Organisations Leaving Stonewall: The List

“The department will be just as welcoming to LGBT people as before, but we really shouldn’t be paying thousands of pounds for controversial advice about pronouns and gender-neutral spaces.”

Well, they're not mincing their words are they?

MoJ is good news I hope its good news on the polices they implement re males in.womens prisons. Fingers crossed

I'm very happy to read that article @ItsAllGoingToBeFine
Last year I had reason to visit the Ministry of Justice (just before lockdown). I was shocked by the amount of stonewall posters emblazoned across the walls. After passing security one progressed through a sort of security gate system and hit a T junction with a head height wall directly in front filtering people to right or left. The whole wall was spattered with posters announcing their position near the top of Stonewall's workplace equality index. In the lift there was a poster for something mundane on one side of the door (probably coronavirus) and stonewall on the other. Needless to say rainbow lanyards were de rigeur. I really found it intimidating and thought how horrible it would be to work in such a place.

I was just going to post about the MOJ! Fantastic!

Was just about to post about the MoJ!

Excellent news!

The following is tremendous:

Sources at the Ministry of Justice suggested that the decision to withdraw from the scheme was also based on concerns about Stonewall’s “dubious” training and approach to free speech. Antonia Romeo, the permanent secretary, is now reviewing the department’s diversity policy on behalf of Mr Buckland.

An MoJ source said: “It’s a shame, as this was once an organisation that did incredibly important work, but it has totally lost its way and the ministers just don’t think it’s justifiable to give Stonewall taxpayers’ money.

[quote ItsAllGoingToBeFine]Did we know about the Ministry of Justice?
archive.li/3dCjg[/quote]
Oooh 🍾

Did we know about the Ministry of Justice?
archive.li/3dCjg

I listed Uni of Bedfordshire in this list (above) because they claimed to have left as per the Twitter kerfuffle. It's interesting as to whether organisations self-reports should be distrusted and the information validated in other ways (hardly the intention of an FOIA). tbh, as I was going through them, it very much felt as if some organisations were responding in a very unclear way.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4257620-Organisations-Leaving-Stonewall-The-List?msgid=107857876

That’s a good point @WarriorN, perhaps that can be part of the question for the schools.

My daughter’s primary school have a Stonewall logo with text saying they did something in 2017 but no mention of anything more recent, so I will quiz the head of pastoral care (who I’ve had a few other conversations with ) next week.

Now Channel 4!

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/5c9c9888-c565-11eb-8601-6a2ece3e4634?shareToken=7ba7305404b560740fb10de6cf81c0e7

In some cases it may be a council wide, school trust/ academy trust or even nhs funded scheme though. Worth checking if the school has the choice to leave

Brilliant news about Ofsted!

This is important as, through social media eg fb groups, school leaders share the kinds of things ofsted inspectors are looking at and asking qs about in inspections.

They then look at making sure staff know what to say and how to say it and it's embedded in school life.

'Meanwhile, more public bodies have quit Stonewall’s diversity scheme. They include the Post Office, NHS Highland, Swim England, three police forces and several councils.'

WHOOOOP!!!!

[quote Leafstamp]Uni of Beds has made a right hash of their response to a FOI request:

mobile.twitter.com/karenovirus19/status/1400754125135089668[/quote]

You...you can't lie on an FOI.

OFSTED leaving is the perfect opportunity for us to all write to our children’s schools and ask them to confirm whether or not they participate/intend to participate in the Stonewall School Champions scheme and if they do when they plan to quit!

This could be useful?

^A spokesperson said: "Primary schools that are meeting the DfE’s statutory requirements for teaching RSHE, including on the protected characteristics, but are not explicitly teaching about gender reassignment, can still be judged outstanding.

"As set out in our guidance, if a school requests that inspectors do not speak to pupils about a topic that the school reasonably believes is sensitive for its pupils, inspectors will not ask pupils questions about it."^

IRONY KLAXON

"The email raised “specific concern” that teachers may not "make pupils aware of the existence of all protected characteristics” in the 2010 Equality Act by the time they leave primary school."

I'm not on Twitter but would love to see #WhereIsRuthHunt trending.

What great news to wake up to, OFSTED leaving is huge!

What about OfRuth? Are they away yet?

Looks like Ofsted have left...

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210604232141/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/04/stonewall-raised-concerns-ofsted-inspectors-dont-always-discuss/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20210604232141/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/04/stonewall-raised-concerns-ofsted-inspectors-dont-always-discuss/

I love the Uni of Bedfordshire response so much 🤣

Totally Python-esque.

Channel 4 leaving, says the Times:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/5c9c9888-c565-11eb-8601-6a2ece3e4634?shareToken=52ed490929ba36f44b0578eee607c7e5

There's no need to conflate Stonewall with all the various good and positive work done to advance the cause of LGB (and T) people. I ran a Comic Relief funded project that was about improving the experience of people using mental health services. Comic Relief funding is split into lots of different work streams to meet various objectives and I was able to include an LBGT and mental health strand to that and am proud of what we did.

There's still a lot of prejudice in the UK. The local LGBT group were refused permission to march in the annual town parade a few years ago due to it being a 'family event'. And no, they weren't wanting to march in gimp costumes. Just a handful of every day people and their allies who live in a very rural area that is still deeply ignorant.