The BBC is set to broadcast a documentary on BBC Two on the 12th January 2017 at 9pm called ‘Transgender Kids: Who Knows Best?’. The documentary is based on the controversial views of Dr. Kenneth Zucker, who believes that Gender Dysphoria in children should be treated as a mental health issue.
In simpler terms, Dr. Zucker thinks that being/querying being Transgender as a child is not valid, and should be classed as a mental health issue.
The BBC present him as an “expert” in this field; in reality, he was fired from his role as head of CAMH’s (also known as CAMHS in the UK) Gender Identity Clinic, and the clinic shut down after an external review was conducted into Dr. Zucker’s methods.
Dr. Zucker has treated over 500 prepubescent gender-variant youth since the mid 70’s, and his practices are aimed at attempting to ‘repair’ the ‘biological’ gender of children, by employing techniques such as telling parents to discard of ‘feminine toys’.
Remember, this man was the head of the Gender Identity Clinic. And according to a 2011 report from TRANS Pulse, 77% of transgender Ontarians have seriously considered suicide, and 43% have attempted it.
In April 2014, new laws were put in place by the Ontarian Humans Rights Commission to protect transgender rights. The bill made his practices illegal. In addition to this, there are alsoallegations of Dr. Zucker being a sex offender.
This man is no expert and should not be treated as one.
To clarify, this petition is not to stop this program for being broadcast entirely; however no transgender experts in the UK have watched over this program, which potentially may have a transphobic undertone. We simply don’t know what to expect from the program, however from his history and the synopsis available online, we can make an educated guess that it won’t be in support of Transgender Rights for Children.
Honestly, we don’t know if the producers at the BBC know how much damage this program could do.
In recent years we have made massive strides in transgender rights, social acceptance of transgender people in society, and levels of discrimination and prejudice against transgender people are lowering. But this program endangers some of the progress we have made.
I have no issue with Dr. Zucker having an opinion. But I do have an issue when that opinion is being spread on primetime national television to potentially millions of viewers, with no vetting from transgender experts confirming that it does not promote transphobic views.
Ultimately, this TV show could spark a trail of prejudice; belittling transgender children, leading to them not being socially accepted by society. To me, that is too big of a risk to take.
We know that this is meant to be a “challenging documentary”, and we are not attempting to censor an opinion or block a civil debate from occurring. We just want to have the documentary independently reviewed by an expert before it is aired, to make sure there will be no damaging knock-on affects as a result.
There are five days left until this program is broadcast.
In that time, genuine independent experts in this field could overlook and review the documentary for broadcast on television.
I do not think that is much to ask of a corporation like the BBC.Please sign this petition to ensure this program will not have negative effects on today’s transgender youth. Thank you.
Dr. Zucker has been hundreds of young trans people’s nightmare and has been allowed to enact cruel reparative therapy on them for far too long. Giving him a stage to repeat his ideas on prime time national television is dangerous to trans kids. Imagine the effect his ideas, falsely presented as coming from a ‘leading expert’ instead of a fired discredited transphobe, could have on impressional parents of transgender children.
Handing a transphobic hack a microphone and calling him an expert is not cutting edge journalist. It’s just handing a transphobic hack a microphone and calling him an expert.
Petition: ‘Transgender Kids: Who Knows Best?’ should not be broadcast until reviewed by experts
QueerAnarchism 