...seven years after watchdogs cleared them

Broadcast watchdogs have branded a Harry Hill routine about a transgender man offensive – seven years after clearing the same jokes.

Ofcom issued their ruling after a viewer complained that a rerun of  Harry Hill’s TV Burp was ‘offensive and discriminatory’ towards transgender people.

Originally broadcast on ITV in December 2008, the episode was repeated on the Dave channel in March this year.

The contentious item revolved around the Channel 4 documentary The Pregnant Man, about Thomas Beatie, a transgender male who was able to conceive and carry a baby because he had retained his female reproductive organs.

Hill introduced the clips saying: ‘I do enjoy medical documentaries on Channel 4 such as The Real Elephant Man, The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off, and 80-Year-Old Children – the sensitive treatment of rare disorders or stories that in less thoughtful hands might just end up as exceptional exploitation reminiscent of the worst excesses of the Victorian freak show. Which brings me to the latest offering…’

Brief clips of the documentary were shown,  including one in which Beatie was sporting a beard. The programme cut back to Hill in the studio, who said: ‘Oh I see – it’s a woman with a beard. It’s just that with a title like The Pregnant Man, I assumed he was a pregnant man. He was Tracy but now she’s Thomas. Fair enough.’

Another clip then showed Beatie looking at old pictures of himself before transitioning. He said of his former self: ‘I probably would have been attracted to her. Is that weird?’

‘Yes it is!’ Hill responded: ‘Mind you, I sometimes look at old photos of myself from when I was a woman and think phwoar… I’d give myself one. Because I used to be a woman, yeah. I used to be Sinead O’Connor. And now I’m pregnant by Dale Winton.’

Hill then opened his shirt to reveal a fake pregnant belly that he started rubbing, adding: ‘It’s OK, I’ve told my mum Brian Blessed and my dad Martina Navratilova and they’re fine about it, yeah.'

The comedian then mimed contractions before giving birth, sticking a fake beard on to his own face. Once the baby was born, Hill pretended it called him ‘Dada’, to which he replied ‘No. Mummy!’

The Ofcom report then dryly notes: ‘Harry Hill then used a shark puppet to attack the doll.

In response to the complaint, Dave’s parent company UKTV argued that Hill was mocking the ‘sensationalist’ titles of Channel 4’s medical documentaries, rather than Beatie himself.

The broadcaster said that ‘while some of Harry’s comments may be viewed as absurd and juvenile’, it did not believe ‘they ever intended to cause offence to the LGBT community’ and were not intended to be discriminatory.

UKTV also said that ‘at no point in the UKTV transmission does Harry question Thomas Beatie's right to be a man or to have a child’ and that: ‘The overall effect was comedic and was typical of this long-running, anarchic, satirical comedy show’.

The broadcaster also pointed out and had removed one minute of potentially offensive material since the original broadcast because it ‘did stray away from mocking the documentary as a whole to mocking Thomas Beatie personally’.

Ofcom received 13 complaints about the original 2008 broadcast but did not uphold them in a ruling three months later, which UKTV said suggested that the routine was acceptable.

However, the company acknowledged that ‘public attitudes towards trans issues have changed since the episode was originally recorded’.

Since the original broadcast, the 2010 Equality Act has also given transgender people explicit legal protection against discrimination. 

In their ruling today, Ofcom said: ‘Throughout this item… Hill’s humour derived from his references to a member of the transgender community, a community which has "protected characteristics" under UK law.’

The regulator did acknowledge that Hill’s statement that: ‘He was Tracy but now she’s Thomas. Fair enough’ would have lessened the potential offence as it ‘showed a level of empathy’.

But they said Hill subsequently made ‘various mocking and derogatory comments towards Mr Beatie’s gender identity’.

They included labelled Mr Beatie as being ‘weird’   for admitting he might have been attracted to his former self; the use of the phrase ‘Victorian freak show’; and the statement: ‘Oh I see – it’s a woman with a beard" was offensive as it ‘reduced Mr Beatie’s transition simply to the addition of facial hair’.

Ofcom said: ’We did not agree with UKTV’s argument that Thomas Beatie and his wife were not the objects of Harry Hill’s mockery. We considered on the contrary that the overall portrayal of Mr Beatie was significantly discriminatory towards him and to transgender people generally. 

‘This was because it presented, over a relatively prolonged sequence, Mr Beatie’s transition as an object of mockery and humour, and could have been understood by some viewers as making a clear association between Mr Beatie and a "Victorian freak show".

‘We therefore considered that the material was clearly capable of causing offence.’

The ruling also referred to a report Ofcom published in 2010 pointing out that what language is considered offensive changes over time. That research specifically stated that: ‘Satirical television comedy dealing with a transgender character was considered offensive, if the words used were being used to ridicule a character to an unfair extent, without giving them a chance to retaliate and defend themselves.’

Ofcom ruled that the Hill clips, which Dave aired in a 4pm slot, were a breach of the broadcasting code and ‘not justified’.

The broadcaster has now promised to edit this episode to remove The Pregnant Man item entirely from any future broadcast.

Because of this, the edits already made, and UKTV’s acknowledgement of changing sensibilities, the watchdog said they considered the matter ‘resolved’.

Here is a clip from the original documentary:

Published: 26 Sep 2016