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Original poster

Looks like the National Lottery and Stonewall have picked a side in the cotton ceiling debate

92 replies

pimmsnlemonade · 23/12/2018 00:50

No surprises that it isn't lesbians' side - or women's generally:

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/new-lottery-bonanza-for-transgender-lobby-3bqjhr730

The Big Lottery Fund (BLF) will pay £494,000 to “empower trans leaders and organisations” in “facilitation, media and influencing”. The money is being handed to the advocacy group Stonewall for distribution to other activists, creating a “network of leaders” to lobby for change. Stonewall was central to the campaign for contentious changes to gender laws.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lottery-thousands-pay-for-former-trans-stripper-to-sway-public-opinion-6lw9xbwgr

Life has moved on for Page since then. Now in London, she is working for the advocacy group Stonewall on its “transgender leadership programme”, which is managing a new national lottery grant of almost £500,000. This was given to Stonewall to “empower trans leaders and organisations” with a “particular focus on leadership, media and influencing”.

Page’s activism in Canada may not assuage those feminist concerns. In 2012, amid some controversy, she ran a workshop called Overcoming the Cotton Ceiling. The “cotton ceiling” is a term used by some trans lesbian women to criticise biological lesbian women for refusing to have sex with them because they have penises.

A search of its grants database reveals that last year £5.5m was paid to projects mentioning the word “women’s”, the lowest for any full year since 2004. In the first 10 months of 2018, £3.7m was paid to women’s projects, suggesting a further drop across the full year.

OP posts:
LizzieSiddal · 23/12/2018 07:41

And thank you to Andrew for this fantastic journalism.

WeRiseUp · 23/12/2018 07:41

It reminds me of the trend in the BBC - seeing a heavy over-representation of transpeople, but a concerning under-representation of lesbians.

There is no justification for it. It is all very sinister.

In the last decade EVERYTHING with the words 'women', 'feminist' or 'lesbian' has been strategically colonised by males and the females who object are shamed and ousted. Particularly public organisations.

Victory for dick.

Victory for abusers.

Bye bye women and children's gains.

LizzieSiddal · 23/12/2018 07:38

Half a million quid, to someone who thinks we need to Over come the cotton ceiling Angry
From the National Littery?!?!

What the actual fuck???

AspieAndProud · 23/12/2018 07:14

The lottery is funding incels

Macareaux · 23/12/2018 06:53

Here a Times poll about whether Lottry funding is going to the right organisations:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/58504386-0543-11e9-b3c0-56b0c89cd9f9

crsacre · 23/12/2018 05:15

Gemma Bull: Funding Strategy Director, The Big Lottery Fund

Gemma Bull leads on the funds England work, it is a wide remit that has included redeveloping all of our products and restructuring all of their England staff. Throughout this process Gemma has championed equalities worked. She has begun to speak much more opening about being an LGBT leader using both her position and background to ensure the fund is continuously improving our offer to our grant holders, applicants, stakeholders and staff. She chairs the Corporate Equalities Group looking to highlight and resolve issues as they arise but also works to identify ways in which we could challenge ourselves more from increasing our funding into the LGBT sector, testing new approaches to delivering our funding. For me she is a huge role model and mentor, it is incredible to see someone from the LGBT community being open, honest and authentic to herself whilst creating meaningful change for those around her.

www.out-standing.org/nominations/2018-role-models/2018-top-30-lgbt-public-sector-executives/

crsacre · 23/12/2018 05:14

The grants to Mermaids and Stonewall may be traceable back to an event last year held by the LGBT Consortium, an umbrella body for most of the sector’s charities and lobbyists, with the BLF’s portfolio development director, Gemma Bull.

“Basically the pitch was that public donations to LGBT organisations have gone down dramatically since equal marriage, so the lottery needs to step in,” said one person who was there.

A few months later Bull went on an LGBT leadership course run by Stonewall and this year was named as an LGBT role model by the organisation OUTstanding.

ColourMagic · 23/12/2018 03:42

Does anyone have Share Token Links for those two Times articles please?

DandelionsAreNotLions · 23/12/2018 03:13

And Canada again too.......

DandelionsAreNotLions · 23/12/2018 03:11

Morgan Page paid to lobby for Cotton Ceiling Smashing by the National Lottery?
Fuck really Stonewall?

This really needs sunlight.

HomeStar · 23/12/2018 02:10

<a class="break-all" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20120322041800/factcheckme.wordpress.com:80/2012/03/13/the-cotton-ceiling-really/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20120322041800/factcheckme.wordpress.com:80/2012/03/13/the-cotton-ceiling-really/

oh and also apparently that is a conversation between this person and Cathy Brennan. I hadn't realised before how the "cotton ceiling" and the "friendzone" are exactly the same concept.

*Basically, it means that cis queer women will be friends with us and talk day and night about trans rights and ending transmisogyny, but will still not consider us viable sexual partners.

The term cotton ceiling is a reference to the “glass ceiling” that second wave feminist identified in the workforce, wherein women could only advance so high in the workforce but could not break through into positions of power and authority. The cotton represents underwear,*

HomeStar · 23/12/2018 01:51

Any way to protest this as with the Mermaids grant?

Cotton ceiling workshops!
<a class="break-all" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20120722002609/pleasureandpossibilities.com:80/programming/workshop-descriptions" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20120722002609/pleasureandpossibilities.com:80/programming/workshop-descriptions

apparently it was open to all AMAB transwomen to strategise ways to overcome sexual barriers (you mean women saying no to you! That's what you mean by a sexual barrier! Lots of transwomxn coming together to "strategise ways to overcome" women saying no to them, that shouldn't make anyone's skin crawl.)

Here's a radfem press release that was issued about it at the time.
radfemworldnews.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/lesbian-coalition-issues-press-release-condeming-toronto-planned-parenthood/

Oh yeah, and Morgan has endorsed the idea that "the bedroom is the final frontier of social justice."
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150208062322/prettyqueer.com/2011/07/23/just-call-me-hunter/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20150208062322/prettyqueer.com/2011/07/23/just-call-me-hunter/

Morgan was obsessed with getting laid as a human rights issue.
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150217153808/prettyqueer.com:80/2011/09/29/translady-self-annihilation" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20150217153808/prettyqueer.com:80/2011/09/29/translady-self-annihilation
something that could drastically improve the chances of my not only being taken seriously, but, more importantly, getting laid.

which I have to assume is a joke but ugh. Also lots and lots of pro sex work awfulness in their writing. <a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150204064442/prettyqueer.com/author/morganpage/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20150204064442/prettyqueer.com/author/morganpage/

Should this person really be managing half a million quid's worth of lottery funding?

EJennings · 23/12/2018 01:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BubonicBudgie · 23/12/2018 01:05

Tomorrow I am going to identify as trans.
I am going to claim grants for everything..
You can not question me at all, or I will screech all over the internet that you are transphobic.

HumberElla · 23/12/2018 01:00

Stonewall are already a very wealthy charity and this is one of their core aims anyway. So I would question why they need a huge lottery award.

JustKeepSwimmingJustKeepSwimmi · 23/12/2018 00:53

With this kind of money behind the trans cause and the focus on "education" Nd influencing. I cant see how feminists can ever win this. We will be in a totalitarian world of doublethink. Not able to voice the belief that some women are men.