The Times articles on Stonewall: 26.06.2021

[JessicaYardley]

There is a series of articles in the Times covering different aspects of Stonewall:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/stonewall-equality-list-bullies-bosses-and-silences-dissent-cz6k7klf5

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/stonewall-ambassador-i-believed-in-the-scheme-to-uphold-rights-but-we-created-a-monster-0c9vvzhfm

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/avon-and-somerset-police-paid-stonewall-thousands-learning-to-be-lgbt-ally-zdqnnvmdn

Now in the Daily Mail

Stonewall said to be 'coercing' employers to lobby for sex law changes

mol.im/a/9727701

Does anyone know how many employees Stonewall has?

As well as the hours and hours of admin time that organisations must spend on their submissions there must be many hours spent by employees at stonewall scrutinising and marking the homework and dreaming up new goals and recommendations. A lot of people must be feeling worried about their jobs if stonewall falls, as it surely must.

From the daily mail:

Nicola Sturgeon's Scottish government is one of many high profile diversity applicants - who are said to have sent details of Pride events attended by the First Minister and examples of dissenting colleagues being muzzled in internal communications.

Muzzled. Breathtaking stuff.

A lot of people must be feeling worried about their jobs if stonewall falls, as it surely must.

tbh, if they're in HR or DEI or whatever, I'd like to see them spend their time and effort supporting the array of protected characteristics - such as women, ethnicity, disability etc. etc. All of the boring ones that receive no attention or comparatively negligible resources year after year after year.

All those articles are alarming and lay bare the protection racket that Stonewall now is. There is no way after this that any Government department, publicly funded institute or service can possibly justify remaining a member of the scheme. Tax payer money is being misused to fund a draconian political lobbying group and implement the agenda of this group. This group has not been elected into power by the voting public and yet there are wielding that level of power and being paid handsomely for it.

Serious and damning questions need to be asked AND answered as to why this was allowed to happen.

@Whatwouldscullydo

Unfortunately I suspect these articles will merely cause organisations to double down and defend their choices to align with stonewall.

I dont think there is anything they can actually do that will wake the people up that need to be.

I dont even know why anyone even needed to sign up. No one should be bullying anyone in the work place. A lanyard won't change anyones behaviour. It needs actually dealing with. Something I don't know how there's time to do when people are spending hours filling out hundreds of pages of paperwork that consist of explaining how much you are shitting on staff with all the other protected characteristics.

I've been corresponding with Network Rail for the last couple of weeks and the most recent email i had from Loraine Martins (their D&I head) basically said that.

The doubling down just blows my mind.

I had been writing to an executive assistant to Andrew Haines and given him lots of evidence from reputable sources, but he told me that the decisions about things like this are made by their D&I team.

I work there, but use a pseudonym.

If she thinks I'm going to drop it...

Lorraine just wants to keep her job. Everyone desperately trying to justify their existence and justify their backsides. I wonder how many people with disabilities she has championed?

I knew it was bad (well, we all did).

I had no idea it was this bad. I'm really shocked.

What can we do about it?

Does anyone know how many employees Stonewall has?

151 in 2019, according to the last set of accounts.

I think now anyone can challenge the stonewall grift - just with a copy of a newspaper. They can’t pretend any more.

Guardian's Susanna Rustin:

stonewalluk is an anti-feminist organisation. It really is as simple as that. Encouraging & incentivising employers to be "gender neutral" is encouraging & incentivising them to ignore the sex-specific protected characteristic (Equality Act 2010) of pregnancy/maternity

stonewalluk is an anti-feminist organisation.

I think anti-female would be more accurate...

I omitted the link to Rustin's tweet:

twitter.com/SusannaRustin/status/1408730979712241664

@RedDogsBeg

All those articles are alarming and lay bare the protection racket that Stonewall now is. There is no way after this that any Government department, publicly funded institute or service can possibly justify remaining a member of the scheme. Tax payer money is being misused to fund a draconian political lobbying group and implement the agenda of this group. This group has not been elected into power by the voting public and yet there are wielding that level of power and being paid handsomely for it.

Serious and damning questions need to be asked AND answered as to why this was allowed to happen.

& yet I expect to hear

ScotGov "hold my beer"

Interesting re the Times share tokens, they won't work for me either!
God it's so bad, we knew it was bad, but still.

@McDuffy

Interesting re the Times share tokens, they won't work for me either! God it's so bad, we knew it was bad, but still.

Presumably you are not having any problems with seeing the archive versions although you won't be able to see the comments?

Now this. Unbelievable

And this

It might be worthwhile making the point that journalism costs money (well, good journalism does) and The Times doesn’t owe us share tokens.

The Times is currently offering 3 months for £3, and I have signed up.
We now have a superb chance to hit many media outlets where it hurts (right in the £) and Show the ones that do give GC views airtime that it pays NOT to alienate 52% of the population in pursuit of rainbow Cookies.

Like Mandy Rhodes, I'm wondering whether the insanity of the last few years is all down to Stonewall's influence. Can it really be that councils are removing the words "mother" and "woman" from their maternity policy simply to appear on Stonewall's top 100 employers list? Can it be that my local police force endlessly posts on social media about LGBT issues but never about race or sex or disability for the same reason? Can it be that the Scottish government is actually CHANGING THE LAW so it can gain Stonewall points?

It really seems, gobsmackingly, as if the answer is yes.

What is so wonderful about being a Stonewall top 100 employer that it's worth all this crap?

I signed up for telegraph as was 50 p for 3 months each month

My god. This is even worse than I ever imagined.

Who the hell do these people think they are?

The institutional capture should be national headline news. It’s a huge scandal and an absolute disgrace that taxpayers’ money was poured into this organisation‘s bank account.

We are bought and sold for Stonewall gold
Sic a parcel o rogues in a nation

I omitted the link to Rustin's tweet:

Well said, Susanna.

" As a corrosive example, the Scottish government’s applications have included screenshots of social media activity and the ostracism of dissenting colleagues on internal forums".

I guess this also explains why so many companies, The Body Shop, the RA, M&S, God there are far too many to list, rush to publicly denounce every woman on on twitter who questions their anti-women policies or actions. They do it to make an example of the woman, in order to then submit that as evidence to Stonewall to get Stonewall points.

Often causing a pile-on, including threats of rape and violence towards a woman, all to get "points" from Stonewall to show how misogynistic they are. Only for Stonewall to say, "Good, but not good enough, you need to go further".

All the little pieces of the picture are falling into place.