but “impartial”.
Others, however, disagree. Stressing that right-wing opinions often receive more airtime than progressive ones, according to a Cardiff University study, among other concerns.
From airing the first same-sex kiss televised on a soap opera to the constant accusations of “transphobia” riddling its senior ranks, here are some of the good – and the bad – of the BBC’s history with queer lives and issues.
When the BBC aired the first televised gay kiss on Eastenders
(BBC)
In 1989, the BBC made history when it aired the first mouth-to-mouth same-sex kiss on British TV.
Kind-hearted Colin Russell, played by Michael Cashman, was the long-running show’s first gay character, a time when LGBT+ representation on prime-time TV was threadbare.
In 1987, a monumental episode of the soap opera saw Russell receive a kiss on the forehead from his on-screen boyfriend Barry Clark (Gary Hailes). Two years later, in 1989, Michael Cashman’s character made history yet again, with Russell and his boyfriend Guido (Nicholas Donovan) sharing the first mouth-to-mouth same-sex kiss on British TV.
Both landmark moments were inevitably blasted by the right-wing press – with Piers Morgan branding the latter as “a love scene between two yuppie poofs” in The Sun – and inundated with complaints from fuming viewers, but the show since been credited with helping to soften the public’s attitudes towards queer folk.
BBC’s Boy Meets Girl casts first trans actor in trans role on a British sitcom
Rebecca Root and Harry Hepple in ‘Boy Meets Girl’. (BBC)
Boy Meets Girl, a comedy-drama about two people falling in love, was the broadcaster’s first sitcom focusing on trans lives.
The show’s lead, Rebecca Root, became the first trans actor cast in a television soap opera, with both the programme and Root bagging a nomination at the British LGBT Awards in 2016.
“The BBC should be proud of its commitment to diversity and groundbreaking coverage of LGBT+ issues,” Sarah Garrett, who founded the awards, told the BBC at the time.
Strictly Come Dancing welcoming historic first same-sex pairings
John Whaite and Johannes Radebe. (BBC)
Strictly Come Dancing, a staple of many a Brit’s living room, broke ballroom ground when it finally welcomed its first same-sex dancers in 2020 and 2021.
Nicola Adams and Katya Jones and John Whaite and Johannes Radebe became the competition’s first all-female and male pairings respectively.
In the face of bigoted backlash from pearl-clutching viewers, the BBC continually refused to uphold viewer complaints and defended the simple act of two people of the same gender dancing.
A commitment to bringing LGBT+ stories to the forefront of its programming
Sheridan Smith as Sarah Sak in BBC drama, Four Lives. (BBC)
From the quietly subversive Everybody’s Talking About Jamie documentary,Drag Queen at 16, in 2011 to this year’s Four Lives, the BBC has in the last decade gone out of its way to represent LGBT+ lives beyond tired coming out plot lines.
BBC Three, the home of the network’s more off-the-wall, youth-focused shows, has been especially at the forefront of this.
The channel aired both Growing Up Gay with Olly Alexander and Transitioning Teens, which saw trans activist Charlie Craggs chat to trans teens who have waited years to be seen by the NHS.
The time BBC debated the ‘morality’ of LGBT+ lessons in schools
All of the Question Time panellists supported LGBT-inclusive education. (Screen capture via the BBC)
On Question Time, BBC One’s weekly political discussion show, panellists were posed the question of whether it is “morally right” to teach children about LGBT+ issues in 2019.
As much as the panel, made up of senior lawmakers, company bosses and journalists, agreed that LGBT-inclusive education is “morally right”, the episode drew fierce complaints online.
“The framing of this question is deeply worrying,” tweeted BBC presenter Sue Perkins. “Are we really here again, nearly two decades after Section 28 was repealed…?”
When the BBC ‘balanced’ its coverage by featuring a gay execution supporter
Elton John and David Furnish with their two sons. (Getty)
In 2010, seven million people tuned in to watch BBC’s flagship News at Sixbulletin as it reported on the birth of Elton John and David Furnish’s first child.
During the broadcast, the show interviewed a single person – Stephen Green, of right-wing group Christian Voice.
But it failed to mention that Green has previously supported the death penalty for gay men in Uganda, among other examples of small-mindedness. The BBC did so, it told PinkNews at the time, to add an “opposing viewpoint” to the subject of surrogacy.
The BBC once debated whether ‘gays should be executed’
Ugandan men hold a rainbow flag reading ‘Join hands to end LGBTI genocide’ (ISAAC KASAMANI/AFP/Getty)
As Ugandan lawmakers debated a bill that would introduce the death penalty for LGBT+ people in 2009, the BBC World Service asked: “Should homosexuals be executed?”
The backlash was swift. The radio station’s director, Peter Horrocks, apologised for the report in a statement published to the BBC Editors’ Blog.
“The original headline on our website was, in hindsight, too stark,” he said. “We apologise for any offence it caused.”
The BBC quitting a workplace Stonewall scheme over a ‘risk of perceived bias’
Stonewall is the UK – and Europe’s – largest LGBT+ charity. (Getty)
BBC bosses said that the departure was to “minimise the risk of perceived bias” when it comes to covering LGBT+ issues.
It was the upshot of a divisive culture war that had pelted the programme, with many taking aim at the scheme in what Stonewall has described as part of a “coordinated attack” against the charity.
Fran Unsworth allegedly telling LGBT+ staff to ‘get used to hearing views you don’t like’
Fran Unsworth, head of news at the BBC. (BBC)
The BBC’s director of news Fran Unsworth reportedly told the corporation’s LGBT+ network to “get used” to hearing opinions they do not agree with.
“You’ll hear things you don’t personally like and see things you don’t like – that’s what the BBC is, and you have to get used to that,” Unsworth allegedly said at the meeting.
The meeting had been called following weeks of tension within the BBC surrounding the broadcaster’s handling of LGBT+ issues, mainly trans rights.
‘We’re being pressured into sex by some trans women’
Trans rights protestors gather outside the BBC building. (Hollie Adams/Getty Images)
Among the laundry list of criticisms from LGBT+ people: How it relied on a survey of just 80 people, how the survey was conducted by an anti-trans group, how Lily Cade, a porn star interviewed in the article, had called for trans women to be “lynched” and “executed”.
Some former and current BBC staffers even quit the organisation, citing a “hostile” environment against LGBT+ people – with the podcast being the final straw.
“We really need to start looking internally at ourselves as the BBC,” said one staff member in a leaked document, “and ask a very simple question.
