Looks like the National Lottery and Stonewall have picked a side in the cotton ceiling debate

[pimmsnlemonade]

No surprises that it isn't lesbians' side - or women's generally:

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/new-lottery-bonanza-for-transgender-lobby-3bqjhr730

The Big Lottery Fund (BLF) will pay £494,000 to “empower trans leaders and organisations” in “facilitation, media and influencing”. The money is being handed to the advocacy group Stonewall for distribution to other activists, creating a “network of leaders” to lobby for change. Stonewall was central to the campaign for contentious changes to gender laws.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lottery-thousands-pay-for-former-trans-stripper-to-sway-public-opinion-6lw9xbwgr

Life has moved on for Page since then. Now in London, she is working for the advocacy group Stonewall on its “transgender leadership programme”, which is managing a new national lottery grant of almost £500,000. This was given to Stonewall to “empower trans leaders and organisations” with a “particular focus on leadership, media and influencing”.

Page’s activism in Canada may not assuage those feminist concerns. In 2012, amid some controversy, she ran a workshop called Overcoming the Cotton Ceiling. The “cotton ceiling” is a term used by some trans lesbian women to criticise biological lesbian women for refusing to have sex with them because they have penises.

A search of its grants database reveals that last year £5.5m was paid to projects mentioning the word “women’s”, the lowest for any full year since 2004. In the first 10 months of 2018, £3.7m was paid to women’s projects, suggesting a further drop across the full year.

With this kind of money behind the trans cause and the focus on "education" Nd influencing. I cant see how feminists can ever win this. We will be in a totalitarian world of doublethink. Not able to voice the belief that some women are men.

Stonewall are already a very wealthy charity and this is one of their core aims anyway. So I would question why they need a huge lottery award.

Tomorrow I am going to identify as trans.
I am going to claim grants for everything..
You can not question me at all, or I will screech all over the internet that you are transphobic.

Any way to protest this as with the Mermaids grant?

Cotton ceiling workshops!
<a class="break-all" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20120722002609/pleasureandpossibilities.com:80/programming/workshop-descriptions" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20120722002609/pleasureandpossibilities.com:80/programming/workshop-descriptions

apparently it was open to all AMAB transwomen to strategise ways to overcome sexual barriers (you mean women saying no to you! That's what you mean by a sexual barrier! Lots of transwomxn coming together to "strategise ways to overcome" women saying no to them, that shouldn't make anyone's skin crawl.)

Here's a radfem press release that was issued about it at the time.
radfemworldnews.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/lesbian-coalition-issues-press-release-condeming-toronto-planned-parenthood/

Oh yeah, and Morgan has endorsed the idea that "the bedroom is the final frontier of social justice."
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150208062322/prettyqueer.com/2011/07/23/just-call-me-hunter/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20150208062322/prettyqueer.com/2011/07/23/just-call-me-hunter/

Morgan was obsessed with getting laid as a human rights issue.
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150217153808/prettyqueer.com:80/2011/09/29/translady-self-annihilation" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20150217153808/prettyqueer.com:80/2011/09/29/translady-self-annihilation
something that could drastically improve the chances of my not only being taken seriously, but, more importantly, getting laid.

which I have to assume is a joke but ugh. Also lots and lots of pro sex work awfulness in their writing. <a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150204064442/prettyqueer.com/author/morganpage/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20150204064442/prettyqueer.com/author/morganpage/

Should this person really be managing half a million quid's worth of lottery funding?

<a class="break-all" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20120322041800/factcheckme.wordpress.com:80/2012/03/13/the-cotton-ceiling-really/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20120322041800/factcheckme.wordpress.com:80/2012/03/13/the-cotton-ceiling-really/

oh and also apparently that is a conversation between this person and Cathy Brennan. I hadn't realised before how the "cotton ceiling" and the "friendzone" are exactly the same concept.

*Basically, it means that cis queer women will be friends with us and talk day and night about trans rights and ending transmisogyny, but will still not consider us viable sexual partners.

The term cotton ceiling is a reference to the “glass ceiling” that second wave feminist identified in the workforce, wherein women could only advance so high in the workforce but could not break through into positions of power and authority. The cotton represents underwear,*

Morgan Page paid to lobby for Cotton Ceiling Smashing by the National Lottery?
Fuck really Stonewall?

This really needs sunlight.

And Canada again too.......

Does anyone have Share Token Links for those two Times articles please?

Here:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/new-lottery-bonanza-for-transgender-lobby-3bqjhr730?shareToken=d40434a12605c9ae81e0fb092e996001

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lottery-thousands-pay-for-former-trans-stripper-to-sway-public-opinion-6lw9xbwgr?shareToken=26e36e9a21d7612516958096645781cb

The grants to Mermaids and Stonewall may be traceable back to an event last year held by the LGBT Consortium, an umbrella body for most of the sector’s charities and lobbyists, with the BLF’s portfolio development director, Gemma Bull.

“Basically the pitch was that public donations to LGBT organisations have gone down dramatically since equal marriage, so the lottery needs to step in,” said one person who was there.

A few months later Bull went on an LGBT leadership course run by Stonewall and this year was named as an LGBT role model by the organisation OUTstanding.

Gemma Bull: Funding Strategy Director, The Big Lottery Fund

Gemma Bull leads on the funds England work, it is a wide remit that has included redeveloping all of our products and restructuring all of their England staff. Throughout this process Gemma has championed equalities worked. She has begun to speak much more opening about being an LGBT leader using both her position and background to ensure the fund is continuously improving our offer to our grant holders, applicants, stakeholders and staff. She chairs the Corporate Equalities Group looking to highlight and resolve issues as they arise but also works to identify ways in which we could challenge ourselves more from increasing our funding into the LGBT sector, testing new approaches to delivering our funding. For me she is a huge role model and mentor, it is incredible to see someone from the LGBT community being open, honest and authentic to herself whilst creating meaningful change for those around her.

www.out-standing.org/nominations/2018-role-models/2018-top-30-lgbt-public-sector-executives/

Here a Times poll about whether Lottry funding is going to the right organisations:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/58504386-0543-11e9-b3c0-56b0c89cd9f9

The lottery is funding incels

Half a million quid, to someone who thinks we need to Over come the cotton ceiling
From the National Littery?!?!

What the actual fuck???

It reminds me of the trend in the BBC - seeing a heavy over-representation of transpeople, but a concerning under-representation of lesbians.

There is no justification for it. It is all very sinister.

In the last decade EVERYTHING with the words 'women', 'feminist' or 'lesbian' has been strategically colonised by males and the females who object are shamed and ousted. Particularly public organisations.

Victory for dick.

Victory for abusers.

Bye bye women and children's gains.

And thank you to Andrew for this fantastic journalism.

Presumably partly the LGBT funding dropped as living with HIV became more manageable.

I know someone living with HIV and his access to support including a day centre with drop in healthsupport, appears far greater than, say, an elderly person. You cant really judge needs but he owns a large central London house and has a good job, so not an obvious grant beneficiary.

Interesting though that the Times are already wuestioning Stonewall. I thought they has influence, including training and advice work, so many places that it would be too difficult to question their role.

I wonder if this links with James Kirkups list of people who have misgivings about the trans lobby but who do not dare speak out. Its not just Mermaids. There are plenty of people in the City/public sector who do not enjoy Stonewall compulsory gender bollocks equalities training.

I mean the MI5 having a top 10 LGBT influencers with Suzie Green, Ruth Hunt and Paris Lees as the top 3.

What the fuck place is it of the public funded MI5 to have awards for people who are all up for mutilating kids? They have totally over-stepped their remit.

Sinister fucks. Any of the mumsnetters who got jobs at MI5 after that MN specific recruitment drive got anything to add in terms of explanation about your employer?

“In order to cope, they cut down a lot of the questions they asked applicants including, crucially, on safeguarding. You used to have to describe in detail what the safeguarding risks were and how you’d address them. But now you only have to tick a box saying you’ve considered safeguarding.”

I'd like to know if all these fetishists educational representatives/stonewall champions who go into schools have even been DBS checked for starters. With schools being targeted and everyone from drag artists to Alex Drummond going in to spread the word is there any oversight of who is going in and what they are saying as they chatter along to the power points?

It seems like only recently that transactivists and allies have been ridiculing feminists for suggesting the 'cotton ceiling' is a thing in the trans community.

Thanks for the share tokens!

It's great to see some really thorough investigative journalism being done.

The first para

The national lottery was last night accused of breaking its ban on political funding after giving a large grant to a second controversial transgender lobbying group.

Seems significant? I wonder if anything will arise from that?

Al that’s two lots of half a million handed over to dubious organisations that do harm. What next?

That’s a very good point about the cotton ceiling being exactly the same as the friend zone.

How is one acceptable and then other not? How long before this creeping acceptance of MRA tactics claims it’s unfeminist to have any sexual boundaries? How will all the feminists who support this shit feel when that happens?

I’ve written to the national lottery to complain and will keep questioning their decision making every time they seek to harm to women.
As EJennings says above it looks increasingly like civil obedience is going to be only way forward with this.
As for Canadians replicating their system here, I will fight this every step of the way. I will not sit back and watch my child grow up in a society that despises women.