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BBC back to considering sexual orientation a choice [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2024-06-02  

Just in time for Pride Month, the BBC has offended LGBTQA+ persons around the world in, ironically, an article about forced gay conversion therapy in Italy, www.bbc.com/…, The author of that article twice and in two different ways used terms inferring that one’s sexual orientation is a choice. First, the subtitle to the article on BBC News main webpage, www.bbc.com/..., stated “Rosario Lonegro was forced to enact his own funeral in a bid to strip him of his sexual proclivities” [emphasis added]. Then, in the very first paragraph of this article, the reporter wrote that Lonegro was forced “undergo conversion therapy intended to erase his sexual preferences….”www.bbc.com/…. [again, emphasis added].

The terms “proclivities” and “preference” both connote that sexual orientation is a choice. Decades of psychological and biological research have proven this to be untrue. Thus, the BBC choice of verbiage twice in two different sentences is simply wrong and offensive to LGBT persons. To make matters worse, the BBC used these terms in an article on the heinous practice of gay “conversion” therapy. At the same time the BBC was reporting on this awful practice and the horrible ramifications of it on those being forced to suffer this therapy, the BBC was ironically affirming through its choice to use the terms “proclivities” and “preference” that “gay conversion” is indeed possible, since being gay is just a proclivity or preference, and thus a choice, that might be altered via conversion therapy.

One wonders what the reporter and the reporter’s editor could have been thinking when these terms were allowed to appear so prominently in this article. The BBC style guide clearly proscribes using such terms: “Sexual preference” suggests a person chooses to be gay or bisexual. For the same reason, phrases such as “alternative lifestyle” should also be avoided where possible. Instead of “sexual preference” and “admits being gay”, consider “sexual orientation” and “is gay”. www.bbc.co.uk/… One can only hope the BBC will re-write this article in the near future, remind its reporters and editors that this terminology is a violation of BBC standard, and apologize to the BBC’s readership for using these offensive terms on the first day of Pride Month.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/2/2244270/-BBC-back-to-considering-sexual-orientation-a-choice?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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