Steepholm's Dream Diary: 19

I am taking the Isle of Wight ferry with my children. Despite growing up near Southampton, I'd somehow never noticed that the ferries are all designed like little warships, rather like the kind you find on Monopoly boards. I mention it to one of the crew, who explains that this design is dictated by the unusual tidal conditions of the Solent. You learn something every day.

As we approach Cowes, we are invited to lie on a small conveyor belt, which carries us round the ship, down a chute, and ultimately deposits us at the Ferry Terminal. There new arrivals are greeted by a couple dressed as Native Americans (though in my dream the phrase that springs to mind is "Red Indians" - what can you do?). They make a special hand gesture which, as the woman explains patiently, means, "Hello and welcome!" They seem to expect me to make the same hand gesture in return, but a) it's complicated, and I'm not sure I can do it, and b) I feel far too English and embarrassed even to try. But then again if I don't, I'm afraid it'll look as if I'm either Ci) a snob or Cii) racist. Aaagh!

While I'm wrestling with these conundra, the crowd carries us past the couple, out into downtown Cowes.

Steepholm's Dream Diary: 19

I am taking the Isle of Wight ferry with my children. Despite growing up near Southampton, I'd somehow never noticed that the ferries are all designed like little warships, rather like the kind you find on Monopoly boards. I mention it to one of the crew, who explains that this design is dictated by the unusual tidal conditions of the Solent. You learn something every day.

As we approach Cowes, we are invited to lie on a small conveyor belt, which carries us round the ship, down a chute, and ultimately deposits us at the Ferry Terminal. There new arrivals are greeted by a couple dressed as Native Americans (though in my dream the phrase that springs to mind is "Red Indians" - what can you do?). They make a special hand gesture which, as the woman explains patiently, means, "Hello and welcome!" They seem to expect me to make the same hand gesture in return, but a) it's complicated, and I'm not sure I can do it, and b) I feel far too English and embarrassed even to try. But then again if I don't, I'm afraid it'll look as if I'm either Ci) a snob or Cii) racist. Aaagh!

While I'm wrestling with these conundra, the crowd carries us past the couple, out into downtown Cowes.

Alterina Hofan

Oh BBC, BBC, just how hard is it to get this stuff right?

You will remember that a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that the BBC (along, admittedly, with pretty much every news organization in the Western world) was referring to the straight trans (and possibly intersex) woman Tiwonge Chimbalanga as a gay man. Oh dear.

Possibly someone at the BBC heard that they'd got it wrong with respect to Chimbalanga (not that they changed her designation in later articles). Either way, in the case of the Indoneisan Alterina Hofan, they even put the word "transgender" into the headline.

The only trouble is, Alterina Hofan is actually intersex, not transgender. Oh dear oh dear.

This isn't rocket science. Many of the misgendering articles about Chimbalanga contained quotations that might have led quick-thinking professional journalists, trained in the art of getting at the story behind the story, to suspect that she was a woman (I'm thinking of quotations like, say, "I am a woman"). Similarly in this case, Hofan has given less-than-cryptic hints as to whether he is transgender in statements such as: "I am not a transgender."

In fact, the BBC article contains all the information necessary to prove its own headline incorrect. It explains (without ever mentioning the 'I' word) that Hofan has Klinefelter's syndrome, which involves having XXY chromosomes instead of the usual XY. His male genitalia emerged at two years old, and he has identified unproblematically as male all his life. His legal identity is that of a male. Nevertheless, he is currently in prison in Indonesia because he has dared to marry a woman.

It's the usual kind of binary crap, in other words, and in this case the role of the Catholic Church has been pretty shameful even by its own standards in matters of sex and gender. For more on that I'll refer you to someone who actually knows about intersex conditions. (She's also, as it happens, a rocket scientist.) What I don't understand is why the BBC can't get this kind of thing right. I'd be happy to help them out, if they'd like to run their articles past me first. My rates are very reasonable. However, I'm sure they could do it themselves, by the simple expedient of giving a shit.

Alterina Hofan

Oh BBC, BBC, just how hard is it to get this stuff right?

You will remember that a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that the BBC (along, admittedly, with pretty much every news organization in the Western world) was referring to the straight trans (and possibly intersex) woman Tiwonge Chimbalanga as a gay man. Oh dear.

Possibly someone at the BBC heard that they'd got it wrong with respect to Chimbalanga (not that they changed her designation in later articles). Either way, in the case of the Indoneisan Alterina Hofan, they even put the word "transgender" into the headline.

The only trouble is, Alterina Hofan is actually intersex, not transgender. Oh dear oh dear.

This isn't rocket science. Many of the misgendering articles about Chimbalanga contained quotations that might have led quick-thinking professional journalists, trained in the art of getting at the story behind the story, to suspect that she was a woman (I'm thinking of quotations like, say, "I am a woman"). Similarly in this case, Hofan has given less-than-cryptic hints as to whether he is transgender in statements such as: "I am not a transgender."

In fact, the BBC article contains all the information necessary to prove its own headline incorrect. It explains (without ever mentioning the 'I' word) that Hofan has Klinefelter's syndrome, which involves having XXY chromosomes instead of the usual XY. His male genitalia emerged at two years old, and he has identified unproblematically as male all his life. His legal identity is that of a male. Nevertheless, he is currently in prison in Indonesia because he has dared to marry a woman.

It's the usual kind of binary crap, in other words, and in this case the role of the Catholic Church has been pretty shameful even by its own standards in matters of sex and gender. For more on that I'll refer you to someone who actually knows about intersex conditions. (She's also, as it happens, a rocket scientist.) What I don't understand is why the BBC can't get this kind of thing right. I'd be happy to help them out, if they'd like to run their articles past me first. My rates are very reasonable. However, I'm sure they could do it themselves, by the simple expedient of giving a shit.