Are the BBC about to leave Stonewall?

[RoyalCorgi]

According to ex-BBC staffer Ben Hunte, yes:

www.vice.com/en/article/akgxm5/bbc-expected-to-quit-stonewalls-lgbtq-diversity-programme

@ArabellaScott

It's astounding. Time is fleeting.

Madness takes its toll.

I have this as an earworm now

Owen Jones, makes me, quite involuntarily, bring my knees in tight.

Well, read too many of those glib tweets and you start to get that you're spaced out on sensation, like you're under sedation.

🤣🤣🤣

It gives a whole new meaning to making a man (with blond hair and a tan).

Threads like this are good for relieving my tension

Very good news, if it’s true.

I didn’t even know Hunte had left the BBC! Marvellous.

"Super scared" ? When did we start talking like American teenagers?

I’m pissed off with BBC sexism too and so I’m a serial complainer to them… but the BBC going subscription-only on much less money would only undermine quality in UK news, information, education or entertainment by the BBC and broadcasters across the board. The BBC’s license fee funded existence holds up quality across news journalism, kids programmes etc.

What is the excellent, non-sexist, advert-free, non-proprietor and advertiser- pleasing, subscription-only alternative that’s already in existence? Or are they all broadcasting like that already?
If there isn’t even one to name, what’s stopping any other broadcasters adopting that model now? Why would a subscription- only BBC be able to be any different?

@Mollyollydolly

Well this lesbian, ex-employee, sometimes now freelance, couldn't be more delighted. Does that mean I can go in work without hiding my 'adult humale female' pin badge. About bloody time. Lobby groups have no place in organisations whose reputation rests on their impartiality. Fran Unsworth is right.

In the comments under OJs tweet, I thought it was interesting the comparison people made about this - one compared it to being impartial about the reality of the Holocaust, and there were a few "being impartial about racism" type comments.

There doesn't seem to be a willingness, or maybe capacity, to understand change in civil society as a sort of negotiation, or as if there is a need to work things out through ongoing public discussion.

The seem to see civil liberties as a fixed endpoint, where they happen to know the endpoint - the right side of history. Which seem to be a sort of utopia where everyone's rights are perfectly realized.

Rather than civil liberties are actually a mechanism where various individuals and groups have to present their own views and interests, where conflicts are balanced in the interests between groups, and also between groups and individuals.

I've found a similar pattern talking to people within that progressive-liberal class talking about covid mitigation policy. They can't even discuss how to balance the pros and cons of different approaches and how to balance individual rights against the social good, or various goods. Because they seem to cling on to the illusion that if only we find the right answer, there will be no problems.

But I don’t even feel that they would have lost purpose after gay marriage - we know that discrimination still occurs and homophobic bullying and attacks still occur. There’s lots they could have done around TQ acceptance without losing their minds.

we’ve seen with organisations like Pregnant Then Screwed that having the legislation doesn’t automatically mean that the system works.

Agree with DessertStorm about legislation not always being enough if wider culture hasn’t changed completely enough. Equal pay is another example.

And I think in general any charity that gets used to being very high profile runs the risk of feeling they can’t afford to do the risky, complex and uncertain or lower-profile localised stuff any more because profile attracts funding and shrinking budgets would mean ‘failure’. And maybe successfully not ‘failing’ means a massive charity might more easily fall a bit out of touch with life outside the Westminster politics/national media and south-East England bubble? Does a higher profile maybe attract a greater proportion of quite privileged staff and leadership who assume their own life experience is the norm? And, maybe getting stuck in and challenging other organisations on any potential discrimination they’re doing might not seem as urgent or desirable, if a supercharity want to remain influential in politics and the media, keep a big popular profile, and raise a lot of money to fund themselves through lots of employers buying their awards and certificates?

If you sell training and awards obviously it would look bad if you would then have to legally challenge the same employer that you’d sold it to. Does it maybe then become safer and easier to identify a new group needing support, and to provide focus and training and awards around that group, rather than to look too closely at existing issues in any previously-covered area? I don’t know what’s happened at Stonewall specifically but I can see the generic risks or pressures on any big charity in their position.

I think a lot of it comes down to money. Charity is a big sector now, and in these kinds of high-profile organisations, there are jobs at the top that pay quite nice salaries and give access to some significant political influence.

We have increasingly a group of people who see activism as a career, they train for it and see their future there.

@PronounssheRa
I think he is in another dimension

I'll stop there to avoid deletion

I had to think for a minute as to what the next line was, then spat my drink once I did. Nicely swerved there.

The bbc have to be impartial.

Stonewall are clearly not.

Plus lobbying and may raising safeguarding issues, they can't not leave.

This charity impacts education- teachers think of it as a gold standard.

The bbc have a duty to leave.

There doesn't seem to be a willingness, or maybe capacity, to understand change in civil society as a sort of negotiation, or as if there is a need to work things out through ongoing public discussion.

Yes, for sure. Society is constantly changing, but it's messy and harder to control than some people seem to think. With a bit of a mind flip, you're there in the time slip, but it isn't necessarily going to progress in the same direction as people expect.

The 'utopian' aims of the left are an interesting phenomenon, and paradoxically potentially quite damaging to society, I think.

The #SuperScared hashtag on Twitter is well worth a look at the moment. Long stream of anecdotes of times when people were genuinely super scared for their lives or the lives of others.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

The #SuperScared hashtag on Twitter is well worth a look at the moment. Long stream of anecdotes of times when people were genuinely super scared for their lives or the lives of others.

It puts the ridiculousness of Ben's report into context doesn't it.

Also makes be grateful I grew up in a period of relative peace

Absolutely fabulous news if it's true. Just hope my large public sector organisation follows. I'm sick to death of biting my tongue on this issue at work where women have been systematically marginalised for the last few years.

I had to think for a minute as to what the next line was, then spat my drink once I did. Nicely swerved there

ooof. I had to look it up.

Do any of you guys know the Madison?

No. But it's the pelvic thrust that really drives them insane...

(Or do they have those too, now, along with their shiny new cervices?)

@Datun

Owen Jones, makes me, quite involuntarily, bring my knees in tight.

Shon Fae similarly is great for my pelvic floor. I guess every dark cloud does have a silver lining.

Yep I did see this on twitter earlier :)

Heheheh...how deliciously amusing it always is to see LOJ have yet another testerical narc rage, he is very much spaced out on sensation (can't wait for him to be under sedation right enough...)

Did you see that event with OJ , Paris Lees, Munroe Bergdorf (I think) and others trans glitterati where OJ said he'd not realised before that trans people were responsible for setting up Stonewall etc and are the reason we all have so many rights (or words to that effect)? No, Owen, you didn't know that because IT IS NOT TRUE.

Gobsmacking! Why is he so stupid?