Bodyshock: A response

Last week Channel 4 broadcast Age 8 and Wanting a Sex Change, a Bodyshock documentary about young children with gender dysphoria. It was a fascinating film that prompted a great deal of comment amongst viewers, both online and through C4’s viewer enquiries.

Though many expressed praise for the programme, a significant number of viewers were critical of its narration – specifically, the way in which the narrator often referred to the children by their birth gender, rather than their preferred gender.

I spoke to commissioning editor Simon Dickson about this feedback – he was keen to explain the decision behind the narrator’s use of pronouns and offers the following response to viewers:

“Thank you to everyone that has contacted Channel 4 to share their views on Bodyshock: Age 8 and Wanting a Sex Change. The film has aroused a great deal of comment, almost all of it favorable, but I am sincerely sorry to hear that some members of the transgender community were upset by our use of biologically-accurate pronouns in the narration of the programme.

“It’s important to remember that the majority of our audience will have had little or no understanding of transgender issues. The decision to use the pronouns we did was based on our responsibility to make the programme comprehensible to a mainstream audience.

“As many viewers have pointed out, the parents featured in our programme always referred to their child by their “preferred” gender. We were happy that this made it absolutely clear that each family had accepted and were extremely supportive of their child’s decision.

“I hope you’ll agree that Age 8 and Wanting a Sex Change was a story worth telling, and a story worth telling to as many people as possible, even at the risk of causing some dissatisfaction amongst those who understand the subject well already.”

As ever, if you’d like to share your thoughts on this subject, please leave your comments below.

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