Woman's Hour 18/11/2021 Nancy Kelley CEO of Stonewall

[Abitofalark]

From the programme notes:

"Nancy Kelley is CEO of Stonewall, the largest LGBT rights charity in Europe. She speaks to Emma about her organisation’s work and gives her reaction to recent high-profile withdrawals from Stonewall’s Diversity Champions workplace inclusion scheme, including the BBC."

Hmmm...yes, we've heard - and dissected - the previous pronouncement from that quarter about the BBC pulling out of the Stonewall scheme. Let's see what waffle and spin come out in this interview.

@littlbrowndog

Agree hazel.

I wrote to all my politicians representatives in Scotland about this same thing

Didn’t even respond to my point on that

I like this

That tweet above Nancy's one is from Susie Dent... and it confirmed my thoughts from earlier this summer that she is superb at gender critical trolling.

Her tweets on the day that Laurel Hubbard came last in the Olympics without even registering one lift:

A playful collection of words from the 19th century:

goshbustified: excessively pleased.
absquatulate: to leave in a hurry.
dumfungled: exhausted and all used up.
hornswoggle: to bamboozle or deceive.

Then yesterday, the day that the IOC issue their new trans guidance:

Word of the day is ‘circumbendibus’ (17th century): an answer or argument so convoluted and evasive that it isn’t really an answer at all.

She can't suggest anything to do with an "innate feeling of femininity" though, because then hundreds of thousands of women will, quite rightly, point out that they don't have this "feeling", thus cannot be women themselves by the terms of her definition.

Kelly's position is just one enormous, revolving, swirling series of category errors that beget more and more category errors until they swarm about her words like spiders with wings and horse hooves and eyes made of cheese.

How it has got this far without someone in authority saying "You have the reasoning of a four-year-old", I do not know.

This is Dolores Umbridge, to give you an idea. It amazes me that for a generation seemingly obsessed with Harry Potter those who want to cancel JKR really don’t seem to have understood any of the messages in it.

spiders with wings and horse hooves and eyes made of cheese.

love this.

@nauticant

"slitherings from the Stonewall boss"

I next to know nothing of Harry Potter lore but I laughed at this.

Emma - Gryffindor Nancy - Slytherin

Emma shoots - she scores!
All the points for Gryffindor!!!

That cervical screening campaign in Scotland. Who is their case study? She is most definitely a woman.

It amazes me that for a generation seemingly obsessed with Harry Potter those who want to cancel JKR really don’t seem to have understood any of the messages in it.

They seem to have taken Umbridge to be the sort of character you want to emulate rather than defeat.

Ok, so we've now had N Kelley from Stonewall on Woman's Hour. Now, for BALANCE, remember BALANCE, BBC? It's what you used to do. You now need to have a nice long interview with a good representative from the Other Side -

Kelly-Jay Keene would be great.

Maya Forstater, as an embodiment of what can happen to women when their employers drink the Stonewall KoolAid, might be even better...

Can we all put this to the BBC? Fill in their 'thanks' form, thank them for 'opening up the debate' and now asking that they interview the Other Side? For BALANCE?

Summary of interview: Head of Stonewall completely Stonewalls presenter on clear answers to any questions; describes instruction to remove word mother from Scottish dox as 'suggestion' were then found to be slight shift from evidence provided by FOI requests; fails to answer simple question as to 'is it possible to change biological sex' with a fudge that would be envy of most slippery politician. But nothing we couldn't have predicted from the head of this organisation.

I thought PPs were using the tinkly laugh for comical effect in their posts.

But what an awful awful interview. Why was she laughing all the time and that upward inflection!

How many listeners does this programme get?

This was great. I actually wished Emma had pushed a bit further, on SW pressuring to get language changed, about their campaign to change law to recognise gender instead of sex.

I'd not heard Nancy before and she came across as really wishy washy and not wanting to say anything. I absolutely understand not being railroaded to say something definitive that you don't have a definitive opinion on, in these sorts of interview - but this is STONEWALL, who do have very definite and forceful opinions on all this.

They are campaigning to change words so the 'oh my gosh, I'm not sure SW really wanted the Scottish gov to remove those words, they had lots of options' did come across as total lies, which makes the rest of all the lovely cosy stuff sound like lies too.

The other thing I wish Emma had pulled NK up on was the repeated reference to 'sexual preferences' etc and conflating lesbians with people who don't like 'fat people' etc.

Being homosexual is a protected characteristic, protected in law, and is a sexual orientation, not some whimsical preference. It is completely dishonest to lump the two together and not make this very important distinction and I do wish Emma had made that clear.

But on the whole I was impressed with Emma, and quite disappointed at how little NK actually wanted to say.

@ItsRainingProstateOwners

This is Dolores Umbridge, to give you an idea. It amazes me that for a generation seemingly obsessed with Harry Potter those who want to cancel JKR really don’t seem to have understood any of the messages in it.

@ItsRainingProstateOwners thanks for that share. I was just thinking about that film/book "The Order of the Phoenix". The narrative has so many references that might be seen to echo what we are seeing happening now: the changes in what the children are taught in lessons, the many many edicts nailed to the walls about what is acceptable to say and do, the monstering of individual professors.... Chilling, but also highly entertaining. If anyone doesn't know the film, well worth a watch.

"He Who Must Not Be Named" is extremely akin to "No Debate". All kinds of vicious falsities flourish in the silences.

I know Nancy somewhat from her previous roles and found her sharp and smart, I really enjoyed working with her.

But I think she has really bitten off too much by taking on this job. It’s absolutely a poisoned chalice and I think she rather naively though she could take the heat out of the debate and appeal to a very reasonable, rational way of thinking about trans rights. All that has happened is the debate has got more toxic than ever and Stonewall are facing criticism the likes of which I’ve rarely seen towards a campaigning charity.

On a personal level I feel rather sorry for her. But she’s not cut out for this.

And yet Raisin she comes across as very dishonest. And she tries to deny her words while demanding that everyone else is closely monitored for their language.

She said a belief in biology was akin to antisemitism. I'm not sure how that was taking heat out of the debate or being rational. Nobody made her say that.

Stonewall are facing criticism the likes of which I’ve rarely seen towards a campaigning charity

Stonewall are a different breed to most charities though aren't they? They are campaigning for the law to be changed to benefit one group of people but actively trying to silence another group of people who will be adversely affected.

Openly campaigning to remove single sex exceptions in the Equality Act, for example.

And having such a wide influence on so many organisations and government departments - influencing policy, language and interpretation of the law.

It's not similar to what the British Heart Foundation gets up to really, is it?

And yet Raisin she comes across as very dishonest. And she tries to deny her words while demanding that everyone else is closely monitored for their language.

This. If she has bitten off more than she can chew she needs to step aside.

It's worse than that, she likened people holding gender critical views to anti-Semites. She said people resolute in their same-sex attraction are prejudiced. These positions are harmful and will have been put forward either because of ignorance or malice.

@OvaHere

She said a belief in biology was akin to antisemitism. I'm not sure how that was taking heat out of the debate or being rational. Nobody made her say that.

With all beliefs including controversial beliefs there is a right to express those beliefs publicly and where they're harmful or damaging - whether it's anti-Semitic beliefs, gender critical beliefs, beliefs about disability - we have legal systems that are put in place for people who are harmed by that.

She did say exactly that, I've just quoted her here for clarity.

@nauticant

It's worse than that, she likened people holding gender critical views to anti-Semites. She said people resolute in their same-sex attraction are prejudiced. These positions are harmful and will have been put forward either because of ignorance or malice.

And she also said of lesbians, ‘But if you find that when dating, you are writing off entire groups of people, like people of colour, fat people, disabled people or trans people, then it's worth considering how societal prejudices may have shaped your attractions.’

In other words equating lesbianism and racism. The head of Stonewall has no right to be ignorant on what a lesbian is or on what it means to be homosexual.

When Nancy took over at stonewall she expresses a wish to take the heat out of the debate. I don’t quite know how she’s managed to make things so much worse. There are so many times when she could have genuinely turned the heat down but she has doubled down every single time

She’s not cut out for this job and I can’t believe she’s enjoying it

And she also said of lesbians, ‘But if you find that when dating, you are writing off entire groups of people, like people of colour, fat people, disabled people or trans people, then it's worth considering how societal prejudices may have shaped your attractions.’

Didn't she say she's been married for fifteen years? Technically she's writing off the entire world apart from her wife, surely that's even more discriminatory?