‘Anti-women’ trans policy may split Stonewall - letter to the Times - more wishful thinking than fact?

[stumbledin]

The times has an article based on a letter thay have published which claims

"Pioneers of the gay rights movement in Britain have discussed forming a breakaway organisation from the Stonewall pressure group because they fear women and children are at risk from its transgender policy."

Full article at www.thetimes.co.uk/article/anti-women-trans-policy-may-split-stonewall-wfv2rp5cx

The letter is signed by:
• Jonathan Best, former director, Queer Up North;
• Julie Bindel, journalist and feminist campaigner;
• Gill Butler, former trustee, Stonewall;
• Beatrix Campbell, writer;
• Maureen Chadwick, TV & film writer and producer;
• Stephanie Davies-Arai, director, Transgender Trend;
• Simon Edge, former editor of Capital Gay and writer for Attitude;
• Simon Fanshawe, founder, Stonewall;
• Eileen Gallagher OBE, TV producer;
• Kath Gotts, composer;
• Claire Graham, intersex advocate;
• Jane Harris, author;
• Kate Harris, former supporter of Stonewall;
• Bev Jackson, founder, Gay Liberation Front;
• Darren Johnson, London Assembly member 2000-16;
• Jane Clare Jones, writer and philosopher;
• Ann McManus, TV and film scriptwriter;
• Ann Sinnott, former Labour councillor;
• Caroline Spry, TV and film producer;
• Kathleen Stock, philosopher;
• Helen Watts, former leader, Girlguiding UK;
• Miranda Yardley, transexual rights activist

Last of letters published at www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/labour-tax-plan-corrodes-rule-of-law-sbh2f09n2

It's no good if it becomes an anti-trans group

Just by not centreing trans people (transwomen, if we are honest, they dont care about transmen..) they will already be declared anti trans. Like whenever someone stands up for womens rights, thats not pro woman, its anti trans. Everything is antitrans, except total capitulation to TRAs demands.

I've never understood why the T was added to LGB in the first place.

Being trans is not a sexual orientation.

If you are a gay transperson then you're already covered by the 'G'.

I used to have great respect for Ruth Hunt and have done fundraising for Stonewall in the past but in retrospect I think she was too young and / or naive for the CEO role. I think her trans inclusiveness was well meaning but ultimately very badly thought through.

The most alarming part for me is the risk of losing the Equality Act exceptions. It is currently legal to exclude trans women from certain, sensitive female only jobs yet Stonewall appears to back removing these exceptions so there is literally no difference between women and trans women in any scenario. How can she have thought this was okay?!

Thanks OP for sharing the letter.

I'm terrible at gauging how interesting these issues are to the general public but surely this is quite a big deal? "Stonewall founders" will have quite a big impact?

I have never fathomed this concept of "The LGBT Community."

Where is it? Is it like Poundbury but with nicer curtains? I can see them all now, exchaning friendly waves as they open the shop-shutters of a morning.

I don't know anything about Simon F; will your average woke bloke be able to point to anything and say "Well he started losing the plot when he xyz" (said he read JK Rowling, tweeted something vaguely Conservative, I dunno)? Cos that's the way it tends to go when one of the "accepted" comes out as being "on the wrong side of history"

Excellent. Thank you to all the signatories

PS I smiled at intransigent in the letter

And didn't the quoted reaction from Stonewall at the end of the Times article say it all?

Article: People are worried about lesbians and their erasure. Care to comment, Stonewall?

Stonewall: Trans people are currently facing horrific levels of harassment. We won't even mention lesbians even when we are asked about lesbians in an article about lesbians - that's how little they count.

Re stonewalled homophobia the thing for me is sugggesting to kids who are beginning to feel they are same-sex attracted that that means they are trans.

'Fancy girls? You must be a boy. Only boys fancy girls.'

And I am sure someone will be along to tell me this never happens. But all these trans narratives have these elements. 'I always liked playing with trains and didn't like dolls and then when I started fancying girls I went online and found out I was born in the wrong body' And do stonewall challenge those narratives or hold them up as great examples of their lovely rainbow umbrella?

A few have commented on my comment of it being branded an "anti trans" group.
The point is that if it is branded as such (and the tra will try their hardest to tell everyone it is) it will not receive enough support from the LGB to be viable.
It will also make it harder for the group to be listened to by schools (public sector/industry or whoever).

There are seemingly alot of LGB people who are either oblivious to what is going on, or for whatever reason cannot see the implications. They will never support anything "anti trans" but hopefully will support an LGB focused group (like what Stonewall used to be).
If it gets off the ground then by default it will help protect lesbians and kids and hopefully moderate the extremes of Stonewall (their rebranding of homosexuality into same-gender for example).

I agree, Aspley.

The inevitable problem is that unless an LGB group vigorously and emphatically centres and supports the T, with the full ideology, it will be considered heresy from the outset.

There is no way to have an LGB focused group and just not mention the issue to try and avoid it being seen negatively, because the L in itself is one of the cores of the issue. Anything with the word lesbian in it is a target for this reason: much to the dismay of homosexual women who just wanted the right to be homosexual without harassment.

Sorry if this has been covered before, but what exactly are Stonewall proposing to teach primary school age children about transgenderism?

I wonder a bit about the bigger picture around these kinds of advocacy/lobby groups. In all of this, what has really come out to me are the problems with lobbyist groups being funded largely through government grants; the problems that can arise when one group is seen as the go-to group for education or information or input on a certain issue; and the problem of professional activism and the way it creates strong incentives for certain decisions and behaviours.

So anytime people talk about a new group, I worry that it won't just fall into the same problem as the old one.

One of the things that has struck me related to the school programs is that many people here of course object to the trans element, and so agree with the protests about that. Some parents have other concerns however, that people here are less inclined to agree with. But has the experience of having the system decide to teach something we disagree with, in the name of inclusivity, taught us something about how we should think about those other parents?

These are the questions I have. I don't think it's just about regaining the upper hand, I think its about looking at some of the the underlying problems, and what may be learned about how things were organised or done before.

I imagine some of those signatories must be absolutely pissed-off that they put so much time, effort, expertise and resources into already creating an organisation that worked for LGB people, only to have all that stolen, and they have to start again.

Many of us feel the same about feminist organization, which have also for the most part been captured. I'd imagine anyone who's a member of the Labour Party or the Lib Dems is feeling a bit peeved too, not to mention the Greens (wtf does gender have to do with saving the environment?)

It's going to be a long tedious process trying to extricate organizations that used to do good work from the trans mafia, and I can see why some people would just give up and decide to create something new even with all the sunk costs involved, because if you think barnacles are hard to dislodge you've never seen a TRA who's captured an organization and is determined to maintain control of it in full swing.

It seems to be being dismissed as 'last century's activists'. Ooh this sounds familiar.

A few have commented on my comment of it being branded an "anti trans" group. The point is that if it is branded as such (and the tra will try their hardest to tell everyone it is) it will not receive enough support from the LGB to be viable.

Anything that doesn't put trans front and centre and more important than anything, anything that centres the rights of another group in a positive fashion, basically anything, will be branded anti-trans.

You're advocating for nothing to be done.

Simon Fanshawe was at the forefront of keeping PIE from infiltrating the gay rights movement in the 70׳s. He understands the way predators work, he knows what the stakes are. I met him a couple of times, he's a man who sees women as people.

Some excellent, well-thought out comments on the article about the letter. Is Victoria a mumsnetter?

Goosefoot, do you mean the Birmingham protests?

Endofthedays

Yes. I mean, we all think our closely held values are the ones that should be taught in schools, particularly with relations to things about discrimination, or inclusion. It's hard not to feel that those who have a different perspective must be bad or seriously misguided.

But then, that's the way people who consider those with concerns about gender teaching, too. It's a bit of a taste of how some conservatives, or religious people, may have felt with regard to what their kids were being taught. Not always, some programs seem to have been qite good, but some parents do seem to have felt that schools or teachers have crossed the line at times.

I think when you experience that yourself it's a good time to reflect on instances where you may have behaved in a way that affected others in a similar way.

But more generally, I am thinking about institutional capture of grassroots organisations by the state and the professionalisation of activism, and the effects of that. It's clearly a problem, but how to get out of it? How is a new organisation like this going to be funded? Who would staff it?

But has the experience of having the system decide to teach something we disagree with, in the name of inclusivity, taught us something about how we should think about those other parents?

This is an interesting question. It made me reflect and think that schools and curricula get into increasingly boggy ground the more subjective the subject. So things like maths, physics and chemistry which are objective are pretty uncontentious. You don't tend to get parents holding up banners campaigning for maths to be done away with.

The problems tend to crop up when schools are asked to teach content on highly value-laden subjective topics. While schools do appear to be a very effective location to teach students topics such as citizenship, values and so forth, the flip side is that yes it's also a place your child could be fed an ideology or opinion that you object to.

I think it is hard on schools. I'm not sure what the answer is but certainly it's more contentious to teach subjective stuff at primary age than secondary. I think teaching pupils critical thinking skills would be valuable so they have the tools to explore any subjective issue better. Teaching children how to think not what to think is the difference between true education and mere indoctrination.

My children's primary introduced a bit of basic philosophy. They discussed stuff like logic, premises and conclusions in arguments, 'what makes something right or wrong and why', Rawls' veil of ignorance, and it was really thought-provoking for the children. Great discussions over the dinner table! A million times better than being force-fed 'girls can be boys #nodebate'.

I have thought for some time that when people realized that the government was sponsoring misogynistic homophobic organizations that not only want to drive women and girls out of the public sphere, including schools, but are also committed to transitioning away Gays & Lesbians, we would finally be seeing some push back against these abusive authoritarian activities. Glad to see it may be starting.

Trans-twitter is already calling it an anti trans group which will work towards alienating supporters

Trans-twitter will call absolutely anythingvthat doesn’t agree with it ‘anti trans’. There’s no language or approach that is likely to change that, it has to be tackled head on. Also Stonewall and other trans lobby orgs are teaching utter homophobic tripe in schools and that needs to be called out directly.

Sorry if this has been covered before, but what exactly are Stonewall proposing to teach primary school age children about transgenderism?

Unfortunately they are already teaching them and have been for sometime. Lobby groups should really not be teaching in schools but here we are.

Does anyone have any lovely Nas to materials they use? I am aware of the general ideology they are spouting but would be good to have some actual material to highlight.