Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust adopts the Progress flag 365 days a year

[TorghunKhan]

I'm bisexual. This flag does not represent me at all. It's homophobic, misogynistic and polarising. It has no place in the NHS.

https://x.com/BWC_NHS/status/1830519419174330535

If you have the opportunity to send a complaint to the Birmingham PALS - https://bwc.nhs.uk/pals-and-complaints- - please do ASAP

Ironically, given the news about schools, they also proudly crow about their Stonewall Gold Award.

Why? What's the point?

Of complaining or them using the flag?

The second. Why have an unrelated flag up all year round? It's just oneupmanship.

Virtue signalling of the highest order. However they seem to assume that everyone is onboard with it. I am not, if anyone else is not, follow the second link, leave a complaint, it matters that our voices are heard!!

I think the point needs to be made that the 'Progress' flag is actually a negative symbol, which is at least unwelcome and at worst offensive to many people.

I'm sure a lot of organisations don't realise this, they think this is the ultimate in being inclusive. When they painted the Dublin bus I saw earlier this morning in all-over Progress colours, they probably thought they were doing something wonderfully outreach-y and diversity-y and community-y.

Organisations need to know that the Progress flag detracts from the inclusivity of the Rainbow flag - all colours are in the rainbow already, and if there's no black in the rainbow, there's no white either because they are not technically 'colours - rather than adding to it. The rainbow flag is symbolic of inclusion in general, whereas the Progress flag is ploddingly literal, adding something to represent everything new they can think of that needs to be included. Not a great design approach, resulting in a fussy confusing mess.

I'm not a great fan of rainbowing everything either, I just think that if people want to display a flag at certain times, they should know that the rainbow is the more inclusive one, the Progress one is the more divisive one

There's no justification for displaying any flag 365/365, unless it's the organisation's own, or a local/national flag. The fact that the Progress flag gets this star treatment is very revealing .

For anyone complaining, it's worth asking if planning permission has been requested and granted for displaying the Progress flag on this public building (the rainbow flag can be displayed without it).

localauthorityseen.uk/pride-in-objectivity/

There's no justification for displaying any flag 365/365, unless it's the organisation's own, or a local/national flag. The fact that the Progress flag gets this star treatment is very revealing .

Fully agree.

Please everyone, drop them a message at the PALS address above or anything g you can.

comments have been turned off on the twitter account

they need to be told this is wrong and we won’t put up with polarisation

To add:

While this might seem petty at first glance, it's an opportunity to make them stop and think about whether they really should be flying this flag. As with many of these things, it will often have slipped through as a good idea that is only a force for good.. "to support a marginalised minority" etc etc.

The information in the article that I linked helps explain both why it's a planning issue and why it's way more fundamental from a Nolan principle perspective. There is a significant difference between fact (LGB) and belief (T, predicated on the idea which some people agree with that we all have a gender identity) - importantantly public institutions need to treat beliefs differently.

The NHS, like any public institution, loves red tape. What better opportunity than to give them some red tape (planning applications, if not yet done) to play in, thus increasing the number of eyes on the issue itself. So no, it's not petty... just fortuitously bureaucratic 😁

they have now hidden responses as well as stopping further comments...

How very inclusive of them.

@BonfireLady fortuitously bureaucratic😂

Are you using your feminism superpowers for evil?

Couldn't possibly comment
No idea what you mean
I just love processes. Who doesn't, right?

🙃

Can we stop calling this rag of cloth the 'progress' flag? It's the 'regress' flag IMHO.

I have just emailed the chief exec - Matthew Boazman.

I used matthew.boazman@nhs.net

No bounce back yet....

The NHS is strapped for cash yet can find the money to chuck at Stonewall.
My own organisation - a charity - spends several thousand with Stonewall each year as well despite saying its strapped for cash. I'm very unhappy about that too.

I'm starting to read inclusive as intrusive. The rainbow was fine and didn't need any fuckwittery.