I’d like to address something that’s been
brought to my attention recently – to do with the use of the T-word in one of
my Doctor Who audio dramas. The story is ‘The Horror of Glam Rock’ from 2007
and in it one of the characters uses the T-word in a throwaway, jokey line
about a dead glam rock star found in the snow.
I apologise now if this line leaps out of
the drama as inappropriate or offensive. The script was written in 2006 when I
wasn’t aware of the T-word being a transphobic slur. Back then it seemed the
right word for the context, the time it was set in and the character of Lucie Miller to use in
a casual, slangy, jokey manner. Nowadays I just wouldn’t use it. I’d avoid it
on the off-chance that it was going to hurt someone’s feelings.
I think that, whatever they’re writing,
writers have a responsibility to muck about with language and to turn the world
around and to be fearless and experimental. But we also have to watch out for
unnecessarily causing offence or hurting people. We can’t go back in time to,
say, 2006 or 1974 or whenever and make things right then, but we can hold up
our hands now and say: I wouldn’t say it that way today.
Meanings have shifted. Language has
evolved. We view the past through the lens of language and ideas from today. I
just had to say that: I’m aware that the word might stick out as offensive, and
I’m sorry now that it’s there at all.
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