"Gender reassignment is not [...] commercially viable content."

October 16, 2014 2:09 AM

Simon Hirst is one of Britain's most successful commercial radio presenters. His Yorkshire Capital FM show, Hirsty's Daily Dose, was the most popular morning show in the north of England. So when he mysteriously disappeared from the airwaves back in June after 11 years, listeners were left baffled. [trans* 101]

Earlier this week, on National Coming Out Day, Hirsty took to the medium he knows best to come out as transgender in an impassioned hour-long interview (MP3) on a late-night BBC talk radio show - but when drawn on the reasons for her radio departure, Hirsty was unusually reticent to talk.

Stephanie Hirst made her first public appearance at yesterday's Radio Festival to rapturous applause, and a Facebook group set up to campaign for her return to her popular radio show has received over 20,000 'likes.'

Now, in a letter leaked to the BBC, the reason for Hirsty's departure has been revealed. Senior figures at Capital FM's owner Global Radio - the biggest commercial radio company in Britain - believed that "gender reassignment was not suitable or commercially viable content for shows." (Hirsty on social media.)

posted by winterhill (5 comments total)

The Barnsley Chronicle article is atrocious, consistently wrong pronouns, The BBC article linked near the end isn't great. "Sex change", misgendering in quotes from her old station, etc. At least Pink News manage to not fuck up the absolute basics.

I'm also not sold on the whole pronoun mess that this post is. The big shocking reveal is a very very tired trope when it comes to trans women, and really it's not cool to misgender people, even in service of wrung-dry tropes (and there is at least one instance of it after the fold as well).

Sucks that Stephanie Hirst was possibly let go from her public role as a result of her being trans, or that she felt the need to leave. Either way, it's indicative of the prevalence of transphobic sentiment in Britain still.
posted by Dysk at 3:05 AM on October 16, 2014

(I mean, one link deep from the 101 you linked in the FPP: Ideally a story will not use pronouns associated with a person's birth sex when referring to the person's life prior to transition. Try to write transgender people's stories from the present day, instead of narrating them from some point in the past, thus avoiding confusion and potentially disrespectful use of incorrect pronouns.)
posted by Dysk at 3:07 AM on October 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

(And this is not me being angry - imagine all this in a fairly dispassionate voice rather than with the tone of anger or malice you seem to be projecting onto it.)
posted by Dysk at 3:10 AM on October 16, 2014

As a third party to this, drawn in by the interesting lede, I have to say Dysk that you come across as very angry and not at all dispassionate. Sorry. Words like "atrocious", "not to fuck up the absolute basics", and "wrung-dry tropes" indicate quite a high level of passion.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 3:25 AM on October 16, 2014

Thanks for posting. It's humbling what folks are willing to go through, and give up, to acquire things that I take for granted.
posted by kinnakeet at 3:33 AM on October 16, 2014