The wrong kind of diversity

The BBC has advised its journalists not to use the word ‘terror’ or ‘terrorist’ when some bloke blows himself up screaming ‘Allahu akbar’ in a public place, thus killing as well lots of non-Allahu akbar kind of people. The words ‘terror’ or ‘terrorist’ are, in this context, pejorative and the use of them involves making an assumption, which of course we must never do. It may not have been terror which the chap intended to instil in the local population, but enlightenment, good cheer and a general sense of bonhomie, of course. Given that the BBC no longer uses the word ‘Islamic’ whenever mentioning these sorts of actions, it is a bit of a struggle to know how its journalists will describe them at all. Perhaps they will simply cease reporting them. Or just show the footage and comment only: ‘Bang! Now have a guess who did this.’

Another person who thinks we should not make assumptions is the writer David Minerva Clover. David describes herself as a ‘33-year-old dinosaur enthusiast… queer, trans, parent, he/him’. I could see us getting along just fine, especially on the dinosaur front. David has got upset because scientific literature often makes the assumption that men produce sperm. This may be an infallible truth, but David doesn’t like it and would much prefer it if sperm were not assigned a gender of origin at all. This is because David thinks she is a man, but sadly a man unable to produce sperm (because she is a woman and thus without what are known, to the medical establishment, as ‘bollocks’). She also does not like the term ‘brothers and sisters’, re-tweeting: ‘When you say [transgender] “brothers and sisters”, you’re erasing non-binary, two-spirit, and gender expansive trans folks who live beyond the binary. Constantly being erased is exhausting.’