And a little foray onto page 14...
The Equalities Act is the bare minimum. There is nothing untowards about introducing inclusion policies which go beyind it.
You are absolutely correct, jj1968. However, any new policies must uphold the Equality Act. So an inclusive policy that disregards the rights of people with a protected characteristic is unlawful. This is what Stonewall has been doing through its charter. And because Stonewall's position conflicts with the protections women enjoy on the basis of their sex, they sought to fix that problem by lobbying the UK government to remove the sex-based exemptions. They almost succeeded too, but Theresa May's early election decision in 2017 buggered that up royally.
The College of Policing's policy was based on the Macpherson Inquiry recommendations and the EHRC guidance was produced in 2011, four years before Stonewall began supporting trans people.
Correct again. However, the College of Policing's policy was originally and only concerned with racially motivated crimes and with the fact that people who later went on to commit racially aggravated crimes could be found to have been openly racist long before they committed those crimes, and often also to have committed racially aggravated crimes that were much lower-level ones. Their argument was twofold - had they paid attention to a pattern of criminal behaviour that was racially motivated prior to this escalating to serious crime, they might have been able to prevent this. And, of course, registering such low-level but racially motivated behaviour is useful evidence in court later.
No such justification exists on recording the comments made by those critical of the doctrine of gender identity. However rude those comments may be. There is no legal right not to be offended. Moreover, no such escalation has ever been shown as was shown in racially motivated crimes. That's why, of course, this policy is concerning, especially when this results in people having a hate incident recorded on their police file that shows up under a DBS search.
Furthermore, while it is true that Stonewall officially refocused on trans rights issues only after the EHRC guidance was written, it was already one of the issues they were working on at the time.
More important though is the fact that we now know that the EHRC was advised solely by trans rights organisations during the drafting of its statutory guidance on single-sex provisions and the access rights of those who identify as trans. Although that wasn't Stonewall but other trans rights organisations, the general point made in the comment you replied to stands:
EHRC guidance misinterprets the Equality Act where it weighed up how to resolve a conflict between the protected characteristic of sex and the protected characteristic of gender reassignment because it was unduly influenced by lobbyists for the latter while not seeking the views of any groups campaigning for the former.
So the fact that the EHRC guidance still (in some areas) agrees with your position is not proof that your position is right, but (in this case) merely proof that it reflects your position because that's the only one it listened to at the time it was originally written. It takes time to correct this oversight.
(The Government Equalities Office is a curious player in this field. In correspondence with a women's rights group for instance they confirmed that blanket policies are completely lawful when the service can show they are legitimate and proportionate (such as a rape crisis service offering a strictly female-only service). On its social media they can often be found to say something completely different.)
This obsession that Stonewall are secretly behind everything gender critical people don't like is pure conspiracy theory. I even saw someone claiming Stonewall were behind Biden's support for trans rights recently. It's batshit.
I agree. Again. This is far bigger than Stonewall and they are just one player in this field. Not even that well funded compared to campaigners in the US.