I'm not sure I'm comfortable with it either although I can't immediately think why. However I am puzzled by the references to "aimed at six year olds", "targeting children as young as six" and "BBC is making this programme freely available to children as young as six"- where does the six come from, and surely it's freely available to anyone over the age of one unless the parents oversee their viewing habits
Just because we can doesn't always mean we should.
I'm sure there's video somewhere of an earnest, bespectacled 23 year old expert justifying this with sentences beginning 'So'.
It is not a transgender story, it is the story about a girl starting school. It is not messing with young childrens minds.
Saying that, I think parents should be able to trust the content on the CBBC website. There should have been more of a warning, and maybe shouldhave been behind a parental passcode.
Gromit, //it is the story about a girl starting school//
It seems to be a bit more than that.
From the link:
The programme, Just A Girl, depicts an 11-year-old’s struggle to get hormones that stunt puberty, making it easier to have sex-change surgery in the future.
When you say you skimmed through this programme it must have been a very quick 'skim'. Beginning at about 2.12 the girl says "Today I'm finally going to talk about me being transgender", and the word "Transgender" is flashed right across the screen.
How do you normalise something that isn't the norm?
You tell it to the kids as early as you can and keep reinforceing it over time.
That is what happens with everything. Look how sexualised the world, or even just the UK, has become? When I was young there was very little sex on the TV. Now it is in 'young peoples' programmes all the time in some form or another.
If it happens, even infrequently, it can be normalised.
The BBC shouldn't be doing this but I have always thought the BBC are a law unto themselves anyway.
Sorry, we can't find any related questions. Try using the search bar at the top of the page to search for some keywords, or choose a topic and submit your own question.