News/Commentary

BBC punishes anchor who corrected term ‘pregnant people’ for ‘women’ over her facial expression

November 7, 2025 | | Print Article

The BBC has censured a top anchor for using the right term “women” live on air to correct a report containing the fake term “pregnant people.”

BBC anchor Martine Croxall, 56, was reading a report about a study on air in June when the term “pregnant people” came up.

While she used the term, she quickly corrected it:

“The research says that the aged, pregnant people … WOMEN! … and those with pre-existing health conditions need to take precautions,” she said, making a noticeable facial expression when she uttered “women.”

Her decision to improvise prompted massive praise from women’s rights activists like JK Rowling and Martina Navratilova:

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The BBC also, to its credit, initially stood up for her.

“It’s a real cultural moment,” a fellow BBC anchor told The Times, adding that there’s massive support inside the BBC for using “honest language.”

The BBC’s initial decision was reportedly underpinned by the U.K. Supreme Court’s decision months earlier that the legal definition of a woman is based entirely on biological sex and nothing else.

The BBC even defended Croxall from the hundreds of busybody viewers who filed a complaint with the BBC’s independent Executive Complaints Unit (ECU).

In one correspondence with a complainant, the BBC wrote that Croxall’s script change was “done for clarity and was in no way meant to be disrespectful,” according to Deadline.

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“We’re satisfied it was duly accurate and impartial, and in line with the BBC’s editorial guidelines,” the company added.

However, the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) has since involved itself in the matter, censuring Croxall for supposedly violating its rules on impartiality.

In a statement, the ECU alleged that Croxall’s facial expression while saying women “has been variously interpreted by complainants as showing disgust, ridicule, contempt or exasperation.”

“The ECU considered the facial expression … laid it open to the interpretation that it indicated a particular viewpoint in the controversies currently surrounding trans identity, and the congratulatory messages Croxall later received on social media, together with the critical views expressed in the complaints to the BBC, tended to confirm that the impression of her having expressed a personal view was widely shared across the spectrum of opinion on the issue,” the statement continues.

“As giving the strong impression of expressing a personal view on a controversial matter, even if inadvertently, falls short of the BBC’s expectations of its presenters and journalists in relation to impartiality, the ECU upheld the complaints,” the statement concludes.

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The BBC’s decision has prompted massive pushback from a number of high-profile critics:

“Give her a medal!” biologist Richard Dawkins tweeted. “Her facial expression ‘… indicated a particular viewpoint in the controversies currently surrounding trans identity’. Well of course it did. But whoever put ‘pregnant people’ in the script in the first place did too. In a big way.”

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“In June, a BBC teleprompter instructed presenter, Martine Croxall, to say ‘pregnant people,'” investigative journalist James Esses added. “She, bravely, corrected this term by saying ‘women.’ Today, the BBC has announced that she broke the rules because of her ‘facial expression.’ Our national broadcaster is a disgrace.”

This is reportedly the second time that Croxall has been censured.

“In 2022 the ECU ruled that she risked disclosing her personal view on the Conservative leadership election after declaring that it was ‘all very exciting’ amid breaking news that Boris Johnson was not going to stand,” according to the Times.

Vivek Saxena
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