India Willoughby slams BBC over producer ‘demonising the trans community’Meghna AminEntertainment – Metro

India Willoughby has slammed the BBC over comments made by one of its producers (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

India Willoughby has called out the BBC over comments one of its producers has made on social media, asking how the statements made by Keaton Stone ‘fit under BBC impartiality and values’.

The 54-year-old presenter, who was revealed as Britain’s first transgender newsreader in 2016, shared several screenshots of comments Keaton made on Twitter.

She penned: ‘Hi @bbcpress @BBCTheOneShow – your producer @kerastase is calling trans people “bad guys” who “do things to women” and brainwash kids – while planning what will clearly be a hit piece demonising the trans community.

‘How does this fit under BBC impartiality and values?’

Included in the screenshots were comments including: ‘Nobody hates any child. If you don’t think there’s a fundamental major concern with children – some as young as 3 – being indoctrinated into believing they are born in the ‘wrong’ body because they like playing with the opposite sexes toys, then that is the real.’

India Willoughby was revealed as Britain’s first transgender newsreader in 2016 (Picture: S Meddle/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

Another screenshot showed another of Keaton’s statements, reading: ‘Perhaps you don’t quite realise it yet – but YOU are the bad guys.

‘It’s utterly abhorrent what you wish to do to women as well as compromising the safety of children.

‘Your organisation is a disgrace and far closer to the far right than what you have mistakenly convinced yourself,’ Keaton had written as a response to Northumbria Industrial Workers of the World’s comment, which said: ‘If you’re a so-called leftist with “gender critical” views, please unfollow us now. ‘You are not a leftist if you punch down. We will never compromise on that.’

India added further screenshots in the Twitter thread, including one which read: ‘I wouldn’t expect a she/her to acknowledge reality’ which Keaton had written after accusing Mermaids, a charity supporting transgender children and families, as an ‘awful evil organisation’ that ‘brainwashes’.

In a statement to Metro.co.uk, a BBC spokesperson said: ‘Keaton Stone is not making a film for The One Show.’

The spokesperson added that Keaton has not worked as a freelance researcher for The One Show since 2017, and no longer has a reference to the programme in his Twitter bio.

India, who has previously starred on Celebrity Big Brother back in 2018 during the season titled Year of the Women, has received an outpouring of support to her Twitter post, with one person writing: ‘Really grim. Nothing sadder than a weirdo man who wants to bully women and thinks he’s found an acceptable outlet in our trans sisters.’

India starred on Celebrity Big Brother back in 2018 during the season titled Year of the Women (Picture: David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock)

The broadcaster used to work for ITV regional news for 10 years before quitting, saying she left Border News because she did not feel she was being true to herself appearing as a man.

She underwent £14,000 gender reassignment surgery in 2015, before returning to the broadcaster in 2016, where she since appeared on Good Morning Britain and This Morning.

India also made history as the first trans woman to guest host an all-female panel show, when she joined the Loose Women ladies way back in 2016.

India made history as the first trans woman to guest host an all-female panel show, with Loose Women Coleen Nolan, Janet Street-Porter, Lisa Riley and June Sarpong (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

She scored ample praise from Loose Women viewers after admitting that, for a long time, she lead a double life in two different cities.

She revealed she dressed as a woman for her job in PR in Newcastle, meaning that she would spend five days a week at work as a woman and the weekends back in Cumbria with her son in jeans and a football shirt.

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‘I spent weekends as Jonathan in one city and I lived as the real me in Newcastle,’ she revealed to the panel. ‘Two lives, two cites, two wardrobes – that went on for five years.

‘It was Sliding Doors. I was running two lives parallel – you can imagine the mental pressures of doing that.’

India has also shared that while working as Jonathan Willoughby she caught her reflection during an interview and knew that it wasn’t really her, ditching the slicked back hair and representing herself more honestly and openly.

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