When is a report not a report? When it’s a letter seen by a transphobic journalist at the BBC.

This week, the BBC ran an article claiming that a ‘UN report warned men could ‘abuse’ Scottish gender reforms’ in its headline.

There is no such report.

BBC tweet - "UN report warns men could 'abuse' Scottish gender reforms"
BBC tweet

At some point after they published the article, the BBC quietly amended the headline from “UN report warns men could ‘abuse’ Scottish gender reforms” to “UN expert warns men could ‘abuse’ Scottish gender reforms”.

Two vastly different things, I’m sure you will agree.

BBC website - "UN expert warns men could 'abuse' Scottish gender reforms"
BBC website

There was no acknowledgment of the correction in an article that has no byline.

The letter was sent to the UK Government by UN special rapporteur Reem Alsalem and betrays Alsalem’s motives, even though she appears to speak out in defence of trans women.

As special rapporteur on violence against women, I’d be fairly surprised if she was not aware that writing ‘transwomen’ is a GC dogwhistle, yet that’s what she puts in her letter. Then again, I’d expect the special rapporteur on violence against women to actually know what these reforms will do.

Alsalem said, without evidence, that the legislation “would potentially open the door for violent males who identify as men to abuse the process of acquiring a gender certificate and the rights that are associated with it.

“This presents potential risks to the safety of women in all their diversity (including women born female, transwomen, and gender non-conforming women).”

She added that the proposals “do not sufficiently take into consideration the specific needs of women and girls in all their diversity, particularly those at risk of male violence and those who have experienced male violence, as it does not provide for any safeguarding measures to ensure that the procedure is not, as far as can be reasonably assured, abused by sexual predators and other perpetrators of violence

“It is vital that service providers in Scotland continue to be able to provide both single-sex and gender-based services, and funding must be ring-fenced for a certain proportion to be single sex, balancing the needs of the different demographics without placing them in conflict.

“In finalising this bill and for future legislation, the Scottish and the UK governments must also make sure that current and future amendments to laws that have an impact on women and children are in conformity with the UK’s international human rights obligations, particularly in relation to the prevention of violence and the provision of services for victims of such violence.”

It is a GC’s Greatest Hit List of fears that have already been debated extensively with evidence from around the world showing they are baseless.

Famously known for allowing even the wackiest of theories to be put forward in the interest of balance, the BBC lays out quite clearly all the problems it has with trans people being allowed to die with dignity.

Like most, whoever wrote the BBC’s article doesn’t even know what the reforms would do.

The BBC also quote Ash Regan’s Times column, where she demonstrates that she too has no clue what this is all about.

“Women’s single-sex spaces for privacy, safety or therapeutic purposes are enshrined in the Equality Act 2010,” she writes. “These important protections will be impossible to uphold when anyone can decide they are a woman and have a GRC to prove their legal status.”

The former SNP minister resigned last month because she had ‘concerns’ over the proposed reforms that she raised with Nicola Sturgeon a sum total of zero times before timing her flounce in a bid to impact the hearing.

As if all that wasn’t bad enough from the BBC for one week, BBC Women’s Hour apologised to transphobes for not being transphobic enough, while also outing one of the contestants of the quiz show, Brain of Britain, as trans.

Not very smart, but then transphobes aren’t generally known for their extensive intelligence.

We will now no doubt be subjected to GC ‘feminists’ explaining to us all how a trans woman has a natural advantage over little ol’ cis women due to their massive male brains.

After all, these are the people who try to tell us being born with chromosomes they’ve never seen helps you excel at every sport on the planet, even ones like snooker.

It’s all about the angles, innit.