GEO logo used without permission on teaching resource

It is absolutely incredible to realise that we are indirectly funding these groups to produce guidance and training which are now being legally challenged with help from our direct funding.

My fear is that government will take the easy route and change legislation to reflect the extent of policy capture - ie ratify Stonewall law into actual law. Easier than undoing years of capture by lobbying.

It really is frightening.

So many important posts. Like 2ndStar I am concerned about all the organisations that have 'self identified' as appropriate groups to advise schools. When this government was first elected they literally binned all the advice / guidance for schools about most things. Exclusions, behaviour, anti bullying, aspects of the curriculum etc. They boasted of 'tearing up red tape' and freeing schools from the hand of the state and replaced all the extensive nuanced guidance with brief statements.

Of course it didn't take long before they had to revise and extend all of it as many schools promptly fell foul of statutory issues like exclusions and behaviour without comprehensive guidance. But this was a sign of things to come. This absence of central guidance allowed political lobby groups like Gendered Intelligence, Stonewall, GIRES & Mermaids to make claims that nobody evaluated. And now they have self defined themselves as sex educators and experts in child psychological, social and sexual development - despite being nothing of the sort - and are driving a coach and horses through safeguarding, child / parent relationships, children's emotional well being and the rights of girls and women. They are dangerous.

Great post WTFSeriously

I totally agree that a lot of this stuff is now going to be under scrutiny and the government (or at the very least some of the higher ups) are starting to realise it's a huge mess, partly of their own making due to a total lack of oversight of what it is they fund.

One of the most depressing things about this is the realisation that where there is a vacuum of information, any organisation who sets out to fill it gains financially from the lack of government issued guidance.

Organisations buy in an external package of guidelines and training because it is convenient.

Guidelines, toolkits, training get a free pass, gain traction, credibility and there seems to be no process required to validate their output for legal compliance before they receive money from schools, NHS, police and private workplaces.

How can this be? Here you go, have state funding for your organisation to produce content that is misinterpreting the law, and here have some more state money to train our staff on using it in government funded organisations.

All of us are indirectly funding this. Twice.

In fact, I feel that an investigation into the extent of GRA, self ID and TRA input into legislation and practise is needed. All bodies that are involved should be scrutinised, their safeguarding procedures should be checked.

Never going to happen, but just imagine. A sweeping programme to examine, test and if necessary, adjust policy across all areas. Then we repeal the GRA, set police to tackle domestic violence instead of 'hate incidents' and start to centre women in women's rights.

I feel a bit dizzy.

I have a feeling the NSPCC needs an investigation. No body with that amount of power and reach should be publically defending an employee who filmed himself masturbating at work. Or employing someone like Munroe Bergdorf to inspire children. To me, that smacks of something gone very deeply wrong.

The stark one for me was the NSPCC, the charity designed to protect children

NSPCC was one of the partners (advisors?) for the recently withdrawn CPS school toolkit:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3897095-Times-article-on-the-CPS-guidance-withdrawl

The stark one for me was the NSPCC, the charity designed to protect children, telling people off for pointing out Munroe Bergdorf should not have been suggesting private chats with children, appearing to side with Bergdorf, despite firing them, and then going off alarming at people objecting to wanking gimp man uploading film of himself masturbating in their toilets.

All their sympathies were with gimp man and Bergdorf.

I think the extent of policy capture is about to be brought into v sharp focus.

OP LangCleg wrote Sun 24-Mar-19
"Regulatory capture

We've had two (well, one still standing) threads on Accenture and its inclusive LGBT event excluding lesbians by power of the state over the last couple of days.

We've also discussed the way in which the policy-setting leadership of other companies, state institutions (for example the police and the NHS), charities (for example NSPCC) and third sector orgs (for example Girl Guides) have enforced the top-down imposition of Gender Identity ideology despite obvious practical and ethical issues and conflicts of rights.

I came across someone remarking about the concept of regulatory capture on Twitter in relation to all this and, since we've also been discussing the actual power relations behind various oppression narratives, I wonder what everyone thought.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

Regulatory capture is a form of government failure which occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. When regulatory capture occurs, the interests of firms or political groups are prioritized over the interests of the public, leading to a net loss for society. Government agencies suffering regulatory capture are called "captured agencies".

There are two basic types of regulatory capture and the second rings a few bells:

Non-materialist capture, also called cognitive capture or cultural capture, in which the regulator begins to think like the regulated industry. This can result from interest-group lobbying by the industry.

What do we think? Are there parallels?"

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3541908-Regulatory-capture

threads:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3733240-Regulatory-Capture

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3652832-Our-article-on-gender-self-ID-and-policy-capture-in-Scottish-public-policy

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3679784-Trevor-Phillips-on-bullying-activists-and-policy-capture-in-the-Times

In my experience, governments are very sensitive about their logos being used in third-party materials. Not just the use of a logo, but which particular one, the size and placement.

I think the issue of the logo & of using it in this case isn't as straightforward as I think is suggested. The funding requirements for the money that the GEO awarded to this org (and many others included in the overall award) states (and I'm paraphrasing) the work they've funded must include the logo.

I expect that, rather than the suggestion that the logo hasn't been used appropriately, or that it's use had implied credibility & endorsement where none was sought or given but assumed (from the fact of the award of the funding of the work before it had been completed), Liz Truss & the GEO are about to get a full understanding of what work is being done 'in their name' which falls far short of the standards & accuracy they should expect (and bloody well should be reviewing & checking before that logo gets printed). I think the extent of policy capture is about to be brought into v sharp focus.

This logo use is the same as the situation with the LGBTYS school guide which was funded to the tune of £200k by scotgov, which failed in the same ways re failing to account for the rights of other children (especially female children) when compiling their guide, no EQIA completed, wilfully misrepresenting the legal stance - every org who permitted their logo to be used with implied endorsement failed to do their own due diligence before giving it the stamp of approval, including scotgov.

This gravy train of equalities funding is effectively a license to make up any old shit, drown it in lots of progressive equality word salads, and get it disseminated with virtually no scrutiny or challenge. Until now that is.

It's a huge tangled mess to start dismantling but the number of these orgs funded & pushing the same/very similar 'stonewall law' that are now in existence has to be addressed. Start with why there's an LGBT Advisory Panel set up by the GEO to oversee every aspect of policy, while not giving other PCs that fall under the remit of GEO the same standing.

This is from UKGOV own website:

"Dr Brady and the experts on our new Panel will give LGBT people and those working on their behalf a direct route to speak to government and shape policy on decisions that affect their daily lives."

There's a disproportionate focus on one small part of the GEO remit & they've got free reign to spout anything with access to funding & use of government endorsement via that funding being awarded without any due diligence, EQIA, PSED oversight process scrutiny. They have influence over all aspects of policy while others under the GEO remit can't even get a reply to an email, never mind have the GEO on speed dial. There's years of this shit to unravel but the genie can't be put back in the lamp. Too late to walk on by & pretend there's nothing to see.

Morton is at the heart of every single manoeuvre in both Scotland and broader U.K. campaigns. We need to watch them all but Morton especially

STILLTish article, Spetember 2019:

'Ministry of Justice: Updated Policy on caring for Transgender Prisoners.'

(extract)
"The policy exposes how far the, legally protected, characteristic of sex has been eroded, by allowing anyone, regardless of biology, to declare they are a woman. The prison system is illustrative of just how far Gender Identity ideology is embedded within our legislature and enshrined in public policy.

Below is a quote 👇 from James Morton, of the Scottish Trans Alliance, which shows that Female prisoners are the subjects of a dangerous laboratory experiment. James is listed as an author of the Scottish Prisons Policy which deals with Transgender Prisoners. As James is a lobbyist for Trans Rights there is only one group at the forefront of the policy. Spoiler. Its not Women.

‘We strategized – we strategized – that by working intensively with the Scottish Prison Service to support them to include trans women as women on a self-declaration basis within very challenging circumstances, we would be able to ensure that all other public services should be able to do likewise’.

The above quote is illustrative of a complete disregard for the female prison population; one of the most vulnerable groups in our society. Domestic violence refuges, rape crisis centres and female prisons do seem to figure prominently in the targeted locations. Captive females are being targeted for this new branch of Men’s rights activism." (continues)
gendercriticalwoman.wordpress.com/2019/09/19/ministry-of-justice-new-policy-on-caring-for-transgender-prisoners/

In my experience, governments are very sensitive about their logos being used in third-party materials. Not just the use of a logo, but which particular one, the size and placement.

Using one without permission is very unprofessional and speaks to a kind of gung ho naïveté, which is not what you want in people creating learning materials for schools.

It’s not only a foolish thing to do, it exposes the paucity of capacity and responsibility of people who would do it. I’m sure that their funding agreement would have had a lot to say about branding and publishing permissions.

Morton is at the heart of every single manoeuvre in both Scotland and broader U.K. campaigns. We need to watch them all but Morton especially. Sounds a bit tinfoil hat to type it out but it's true. Huge influence.

When Scottish Trans say they are working with the Government Equalities Office to defend against any attempts by the UK government to protect single sex spaces, they must mean they are working with the GEO to block Liz Truss.

Is it normal to so blatantly declare antagonism between a government department and its minister?

EQIA in the Gender Recognition Reform Bill.

That clip with Peter Dunn is very revealing & well worth the watch. Peter Dunn, who was cited by Scotgov in the EQIA via his 'paper' which compared males in female space to women who have had a mastectomy. Peter Dunn, who Scotgov couldn't then dissociate fast enough from when questioned in Scottish Parliament by Joan McAlpine.

'Tis a very tangled web this.

I would hope that this will result in more oversight of projects given government funding.

Quite. It's no good handing out government funding without a clear understanding of what you are funding. Yet it seems this is what is happening.

It reminds me a bit of the Theranos debacle.

I wonder if this is an example of the ill wind of the pandemic lockdown blowing some good in giving some smart and observant people some unexpected time to notice, consider and investigate things?

In my experience public sector/civil service type jobs on a day to day basis are often filled with meetings and engagements that don't provide as much in the way of value as they should. I wouldn't be at all surprised if MPs now have the time to do reading, researching and other aspects of the job they usually can't make time for.

There’s a twitter tantrum going on with lots of people sharpening their crayons to ‘write to their MP’ about This Sort is Thing. I do hope that MPs will start being the adults in the room now.

twitter.com/Baroness_Nichol/status/1256308007945687043

I can't see it here - Baroness Nicholson's letter to Liz Truss.

Think Scottish Trans Alliance has two full time employees, perhaps its the other person?

James Morton is on the GEO LGBT panel so when Scot Trans Alliance say they are talking to the panel do they mean James is just on the same call?

WTFSeriously that tweet from Scottish Trans Alliance is so bloody sinister and lays bare their end goal of the complete dismantling of single sex segregated provision and thus safeguarding, dignity and privacy go out the window - and no-one in the GEO employs the critical thinking required as to who this benefits and why?????

James Morton of Scottish Trans Alliance has had considerable influence not just in Scotland. Morton was an 'expert' witness to Maria Miller's Women & Equalities Trans inquiry 2015

Here with Peter Dunne (TENI, TELI, etc)
parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/4e7f52c6-1357-43f8-98c0-af160b156b40

thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3829786-James-Morton-scottish-trans-alliance-quote

EqualiTeach proudly annouce:

173
Schools & colleges worked with us
14,560
Young people attended our workshops
1,560
Education staff trained

equaliteach.co.uk/for-schools/

The impact may be significant.

I wonder if this is an example of the ill wind of the pandemic lockdown blowing some good in giving some smart and observant people some unexpected time to notice, consider and investigate things?