BBC’s new drive to promote transgender employees after a survey reveals it has 417

The BBC wants to help more transgender staff into leadership roles, its head of diversity has said.

Reflecting on the broadcaster’s ‘very high’ number of transgender employees, Tunde Ogungbesan said more needed to be done to help them in particular to progress.

Mr Ogungbesan, who joined the BBC in 2015 to spearhead its diversity strategy, said: ‘We’ve got 417 people within the BBC who have said they are transgender, almost 2 per cent of the organisation, which is very, very high. If you have a figure like that you have to think how you make the BBC inclusive – because people have trusted you.’

The Gender Identity Research and education Society estimates that about 1 per cent of the UK population are trans or gender non-conforming.

‘We have launched four new work streams to look at the culture and career progression of under-represented groups within the BBC,’ Mr Ogungbesan told the Westminster Social Policy Forum.

‘We felt that we didn’t need one around LGBT because our figures were quite high in terms of our percentages – 11 per cent of BBC employees say that they are LGBT and, of that 11 per cent, 12 per cent are in leadership positions.’ But he added: ‘Then some people said...they are mainly the Gs [gay] and the Bs [bisexual], so the lesbians and the transgender folk, the figures are not as high as you would want them to be, especially with the lesbians.

‘We needed a fifth work stream around LGBT, which will be starting in the next couple of weeks, with an apology to the organisation for not starting with them in the first place.’

he also said referring to a person with the wrong pronoun could amount to ‘bullying and harassment’ in the speech last month, The Mail on Sunday reported.

Mr Ogungbesan, 54, joined the BBC as head of diversity, inclusion and succession after working for Shell, PwC and NatWest. In 2016 he pushed through a target for the broadcaster to have a 50 per cent female workforce by 2020.

Of the BBC’s 21,239 staff, 417 identify as transgender, according to the figures released last year.

There are 786 gay men, 206 gay women and 365 bisexuals among the workforce. however, 4,918 staff chose not to disclose their sexuality or gender identity.

The BBC has gender neutral toilets in all its buildings and will soon give staff paid time off for reassignment surgery. It has also launched a scheme which will see an individual action plan created for anyone wanting to transition.

In March the BBC hired its first full-time transgender presenter, Stephanie hirst, 42, who has her own show on Radio Leeds.

‘Using the wrong pronoun is bullying’