British novelist and screenwriter Gareth Roberts has been dropped from an upcoming Doctor Who anthology over “offensive” transphobic tweets, BBC has confirmed.
Roberts, announced his dismissal saying the publisher had “immediately folded” to pressure from the show’s fandom and co-authors.
The parent company Ebury confirmed that Roberts’ contribution to Doctor Who: The Target Storybook, will not feature.
The author said the tweets, from 2017, were made in “cheerful vulgarity”. The writer said that, as a gay man, he has “rejected restrictive cultural gender stereotypes for “as long as I can remember”, but does not believe in gender identity.
“It is impossible for a person to change their biological sex. I don’t believe anybody is born in the wrong body,” he said. Gareth Roberts’ tweets have stunned the transgender community and their allies.
One of his more concerning posts refers to Paris Lees, Munroe Bergdorf, and Chelsea Manning, three of the world’s most celebrated names in transgender rights, as “trannies”. The word is now considered extremely derogatory.
Ebury’s decision to drop Roberts over his tweets, which it says conflicts with its “values as a publisher”, has sparked debate on social media.
Roberts has previously written for the TV series, including episodes for David Tennant, Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi.
Doctor Who, the long-running BBC series about an inter-galactic Timelord, will return with Jodie Whittaker continuing as its female lead in 2020.
