Get the violins out - Stonewall is "in crisis"

[IwantToRetire]

Our biggest LGBT charity is in crisis. Are we just going to let it collapse? LGBT people need armour; an organisation like Stonewall to act as a first line of defence

Stonewall, Britain’s largest LGBT organisation, is in crisis. It’s plummeting financially, with rounds of redundancies as funding cuts hit. And its credibility and influence is plunging amid a national and global backlash against LGBT rights.

This matters. If someone asked you to name the first LGBT organisation that comes to mind, I would bet my cat you’d say Stonewall. Since it was founded more than 35 years ago, the charity has become entwined in our country’s psyche, Parliament, schools, sporting and business sectors. But for how much longer?

However you feel about Stonewall, we need a conversation about the state of the biggest charity defending LGBT people. And we need to ask ourselves a question as the opponents of all kinds of human rights lie in wait: are we just going to let it die?
...
To highlight one recent example of Stonewall’s seemingly waning influence, I asked the Government several times recently whether it has consulted with Stonewall over a proposed ban on conversion therapy since taking office. A spokesperson from the Cabinet Office declined to confirm whether it has even had any meetings with the charity about it, instead offering vaguely: “We will engage further with a broad range of stakeholders.” I asked Stonewall three times, but they did not provide a response.

Perhaps both sides are being coy or don’t want the public to know that they’ve met. But either way, this is as bizarre as it is concerning. Stonewall was once the charity that lobbied every MP in the country to help pass the same-sex marriage law in 2013. Now, it is unclear whether they’ve even had a meeting with the new Government over the psychological torture of LGBT people
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Should it die, many will dance on Stonewall’s grave. But then many would happily see the rights of LGBT people revoked too – thereby exposing how much a strong, influential organisation for this community is still needed.

If you think it should return to only representing lesbian, bisexual and gay people, then you’re ignoring not only the plight of trans people but also how intertwined all these rights are and how many government’s incarcerate people for laws that oppress every letter in the acronym – or pass laws like the Equality Act that protect everyone (until that is chipped away).
...

Complete article at https://inews.co.uk/opinion/biggest-lgbt-charity-crisis-stonewall-3645337
Can also be read in full at https://archive.is/yGTYs

(If LGB people can set up their own Alliance, why cant trans people do the same?)

Do you accept that the definitions of ‘woman’, ‘man’ and ‘sex’ as set out in the SC ruling already apply to the EA 2010 as the current law?

Rather misleading to paint the judgment as anti-lgbt -

• The LGB Alliance, Scottish Lesbians and the Lesbian Project intervened on For Women Scotland's side
• The judgment was at pains to stress that gender reassignment remains a protected characteristic and that trans people have the right not to be discriminated against, and so on.

The term "lgbt" is itself misleading as it seeks to forcibly team together groups whose interests do not always coincide, especially in terms of the more extreme T activists.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Oh dear.

Its a bank holiday weekend.

Hope the bods at Stonewall can afford to pay the overtime and haven't got plans booked.

Poor loves.

Yes it is really sad that Stonewall earnt millions of pounds from incorrectly advising pretty much the whole country that women didn't have certain rights.

By your own admission, women are marginalised group. Its sad that even though they aren't a minority they STILL didn't get respected enough to realise how much removing their rights to single sex protections harmed them.

There were other workable solutions available. None were good enough for Stonewall, because Stonewall hates women. This has got nothing to do with women being in competition with transpeople and everything to do with Stonewall enabling a landgrab on women's rights rather than respecting women's rights and working to come to a third way.

I'm over the disinformation and the bullshit that being pro-women's rights is anti-trans. This has NEVER been the case. Its been framed in this way purely because its been an attack on women from the start.

'ganging up'..... oh I can't be bothered.

I see Stonewall did quietly lose the 'not yet law' bit from their response but yes, some big, hard penalties need to start coming down and fast. The law is not optional, and if it is permitted for it to be controlled and broken and driven - as SW has tried to do for a decade - then there's no point in continuing to have a government or make laws.

gang up against another marginalised group (lgbt whatever)

This has been said so many times but will repeat.

The problem is Stonewall stopped representing same sex attracted people years ago when then imposed trans onto that group.

So as there is now LGB Alliance who do represent same sex attracted people, there is no loss.

Stonewall is now a trans queer group trying to tell everyone else they should be trans and queer.

And nobody but gullible young people want to be that.

And anyway, women grouping together to fight for their rights isn't ganging up.

Stonewall could have remained true to its original purpose but it sold out lesbians and gay men, so if they collapse it will not be a loss to them.

You do understand they started it, right?

There's been a mass 'ganging up' on women by TQ orgs and individuals for a long time, the worst of it materialising in the last decade.

They have been working in a strategic, targeted and relentless effort to remove women's rights globally.

Women are just, rightfully, fighting back.

Your post is a very 'why is Ukraine so mean to Russia?' vibe.

Women are not ganging up on anyone they merely want the rights they have (and always had) in Law to be upheld and respected. That's it.

A certain group with the connivance and support of various organisations helped themselves to that which did not belong to them and then rained down abuse on women who asserted that the Law did not allow that.

It should never have happened and the fault for it happening lies solely with the group who refused to abide by the Law, ganged up on women and those organisations who enabled them.

I feel no sympathy or sadness whatsoever for them.

I've actually got a teeny tiny violin. My DD gave it to me as we have a long standing joke about tiny violins. I'll have to dig it out 😂

Us replying to your forum post is "telling you to shut up"?

Do you understand how forums work?

No one with a milligram of legal nowse would report a charity to the Charity Commission for intervening in a court case. They wouldn't have grounds to do so, based on this list of grounds. It's well-established that we don't punish people or organisations for starting or intervening in court cases in good faith because that would interfere adversely in due process, and we presume good faith because not doing so would also deter engagement in the justice system.

Giving incorrect advice to organisations and doubling down on doing so when corrected is definitely within th scope of "a charity not following the law, with damaging consequences to its reputation and public trust in charities generally".

The law is not optional, and if it is permitted for it to be controlled and broken and driven - as SW has tried to do for a decade - then there's no point in continuing to have a government or make laws.

Absolutely this.

I am angered as much by Stonewall's disregard for the rule of law as I am by their disregard of women's humanity. Without laws, we lose our common expectations and standards of behaviour. Without laws, we lose our ability to hold transgressors to account. Without laws, we don't have an agreement even about something as simple as whether it's OK to punch people or which side of the road to drive on.

Without laws, we don't have rights, and when I say "we" I mean everyone, including trans people.

I can't donate to all the many worthy campaigners and causes because there are just too many; Sex Matters and LGBA are my picks for a regular contribution and I am thoroughly delighted with the returns on that investment this month.

Delighted to see Sex Matters are going straight to the root of the problem.

There is serious work to be done now holding people and organisations to account. And for LGBA doing the work that Stonewall should have been doing and aren't. Organisations with any sense should go to Sex Matters and LGBA now for advice. They've done the footwork, they're months and years of thinking ahead of anyone who believed Stonewall Law.

Not just NHS Fife but their going after NHS Scotland too and Neil Gray the health minister. With swinney refusing to acknowledge that twam and act on the ruling of the sc I can see a labour backed war between the EHRC and the SNP between now and may when the Scottish parliament election happens

Ganging up? A small number of stalwart women standing up for themselves and others, against the might of dishonest lobby groups, law firms, the NHS and other employers, members of the judiciary and even the Government...

I think we can see who was ganging up on whom.

You know some women are part of that LGB group, don't you? How are they ganging up on themselves?

s111 of the EA 2010 prohibits Stonewall or anyone else from instructing, causing or inducing others to breach the EA (this is the provision Allison Bailey is testing, I believe), so there is already an established (albeit untested) legal mechanism for preventing Stonewall’s behaviour baked into the EA - the issue is that it needs to be enforced.

And also, I’d argue that it needs to be publicised more widely, as charities and others are far less likely to tell organisations to defy the EA if they realise that giving this advice is a breach of the EA in itself.

Brilliant!

111 Instructing, causing or inducing contraventions

(1)A person (A) must not instruct another (B) to do in relation to a third person (C) anything which contravenes Part 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 or section 108(1) or (2) or 112(1) (a basic contravention).

(2)A person (A) must not cause another (B) to do in relation to a third person (C) anything which is a basic contravention.

(3)A person (A) must not induce another (B) to do in relation to a third person (C) anything which is a basic contravention.

(4)For the purposes of subsection (3), inducement may be direct or indirect.

(5)Proceedings for a contravention of this section may be brought—
(a)by B, if B is subjected to a detriment as a result of A's conduct;
(b)by C, if C is subjected to a detriment as a result of A's conduct;
(c)by the Commission.

(6)For the purposes of subsection (5), it does not matter whether—
(a)the basic contravention occurs;
(b)any other proceedings are, or may be, brought in relation to A's conduct.

(7)This section does not apply unless the relationship between A and B is such that A is in a position to commit a basic contravention in relation to B.

(8)A reference in this section to causing or inducing a person to do something includes a reference to attempting to cause or induce the person to do it.

(9)For the purposes of Part 9 (enforcement), a contravention of this section is to be treated as relating—
(a)in a case within subsection (5)(a), to the Part of this Act which, because of the relationship between A and B, A is in a position to contravene in relation to B;
(b)in a case within subsection (5)(b), to the Part of this Act which, because of the relationship between B and C, B is in a position to contravene in relation to C.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/111

This IS the LGB.

What convinced the Supreme Court was the rank homophobia in ignoring that homosexuality is based on sex.

This is homosexuals fighting for the right to be homosexual. Disagreeing with that is homophobic.

If you think it's women against LGB people, you're being conned.

That's very interesting. Would that apply to the Welsh government?

The Equality Act 2010 covers England & Wales & Scotland. Northern Ireland is cover by separate but equivalent legislation.

The Supreme Court clarification of the law applies to the whole of the UK.

Yes, plus public bodies are also bound by the Public Sector Equality Duty (s149) of the EA, so they have additional obligations to foster good relations between women and transwomen, and between trans people and people with gender critical beliefs and not to discriminate against or harass women or GC people.

Now we know what a woman is, public bodies have a legal duty to detoxify the debate and stop shitting on women.

Thank you. I think that may have ruined my plans to spend the weekend gardening (real gardening, not gardening-gardening!)

Oh I know - I feel like my normal life has gone completely out of the window the last few weeks now we actually have a way to fight back against this nonsense!

Our local gay pride event is at risk of being cancelled. The supporting businesses have dwindled from 35 last year to 6. I put this entirely down to the T