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?
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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).
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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?)

Well quite. I think it is a desperate bid to try and argue that there is a medical reason why some people need surgery/hormone treatment i.e. because sex is a spectrum (and intersex is the "proof" of this). And who can blame them? This turned out to be a far easier sell than some people want to surgically remove their genitals for no medical reason.

Dm me and I can explain how to gather lots of views on the anonymously. Ideally it would be something that could gather opinion from across the country and then be used to influence NHS policy via Westminster Streeting rather than individual trusts? It would also mean you don’t have to completely out yourself just yet?!

I suspect that is due to the comments by the founder/founders partner that he intends to keep using the female facilities and the corresponding ditching of them by the phoenix group 🫢
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/05/01/pensions-giant-cuts-ties-trans-campaigner-defy-lavatory-ban/

There's no sensible explanation for it and there never was. It was the spirit of the (very brief) time (for a very narrow and groupthinking section of society). As you say, it's staggering that we lived through such a time.

My 'charitable' reading is that it was a judge trying to read the room and take a view on where society was going, and getting it badly wrong because, frankly, normies are very bad at this – they just take whichever trend is closest to hand and imagine it will go on forever. The idea that that trend is a horrible stretch, or that there might be a whipsaw in the post, is beyond them.

And I wouldn't place too much stock in it being a judge who did it. He was only a tribunal judge, they're very lowly compared to the judges you're probably imagining, with the wigs and robes and so forth. It might even have been a part-time gig from his normal job (though probably not, if it was a long hearing). In any event that's why he's at the bottom of the chain, so there are more eminent courts and tribunals above to put things right should the first-instance bodies go haywire.

I say all that, but I'm in the minority view that the Forstater decision is dangerous because it depends upon her saying things as a 'philosophical belief'. That shouldn't be the law – the correct outcome would have been for her to be protected because her words were true. There might be some case yet-to-happen where someone is persecuted for saying things which are true, but which can't be characterised as matters of religion or philosophy. Forstater won't be a precedent for protecting that person, and then where will we be?

The trouble is, it is very difficult indeed to prove that something is true when language is imprecise. Gender Identity is founded on the queering of language, with third person pronouns one of many examples (see also "trans man" and "trans woman" being counterintuitive). Humans are very good indeed of thinking up plausible sounding arguments to support the most way out ideas.

@Sskka yes I agree, it's not really a belief, is it . It's like saying you believe the earth is round, or water is wet!

It was strategic

I know it was strategic, but that's because of how the Equality Act frames things. It doesn't have a protection for the truth, and we don't have a strong principle of free speech in this country (anymore).

But that's exactly what I don't like about it. It's still a fiction to say it's a philosophical belief, much as we might welcome the outcome. Ultimately when we're making laws we should above all make them honest (and doesn't the whole sorry saga show what can happen when you make law to respect a fiction?).

@Sskka apologies I know this is slightly off point - but want to sing the praises of employment Judge Young who heard the Jo Phoenix v OU case. I consider her judgement as to be as well considered as the recent SC ruling as it is also a joy to read!

Thanks for the correction.

When will women matter as much as men?
Anyone got a time and date?

Well, it's been <checks watch> about 6,000 years since we were blamed for that business with the apple and a snake so...any time now?

"Stonewall was once the charity that lobbied every MP in the country to help pass the same-sex marriage law in 2013."

It was also the charity that did very little to campaign for it before then, this is from 2010

Stonewall chief executive Ben Summerskill defended his group’s lack of a position on marriage equality this evening.

https://www.thepinknews.com/2010/09/27/stonewall-chief-executive-wont-be-jumped-into-gay-marriage-position/