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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Investigation has discovered how we're STILL in the stranglehold of Stonewall

63 replies

IwantToRetire · 15/07/2023 00:41

Yes this is a DM article, but it looks like most of the material is based on information published by Sex Matters and others.

To this day, despite many serious questions raised about its conduct, Stonewall continues to dictate policy to many of the country's key taxpayer-funded organisations and to politicians themselves — as well as to the world of business. In some ways, it has never been more influential.

Never-before-seen documents and new statistics revealed today by the Mail following a series of Freedom of Information requests uncover the sheer scale and extent to which this unelected body is still shaping plans and strategy.

From the NHS to schools and universities, politics to business, Stonewall is raking in millions of pounds from its £3,000-a-year 'Diversity Champions' workplace programme — and its influence over our most important public and private institutions remains as strong as ever. Critics accuse those signed up as paying to be indoctrinated by pernicious gender ideology.

And nowhere more so, arguably, than in healthcare, where, courtesy of recent 'diversity programmes' and 'rainbow badge' schemes — like the one that Bath's NHS Trust fell victim to — Stonewall has strived to eliminate mentions of biological sex, which is a 'protected characteristic' under the 2010 Equality Act.

Strikingly, we have discovered, many NHS trusts have removed the word 'woman' from their websites and information materials — so as to not offend a tiny minority of trans people.

The BBC pulled out of Stonewall's Diversity Champions scheme in November 2021, admitting that its participation raised questions about whether it could be seen to be impartial when reporting on debates that affected the charity.
Yet only this week, senior broadcast journalist Cath Walton told the Mail that the BBC remains in a virtual stranglehold of Stonewall dogma.

This, she explains, was one of the reasons she quit the Corporation, unable to tolerate what she describes as 'gaslighting' about gender ideology.

'Stonewall don't need to be [at the BBC] any more because the Stonewall influence is well established in HR,' she told us.

'There are people in key positions that take the Stonewall position as fact. Once you've done something, it's hard to undo it. For example, if they withdrew the advice on pronouns now, there would be a huge stink.

'Stonewall is now embedded with members of staff who are fully aligned with Stonewall views, and it's definitely influencing the BBC editorially. In an editorial meeting, people would be too scared to raise a gender-critical story. If you did, you know you would have a mark on your head.'

There seems no end to the nationwide bodies to have fallen in almost total thrall to Stonewall.

This month, it was revealed that the majority of High Street banks are members of diversity schemes run by Stonewall.

HSBC, which allows customers to register as gender-neutral, is the top-ranking bank in Stonewall's annual Equality Index. Barclays and Nationwide are also among Stonewall's top 100 employers.

Last week, it was even reported that the Bank of England had introduced a 'family leave' policy that included the phrase 'birthing parent' rather than mother.

As well as banks, healthcare and the broadcast media, the charity holds growing sway in schools. In particular, it exerts considerable influence in 'Relationships and Sex Education' (RSE) lessons, which are obligatory for pupils from the age of seven.

'Stonewall has an annual budget of £8 million, which is incredibly small by corporate standards. But it controls the policies of organisations and companies worth billions. It is dictating to both public and private institutions. It is a tiny organisation, but it has an enormous footprint in terms of its control of what other organisations do and the fear that they feel if any of their employees say anything that disagrees with Stonewall's stance.

'In medieval times only the Church had this level of control.'

In the next part of our investigation, we will reveal how Stonewall has infiltrated every major political party, captured the civil service — and is hard at work lobbying ministers to introduce controversial new gender laws.

Bits I have picked out from a much longer article. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12300665/A-special-Mail-investigation-discovered-Stonewalls-stranglehold.html

Will be interesting to see what they say about political parties and Stonewall

Investigation shows how we're STILL in Stonewall's stranglehold 

Employees working for an NHS Trust in Bath, Somerset were said to have 'homophobic' or 'transphobic' views. But on closer inspection, these did not seem particularly egregious.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12300665/A-special-Mail-investigation-discovered-Stonewalls-stranglehold.html

OP posts:
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dcbc1234 · 15/07/2023 20:14

ResisterRex · 15/07/2023 18:20

I think it's a good point but the Masons were never overt. They're certainly still active and they must get involved in things behind the scenes but it'll be certain things. Stonewall and co have tried to - and have become - involved in all areas of our lives in an explicit and overt way:

  • education from 0-Uni age
  • food shopping
  • public policy covering everybody: civil service, local government, the lot
  • banks
  • our 999 services, health, police, criminal justice, even the supposedly impartial inspectors like the CQC
  • grassroots and professional sports
  • our FCO, and they've got a global index of employers to boot

They're everywhere and it's in your face. Comparisons with knotweed are not wrong.

I used to work in Banking and 'being apolitical' was a corporate value almost, so I am not sure what has happened to change so quickly here.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 15/07/2023 19:55

ResisterRex · 15/07/2023 19:50

Gosh, soon we won't even be able to listen to that Blur classic...

Ironically we're not able to read what that classic was either 🙄

ResisterRex · 15/07/2023 19:50

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Gosh, soon we won't even be able to listen to that Blur classic...

DrBlackbird · 15/07/2023 19:46

UtopiaPlanitia · 15/07/2023 01:06

It’s all fascinating in a chilling way; I don’t think charities espousing postmodern queer theory should have that outsize level of influence on the policies and services provided by our public sector organisations. Private sector organisations should not be ignoring their legally-required employment and discrimination duties in favour of sometimes unlawful lobbyist demands.

It ought to be a case study in how network ‘soft’ power plays out. It can’t be just stonewall achieving these changes and the erasure of ‘women’ alone but also how trans / trans allies take up positions within these institutions in EDI roles then onboard SW ‘guidance’ and disseminate it to the hard of thinking in each organisation.

For example, I’ve just seen a LGBTQ+ presentation (presumably for pride month) in my place of work and 14 out of the 15 slides were exclusively on trans. The person presenting it was from the natural sciences.

Also I’ve finally read the agenda from the UCU Congress and was utterly shocked at the Ukraine motion, but also the FE Sector conference motions supported puberty blockers, are concerned about NHS move away from gender affirming care, and that a motion to change the wording from equality to equity (in the Equality Committee) should actually be the ‘Liberation Committee’ with the policy wording changed to ‘ liberation from oppression for all minoritised groups‘…

FannyCann · 15/07/2023 19:03

This reply has been deleted

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ResisterRex · 15/07/2023 18:20

I think it's a good point but the Masons were never overt. They're certainly still active and they must get involved in things behind the scenes but it'll be certain things. Stonewall and co have tried to - and have become - involved in all areas of our lives in an explicit and overt way:

  • education from 0-Uni age
  • food shopping
  • public policy covering everybody: civil service, local government, the lot
  • banks
  • our 999 services, health, police, criminal justice, even the supposedly impartial inspectors like the CQC
  • grassroots and professional sports
  • our FCO, and they've got a global index of employers to boot

They're everywhere and it's in your face. Comparisons with knotweed are not wrong.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 15/07/2023 18:04

"I think in terms of politics and finance etc., at one time the Freemasons probably had as much influence. But what Stonewall has managed to do is build on the type of hidden networks similar to the Freemasons, as long before Stonewall went full on trans, people who had come out of 80s education full of the righeousness of queer politics were busy inserting themselves into influential committees, lobbying groups etc.. Effectively Stonewall reaped the benefit of that ground work"

That's a really useful comparison IwantToRetire. The Freemasons went from being an accepted respected group that worked behind the scenes with some public work to being viewed as a dubious group that corrupted democracy and endowed underserved privilege on certain individuals.

RebelliousCow · 15/07/2023 17:14

On ideological hegemony:

"Currently, Gender Theorists have near total control of the institutions and there is currently a culture of fear around the issue, but that can be counteracted by an opposition gaining critical mass where people cannot be picked off individually"

"Gender Theory heavily relies on fear and indifference from the wider population. These forces are unsustainable in the long term. The process of metaphorically putting heads on spikes to keep everyone in line can work to silence establishment-reliant voices, but will ultimately force the wider population to confront the issue"

RebelliousCow · 15/07/2023 17:13

"Whereas the gay rights movement was about demanding more freedom from the state for people to determine their sex lives unconstrained by the law, the transgender movement demands the opposite: it calls for recognition and protection from the state in the form of intervention to regulate the behaviour of those outside of the identity group.

Whereas in the past, to be radical was to demand greater freedom from the state and institutional authority, today to be radical is to demand restrictions on free expression in the name of preventing offence"

TheGreatATuin · 15/07/2023 17:10

None of the stuff they were marked down for was homophobic. In fact, it was the opposite. It was staff getting on with their jobs and being open about treating gay or trans patients the same as everyone else.
The idea that NHS staff should be 'routinely' asking patients about their sexual orientation is actually quite disturbing and has to go against GDPR and patient privacy laws. Why on earth would they need to know that to treat people?
Thrilled to see that they 'failed' such horribly homophobic criteria.

IwantToRetire · 15/07/2023 16:50

I think it is really good to have this overview, and with enough acknowledgement that women's campaign groups have been organising and researching on this.

But ...

Dont forget that our 2 party mentality (and women aren't an agend issue) mean that a lot of people will simply ignore and or not believe it because it is in the Daily Mail.

And as the article points out most thought that Stonewall influence had peaked as some organisations started to disaffiliate. But as the BBC former employee says, it is too late. The culture in now embedded.

So very every small (and often individual) victory we hear 2 more of establishments being captured eg Bank of England.

I think in terms of politics and finance etc., at one time the Freemasons probably had as much influence. But what Stonewall has managed to do is build on the type of hidden networks similar to the Freemasons, as long before Stonewall went full on trans, people who had come out of 80s education full of the righeousness of queer politics were busy inserting themselves into influential committees, lobbying groups etc.. Effectively Stonewall reaped the benefit of that ground work, and used the foundation it gave them to go full on public influence. ie no longer a behind the doors quora at meetings and decisions makings, but a ramping of changing public opinion so that it would appear that most people were behind the trans agenda and erasure of women's rights. Added to which it gave TRAs a "legitimate" platform to spew their misogyny aided by the growth in incels.

If the BBC hadn't been captured, this would be the type of investigation for an episode of Panorama. But we know that will never happen.

Really looking forward to the follow up article promising a look at political parties.

But to go back to where I started how much influence will that have, as for too many the fact that the source in the DM means they will dismiss it.

OP posts:
ThisTimeIts · 15/07/2023 16:05

Froodwithatowel · 15/07/2023 15:20

This. My vote goes to a bank or any other group that says we don't do politics, we don't take sides, we are equally interested in all customers and we just do high quality banking.

That's it. That's all.

I do not require them to be 'anti' anything, just professional enough to keep their political opinions out of the workplace

I am guessing that those chasing the ESG scores are not in the best financial situation anyway, as they are more desperate for credit, hence wanting to improve the credit scores.

Froodwithatowel · 15/07/2023 15:20

Whatwouldscullydo · 15/07/2023 15:11

I just long for the day that regs come out stating that businesses are to remain neutral. That they are to sell their product/service and be done with it.

When you are a company that deals with the public then you do so knowing full well that you are gonna serve people with a wide range of views/beliefs. And they are entitled to hold them. I'm sure I've served many a " phobe" of some sort. But provided they are polite to staff or simply don't speak to us, treat the premises with enough respect to not trash it or smash it etc and dont physically or verbally abuse staff and other customers then that's all you can ask for surely? Someone who quietly goes about their day who behaves and doesn't abuse people just simply doesn't believe in X Y Z has as much right to be made tp feel welcome/be able to use the service as anyone else surely ?

Just as drs dont get to refuse to provide emergency medical care for prisoners/criminals etc

Just serve your customers sell your shit and be done with it.

This. My vote goes to a bank or any other group that says we don't do politics, we don't take sides, we are equally interested in all customers and we just do high quality banking.

That's it. That's all.

I do not require them to be 'anti' anything, just professional enough to keep their political opinions out of the workplace

Whatwouldscullydo · 15/07/2023 15:11

flyingbuttress43 · 15/07/2023 15:01

I have this dream that one day a really big company or bank with a high public profile will come out and say that they are proud not to subscribe to gender ideology, pronouns, destruction of the English language etc. I wonder what the response would be from Joe public. I know I would patronise them immediately.

FFS when is Stonewall going to be seriously investigated and brought down as the money-making racket it is.

I just long for the day that regs come out stating that businesses are to remain neutral. That they are to sell their product/service and be done with it.

When you are a company that deals with the public then you do so knowing full well that you are gonna serve people with a wide range of views/beliefs. And they are entitled to hold them. I'm sure I've served many a " phobe" of some sort. But provided they are polite to staff or simply don't speak to us, treat the premises with enough respect to not trash it or smash it etc and dont physically or verbally abuse staff and other customers then that's all you can ask for surely? Someone who quietly goes about their day who behaves and doesn't abuse people just simply doesn't believe in X Y Z has as much right to be made tp feel welcome/be able to use the service as anyone else surely ?

Just as drs dont get to refuse to provide emergency medical care for prisoners/criminals etc

Just serve your customers sell your shit and be done with it.

flyingbuttress43 · 15/07/2023 15:01

I have this dream that one day a really big company or bank with a high public profile will come out and say that they are proud not to subscribe to gender ideology, pronouns, destruction of the English language etc. I wonder what the response would be from Joe public. I know I would patronise them immediately.

FFS when is Stonewall going to be seriously investigated and brought down as the money-making racket it is.

FrancescaContini · 15/07/2023 14:57

Kudos to Cath Walton for acting on her principles and for speaking out about the extent to which Stonewall is entrenched at our public service broadcaster.

Whatwouldscullydo · 15/07/2023 14:55

I think this will disturb alot of people. When victims if crime cant get a cop round, when elderly people with no transport have no local bank with actual people to help them, when those in direct need of medical appointments /care/surgeries etc have waited so long etc etc etc all due to staff cuts and lack of funding , only to discover that there's money and time to sign up to SW and read/fill out multiple pages instructing them on how to shit on every protected characteristics besides gender reassignment. How are people meant to feel about that.

ScrollingLeaves · 15/07/2023 14:22

Yes. I hope you realise I was being sarcastic given the Government has refused to clarify that sex in the Equality Act means biological sex.

dcbc1234 · 15/07/2023 14:14

ScrollingLeaves · 15/07/2023 09:54

Stonewall has strived to eliminate mentions of biological sex, which is a 'protected characteristic' under the 2010 Equality Act.

Is biological sex a protected characteristic? The Government seems too weak to confirm that.

SEX is a protected characteristic and everyone knows biological sex is what it meant in all legislation which has used it as a term over the years,
Certain 'diversity people' have chosen to deliberately misrepresent the position in recent years and I suppose you could argue that 'follow the money' works for the legal profession. Even the good guys are enriching themselves arguing against 'black being white'. I have total contempt for the politicians' failures to stand by existing laws though.

BoreOfWhabylon · 15/07/2023 12:23

@TheLadyInWestminsterAbbey Good grief, that report!
Well done to the terfy staff, whose responses were so "offensive" as to require a trigger warning.

The amount of money and time wasted on this is appalling.

ThisTimeIts · 15/07/2023 11:52

This IS a religious empire.

Yes this is like the Prositant takeover of the secular institutions when their witch trials occured, Henry VIII stole buildings and lands.

Anyone they did not believe was really a believer was punished, for example targeting Jews in mainland Europe, they allowed many starve to death unless they changed religion in Ireland.

It has infiltrated because a lot of dozy well intentioned twits allowed it not wanting to not be naice, or were taken in by shiny lying marketing. It is now subverting democracy, law, parliament, policing and healthcare. It is the biggest safeguarding fail in history.

This, only they are not twits, they are extremely selfish.

Imnobody4 · 15/07/2023 10:59

I suspect this is a factor in Nancy Kelley leaving. It will be a hard post to fill. Am I being too optimistic to hope this is the beginning of the end for Stonewall?

Froodwithatowel · 15/07/2023 10:01

'In medieval times only the Church had this level of control.'

Better put: not since medieval times has an organisation held this level of control over government and country and that was the Catholic Church.

This IS a religious empire. It has infiltrated because a lot of dozy well intentioned twits allowed it not wanting to not be naice, or were taken in by shiny lying marketing. It is now subverting democracy, law, parliament, policing and healthcare. It is the biggest safeguarding fail in history.

Ffs Downing Street get off your bloody bums and do something.

ScrollingLeaves · 15/07/2023 09:54

Stonewall has strived to eliminate mentions of biological sex, which is a 'protected characteristic' under the 2010 Equality Act.

Is biological sex a protected characteristic? The Government seems too weak to confirm that.

FrancescaContini · 15/07/2023 09:45

Is there a list anywhere of organisations, businesses and local authorities that HAVE stopped paying a small fortune (often using public money) to Stonewall? It’d be very interesting to see it.

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