Department for Education leaves Stonewall

The DofE are distancing themselves from an increasingly extreme and unreasonable organisation at the behest no doubt hundreds of concerned parents, guardians and teachers of all and perhaps even no political backgrounds!

Appalling hyperbole.

Stonewall is a lobby group. That is an entirely legitimate thing for it to do as part of its charitable objects.

No government department should be in hoc to any lobby group for approval or advice on what the law actually says. Not Stonewall, not Sex Matters, not Global Butterflies, not FPFW - none of them. Lobby groups and Government must be independent of each other, otherwise you get the present mess where issues are not being properly debated and situations are arising where the wider impact on people who hold protected characteristics has not been properly considered.

This isn't smashing equality legislation - this is applying equality legislation fairly taking into account the competing interests of different groups.

Great news. Eagerly awaiting confirmation.

Not sure why that PP thinks defending women's rights is dependant on whether you are to the left or to the right of politics. Women make up 51% of all human beings, surely some diversity is to be expected. But I suspect actual diversity (of opinion for example) is not their strong suit.

Yes, the Human Rights Act being replaced by a Bill of Rights raises other issues. It probably has some relevance to the Higher Education Freedom of Speech Bill, because the HRA is so broad that it interacts with nearly everything at the margins of the law. But the same people jumping up and down about the HRA and the ECHR are the people putting inverted commas round ‘freedom of speech’ - Article 10 of the ECHR guarantees it. So obviously they don’t really give a shit about human rights. They just look for a legal situation that favours their extremist politics.

And equally weird given that this government is doing more than any other party has said they would to make the EA2010 stronger - unlike Scotland, for example.

Maybe there is a mix up and @antifascist is referring to the plans to override power of human rights court? That's a discussion worth having, calmly. And I am not sure any of us would either agree or disagree with all that is being proposed. So there'll be no kneejerk "Boris is an evil cunt" from me. I want to read more of the actual proposals, not journalistic endeavours to translate them!

I'm an ex auditor for government DfE contracts. Among other things...

How I would LOVE to be going over DfE contracted DEI spend and seeing how much was actually spent on inclusion of under represented groups, and not on excluding females.

So many spreadsheets...

If be concerned about Global Butterflies being an alternative. It's ran by two men who call themselves lesbians. One is ex army and stopped transitioning as couldn't get a job as a transwoman. When a job was secured continued with transition. I think if you can pop in out if your identity when it suits you it's not a great look. Also quite well off as has had a lot if facial feminisation surgery. When challenged in QA on non binary got aggressive and dismissive.

Stonewall has nothing to do with being left wing. Being left wing is about an analysis of how resources are divided between richer and poorer people. The women being denied single sex services are poor as well as rich: they don’t give a fuck about them. The women trying to optimise their lives through sport are poor as well as rich: they don’t give a fuck about them. The women being told to STFU because their ‘freedom of speech’ isn’t important are poor as well as rich: once again, they don’t give a fuck about them.

I’m not extremely right wing. Infact I’m not right wing I’m more middle straying towards left and Labour. But I’m passionate about protecting women’s rights. If that means I’m cheering because stonewall has been kicked out of schools so be it. When Labour can define a penis person properly then I will look to them again. Until then I’m in the wilderness but supporting my sex.

Not sure this post could be anymore hyperbolic or full of misinformation. And it is just one sentence.

"Stonewall has received almost £600,000 from the Department for Education over the past five years, it was confirmed last night."

Fucking hell. The Times seem to be pushing this quite hard!

Just because you ID as 'antifascist', doesn't mean you are. Usually people who say they are one thing, actually turn out to be the complete opposite.

Exactly - like countries with "Democratic" in their names.

Exactly this. There are women, groups, charities, MPs, etc working behind the scenes and have been for years slowly digging away.

by the way 51% of the population is not a small group.

the sooner stonewall is shut down the better. It’s done it’s job. Time to move on. It’s making a mockery of LGB people by grouping other minority groups with it.

‘I don't know about here in the UK, but a single university in the US recently was found to have an annual budget for DEI of $15 million.’

That is a lot of money. I’m sure some of it’s necessary (there’s nothing wrong with access initiatives or campaigns to help people understand their actual rights), but that sounds like bloated bureaucracy money to me.

I don't know about here in the UK, but a single university in the US recently was found to have an annual budget for DEI of $15 million.

I don’t think this is an extremely right wing government. If you look at actual policies they’ve been pretty middle of the road. The left wing have moved towards a more extreme position (fine - they’re entitled to their politics) and have been treated with great tolerance. That doesn’t extend to silencing women.

Has this been confirmed anywhere else yet?
Applying the law correctly as it stands is hardly some kind of ultra right wing conspiracy theory.
The Equality Act safeguards trans people too.

And do you know that Murdoch in Australia owns a paper considered to be more left leaning, Labor/ trade union targeted . And that was among his first purchases and is still a major part of News Corp today.

That little fact keeps slipping everyone’s mind when they seek to present Murdoch as being far anything. The only ‘far’ anything he is, is a media mogul.

This government was all set to go ahead with self id and it was only due to a lot of work on GC feminists' part that they shelved the idea. Saying that we're unwitting chumps in a culture war being fought by the Tories (who are not, by the way "far right" by any measure) is patently untrue and insulting to our intelligence.

Our activism has come from nothing more than our concern for women and girls and their rights. We've been discussing these issues since at least 2015.

Are you American by any chance, antifa ?

Are you in the UK?

Cos our current Gov't may be called "the right" but it's not extremely right wing. If you live here you must know that.

so obsessed with a comparatively small group

Females are a ‘small’ group now? I am here for fighting for the needs and protections under legislation for all females. Those with a sexed body formed around the production of large gametes, whether that production has, will, or is currently happening. Just to be clear.

Hope that clarifies.

I'm concerned with one half of the school population. Females. They are not a small group in any way.

Pretending that aligning with Stonewall will help women's rights is quite the reach. Especially when they themselves have required organisations to obliterate any mention of the word 'women'.

Could you clarify what “contradictory legal duties” you believe the Government could or will or is imposing on universities?

Be specific on how they contradict each other, if you would.

(as for the rest of your post… 💩)

What these proto-tyrants want to obfuscate is that this is a legitimate government with the electoral support to pass laws. They - DEI staff and academics - are not. If the government wants to strengthen free speech it is because the electorate - the people who give them legitimacy - want that. The people who currently enjoy too much power in universities think they’re fighting the government but they’re actually fighting the will of society. That’s anti-democratic, unless they can show how the legal duties the Higher Education Bill will place on them are actually in contradiction of established law. I bet they can’t.

Withdrawing from a scheme you don't have to belong to, and saying "maybe give some thought to the impacts on free speech" is scarcely what's needed to abolish the Equality Act.

Time to revert to the EQA. And uphold our sex-based rights. It's "horrifying" how readily those have been ignored in favour of Lobbyist Law.