From Gay Star News UK: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/uks-press-complaints-commission-decides-dicks-chicks-trans-column-was-not-prejudicial-or-pej
Press self-regulating body rejects 800 complaints about a column that referred to trans people as ‘dicks in chicks’
By Anna Leach
27 March 2013
The UK’s Press Complaints Commission (PCC), the current self-regulatory body for print media, has decided that a column describing transgender people as ‘dicks in chicks’ among other slurs was not prejudicial or pejorative.
The PCC received 800 complaints after The Observer published the column written by Julie Burchill in January this year.
The column was withdrawn by The Observer and editor John Mulholland apologized. But the offending piece was re-published by The Daily Telegraph in the interests of ‘free speech’.
The PCC’s Code of Conduct states that editors ‘must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual’s race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability’. ‘Gender identity’ is missing from that list.
‘Reading between the lines, I imagine the commission took the view that it was a matter of taste and therefore lay within the editor’s prerogative,’ said media commentator Roy Greenslade.
Greenslade points to an internal Observer inquiry about the column which found that publishing it has broken the newspapers code that it ‘should not casually use words that are likely to offend’.
Complete article at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/uks-press-complaints-commission-decides-dicks-chicks-trans-column-was-not-prejudicial-or-pej
