Just a Girl (found BBC online short film; 2016)

Amy Jones in Just a Girl.

Status: Lost

The Mail on Sunday's response to the show.

Just a Girl was a fictional short film about a transgender child, produced by the CBBC and released in September 2016.

When the film was released on the internet it caused a brief but massive lightning bolt of public backlash for its generally positive depiction of an eleven-year-old transgender girl, Amy, going through gender reassignment by taking hormone blockers while dealing with the challenges of starting secondary school.

It was a significant release, as it was the first time the BBC had put out a drama aimed at children that was centred around transgender issues, and was a first of its kind from any broadcaster. The shock it provoked reached not just the print and television media, but went all the way to national government, with Conservative MPs going out of their way to complain about the show. MP for Wellingborough, Peter Bone, told The Mail on Sunday:

“It beggars belief that the BBC is making this programme freely available to children as young as six. I entirely share the anger of parents who just want to let children be children.

“It is completely inappropriate for such material to be on the CBBC website and I shall be writing to BBC bosses to demand they take it down as soon as possible.”

While Julian Brazer, Conservative MP for Canterbury, said:

“This programme is very disappointing and inappropriate. Children are very impressionable and this is going to confuse and worry them.”

Journalists in the British news media were even harsher in their criticism. In one of the most scathing attacks, The Mirror went with the headline:

“Fury at sex-change programme that shows transgender ‘Ben’ dressing up as ‘Amy’ and is aimed at six-year-old children”.

It even appeared as the banner headline on the front page of The Mail on Sunday. Other media took a more balanced view while organisations such as TransPride and diversity consultant Tara Hewitt condemned the comments made by Bone and Brazer and supported the show, as did many across social media.

To date, the show was released only online, but is no longer available for viewing on either the CBBC website or CBBC’s official Youtube channel.

All the controversy flared and died quickly, and after October 2016 the video ended up being apparently totally forgotten about in the media. Because of this, along with the BBC’s draconian copyright-infringement takedowns, there are no alternative uploads on Youtube or other video-sharing sites. Perhaps this was the BBC’s way of quietly erasing the controversy from their history, although the official page (without the video) for the show is still up as of 26th March 2017.

The Web Archive has an archived version of the official page from last year when the video was still up. Unfortunately, the Web Archive doesn’t always archive video and Flash content, so the video has not been archived.

Finally, it looks as though asking the BBC for a copy of the show, for any claimed reason, would be a waste of time, according to the BBC Archive website.

A Mumsnet thread was posted by a worried mother whose seven-year-old daughter had stumbled across the show, asking whether or not it was appropriate. This was just after its initial, quiet release, before the controversy flared after the show became widely noted..

Gallery

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  Title card for the show.

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