Stonewall article; silencing democracy and a lucrative gravy train

[truthisarevolutionaryact]

The excellent Sunday Times reporting on a powerful letter from university academics. It's worth noting the jaw dropping amounts of public money that universities have thrown at trans lobby groups. No wonder such unrepresentative organisations are able to exert such a hold on the public discourse - they are rolling in £££ .

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/stonewall-is-using-its-power-to-stifle-trans-debate-say-top-academics-dtswlcl0n?shareToken=2a972dd27ff6ea8dd3791c1293c9e633

Good article, thanks for the link. The shutting down of debate is one of the scariest things about this, and also one of the clearest indications that this is a (white) men's rights movement. I can't think of a genuinely oppressed group (women, ethnic minorities, gay people) with the power to silence dissent in this way.

This is a (long) extract from the letter (which I assume is not allowed to be copied) - it's excellent as it highlights just how Stonewall's demands negatively impact on academic freedoms and of course ezplains why we have so many young people entering the workplace with these anti science, anti truth repressive ideas.:

....our disquiet over the inappropriately close relationship between the LGBT charity Stonewall and UK universities, via the Stonewall Diversity Champions programme.

The membership requirements of this programme are in tension with academic freedom. For instance, university members must instigate specialist trans policies, in addition to general equality policies, which outlaw “transphobic” teaching and research material but offer no clear definition of what would count as such.

Alongside Stonewall’s definition of transphobia as including any “denial/refusal to accept . . . gender identity”, this leaves academics unable to question the contested notion of “gender identity” without fear of sanction.

Equally, Stonewall’s guidance advises against inviting any speaker to a university who would deny “that trans people are the gender they say they are”. This is a further unacceptable restriction upon free academic debate.

The programme requires staff to undergo “trans awareness training”, during which tendentious and anti-scientific claims are presented to academics as objective fact, without the opportunity for scrutiny: for instance, that “gender is how people interpret and view themselves” and that “1 in 100 are born with an intersex trait”. In our teaching, we’re exhorted to “ask the pronouns” of students. Yet many of us would deny that pronouns refer to an inner feeling of gender identity, and wish to say so.

There are other areas that some of us wish to explore and question, such as the ramifications of Stonewall’s new doctrine that female-attracted trans women, with penises, are “lesbians”; an “affirmation model” for gender-questioning children; and the social changes caused by opening up women-only spaces to self-identified women. It is imperative to interrogate the radical shifts in thinking that all this implies, but we feel inhibited from doing so in the intimidating atmosphere produced by Stonewall’s influence.

We therefore urge Stonewall to clarify that it fully supports academic freedom of thought. Failing this, we ask universities to sever their links with this organisation altogether

Meant to say IS allowed to be copied

Is there a link to the letter? I can’t find it on the Times website?

I've just cut and paste most of it above your post

really valid points from the academics. so between Stonewall, GIRES and Gendered Intelligence, they've had £900K over 5 years out of cash strapped universities to train them in gender identity?

gosh. nice work if you can get it. it's like shelling out that sort of sum for detailed training in catholic scripture. It has the same basis in reality.

^ Bernard that's not even including Lottery grants and government grants during "austerity", and private donations.

This simply isn't what oppression looks like.
Wealthy white middle class Oxbridge students claiming to be "oppressed" on the basis of their feelz is one of the most galling aspects of this whole debacle.

Thanks, truth - I was interested to see who had signed it. But I’ve just seen screenshots on Kathleen Stock’s Twitter feed:

mobile.twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1140140381079781378

I see Alison Phipps has referred to the signatories as ‘the “feminist” division of UKIP”

What’s that sound...? Oh yes, a barrel being scraped

I suspect this cost is only the tip of the iceberg - or maybe the skin on the gravy.

Medic DD had a full day of training a few months back. She was interested (as obviously her mum is wrong on everything) and settled in for what she hoped would be a day of endocrinology, long term medical regimes, descriptions of interesting and pioneering surgery, advice on patient treatment and communication, diagnosis of dysphoria with possible co-morbidities, etc.

Instead they got a lot of "brave and stunning". The afternoon session was run by a natal male who had not opted for any surgical or hormonal treatment, leaving them just with a discussion of why anyone would want their birth sex hidden from their medical records, an unnecessary risk as far as the students were concerned.

Measurable outputs would have been:

• useful income for the morning speaker and the various transpeople who led the smaller afternoon sessions.
• an increase in scepticism in a group who, though potentially sympathetic, also understand biology.
• a missed opportunity to educate future GPs to an extent that they might be confident prescribing/treating rather than referring.
• a missed chance to encourage those who might be interested in specialising in gender medicine.

I suspect the cost of the day would not show up in the University budget as it would have come under the medical school. I assume other medical schools round the country hold similar training events, as might nurses, paramedics and other courses for health professionals. .

These organisations know that the wider public is mostly not supportive of their anti science bilge so they have carved out a corporate gravy train to keep them going.

It seems that year on year the work and requirements demanded of these institutions to remain 'compliant' grows exponentially. I read somewhere this week that one institute (a university?) had abandoned being a Stonewall champion because of the administrative pressure it caused.

Can someone repost if they remember where that story was from.

It was Edinburgh University.

Ova - it was Edinburgh University, and it was mentioned in one of the articles on the attack on Julie Bindel.

The new CE of Stonewall is going to have to work very hard to retain income streams. Once the image is tarnished big corporations and others won't be interested in paying to display the logo.

I hope then that diversity and equality can go back to looking at barriers preventing people reaching their potential as a result of disability, race, sex, sexual attraction etc.

Needmoresleep has your DD seen the light?

The letters are all under the same heading i.e. the first one, I think it's Boris today.

I think post Millennials are interesting. They have been raised to be tolerant and accepting. Racism is a no no, as is homophobia. Her sixth form peers seem to have claimed every varient of pansexual, demisexual etc, or at least until alcohol and hormones took over at the first big party and most reverty to fairly traditional behaviour. Drugs are more prevalent, as is porn, and mental health issues are common and talked about. Throw in exam pressure, global warming and an uncertain job market, and it is hard to envy them.

As far as I can see many are more conservative in the social behaviour than we were. They work hard, apply for internships, ignore the Students Union and politics. Corbyn has lost much of his early appeal. But the fear of being labelled has many unwilling to express private doubts on trans, politics or anything.

If you have to spend a day being educated on trans, so be it. There was scope for it to have been really interesting. But the speakers were apparently absorbed by their own specialness. If there is a problem with access to trans healthcare, and I have no doubt there is, this was a wasted opportunity.

DD seem to think any views I hold emerged in the time of the dinasaurs. But she and her friends seem sceptical in their own way, once they get over their ignorance. She had to explain to a friend that you cant change sex,he really thought you could...a Grammar school boy too.

I do think the BBC and others get 'yoof' wrong. I don't think MB, who is in her 30s has any real resonance. Ever LM, already quite old to be an UG is perceived as creepy and irrelevant. YouTube influencers however can hold more sway. (Though in DDs case current role models are English footballers.)

Throw in exam pressure, global warming and an uncertain job market, and it is hard to envy them.

Bless. We only had mass unemployment, AIDS, CFCs, Chernobyl, and impending nuclear war to deal with.

But we weren't required to be politically correct at all times

Misgendering was not potentially a sackable offence, even a crime.

DD & her friends are GC. DD2 is still at school and doesn’t know who MB is, probably thinks they’re old & a dinosaur.

MB = Munroe Bergdorf, the NSPCC's would-be trans-ambassador.

Though not surprised that younger kud6s are more openly GC. Youth generations seem to last 5 years, max.

Plus "trans" only started popping up when DD was leaving school. Then it suddenly seemed that there was at least one trans kid in every local school.Their peers presumably will come to their own conclusions.

Thanks Needmoresleep and GCAcademic. I couldn't remember which uni it was.

Relevant thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3488261-The-Financial-Juggernaut-that-is-Stonewall

From that thread:

Extracts from the 2017 Financial Accounts of Stonewall:

2017 Total income £7.2m

Donations 1.7m
Grants 0.9m (total income from govt 0.65.million)
Sponsorship 0.4m
Events 0.8m
Fees 2.2m
Programs 0.5m

I presume income from training comes under 'fees', as does membership in the Stonewall Diversity Champions scheme. 40 universities pay £900,000 over 5 years, that's about £180,000 per year (but presuming more organisations have taken up training opportunities in the last five years), which still leaves many, many more organisations making up the rest of that £2.2 income.