Posted by London: An anchor who refused to use a guest’s non-binary pronouns on live TV is being severely criticised on social media. A video of anchor Julia Hartley-Brewer’s conversation with journalist Shivani Dave on TalkTV has gone viral on social media.
Brewer and Dave were going to discuss the CASS Review – an independent report on gender services for children and young people. However, the conversation took an unusual turn when Brewer addressed Dave as “she”.
Anchor refuses to to use non-binary pronoun for guest
“My next guest is Shivani Dave. She’s a journalist and presenter at Virgin Radio,” Brewer said.
Dave, who identifies as a non-binary trans person, corrected Brewer, saying, “Good afternoon, Julia. You know my pronouns are they/them.”
Brewer thanked Dave for telling their pronouns but insisted that she uses “correct grammar”. She further said, “I am not being rude. You can choose what you want to call yourself. But you don’t get to require me to use incorrect grammar and factually incorrect things.”
The anchor added, “You’re not a plural. You’re one person, and you’re a female person. So, I will use ‘she’ and ‘her,’ thank you very much.”
Dave responded, “Do what you like, I guess.” They added that they wanted people watching them to use the correct pronouns if they wanted to refer to them “respectfully”.
To this, Brewer asked, “Is is disrespectful for me to use correct, factual grammar?”
Dave replied that it was not incorrect or unfactual to use singular they/them pronouns for an individual. They then asked if they could go back to the talk show topic.
However, Brewer said, “Yeah, but you chose to bring it up.”
Dave reiterated that Brewer used incorrect pronouns for them. However, Brewer said, “I choose to use the correct pronouns for a single woman who is appearing on my show.”
Dave said, “I am not a single woman. Though I’m a ‘very special’ non-binary trans person.”
Just before Dave joined the conversation, Brewer remarked that people “with all these labels” like to be “special”.
“Okay. I’m not special. I’m just a boring, old, heterosexual, married woman. But you know, sorry about that. We’re not allowed to do that anymore,” Brewer said.
Netizens outraged
The video has gone viral across social media platforms, leaving netizens furious.
One user said, “Heartless trouble brewer 0- Shivani Dave 1.” Another asked, “Bruh what’s factual about grammar?” A third user added, “The way this got me fuming.”
Someone commented, “This anchor is all kinds of cringe.” A fifth user posted, “They managed really good the situation, such a pity to be disrespected this rudely. That anchor woman, I don’t know how she gets work done if she can’t treat another person as it should.”
Yet another added, “So disgusting. It’s not that hard to use they/them pronouns for one person. We do it all the time if we don’t know the gender of a person.”