Fascinating article about the failure and complicity of the BBC regarding transactivism

[lcakethereforeIam]

In Unherd

https://archive.ph/hxJFg

https://unherd.com/2026/05/inside-the-capture-of-the-bbc/?edition=us

Long but worth a read.

@KnottyAuty I read that Pritzker gave Stonewall £300 million in the Labour Heartlands blog. I'll have a look for it tonight and post a link.

I wish a really good investigative journalist like Janice Turner would look more deeply into the plotting and funding that turned once-good charities into a force for bad.

Far too many people still think that trans ideology is a grassroots movement. I think it changes everything when you realise it was a planned assault on women's and LGB rights.

The new bloke's starting

https://archive.ph/7dFPM

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/05/18/bbc-will-have-to-make-cuts-warns-new-director-general/

Obviously I have ideas as to where he should wield his scissors. I have to wonder, though GI affects all ages and both sexes it does seem particularly prevalent amongst a younger and more privileged cohort. As it's cheaper, or was, to employ under 25s and the privileged are more likely to be able to work for little or nothing as, for example, interns (not mentioning they're more likely to have family connection for a leg up), perhaps this partly explains how GI has become so pervasive and not just at the Beeb. I understand this is not exactly a ground breaking theory.

I read that Pritzker gave Stonewall £300 million in the Labour Heartlands blog.

This had been comprehensively debunked as fake news. They gave Stonewall some money but not even £1 million let alone £300 million.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker promised $300 million for child care which I guess is the kernel of truth that grew into the fake news.

It's clear from Stonewall's accounts that they didn't receive £300m. However, there is a very interesting question to be asked about how so many institutions across a range of sectors (charity, publishing, police, universities, trade unions, local government etc) came to be so comprehensively captured. It's been particularly alarming to see the ideological capture of organisations concerned with child protection, such as Childline.

It's hard to believe that this happened by accident, and it seems more than likely that there was a concerted attempt to infiltrate these organisations and embed the ideology, much in the way that Trotskyist entryists were able to capture trade unions in the 1970s. But I might be wrong - maybe it was a simple case of laziness, with organisations lapping up their diversity and inclusion awards from Stonewall, and not paying too much attention to the legality or sense of what Stonewall was telling them.

@RoyalCorgi - concerted effort to infiltrate versus organisational laziness?

I’d vote for both, with the former banking on the latter.

TwoLoons, same here. The laziness especially shows up spectacularly the lack of any concern for women or due process in our public services. We need a "post office scandal " type investigation and (ironically) TV series to really pull out all the strands so the general public will realize what's happened.

Reading the article prompted me to listen again to the 2021 BBC Northern Ireland Stephen Nolan/David Thompson "Stonewall - Nolan Investigates" podcast. Still an excellent listen with a lot of insight into how not just the BBC but other insititutions were "captured" by this ideology.

I reckon there was a mix of clever strategy and good timing by Stonewall, and institutions wanting easy brownie points. And later on even when insititutions de-Stonewalled themselves there were other organisations ready to step in and give the same public insititutions the same biassed "training". "Gendered Intelligence" and the gloriously Orwellian-named "Global Butterflies" among them.

gloriously Orwellian-named "Global Butterflies" among them.

"Global Butterflies " heaven help us! To me, that name just gives off seriously creepy vibes. I got an image of some really dodgy characters all sitting in a dark room, around a table lit from overhead by a single bulb, hashing out ideas about what's the creepiest name for an organization they could come up with!

I wonder how long they spend on creating weird names and strategies for infiltration, and, on the other hand, how long they spend eating, sleeping, working, and being with their families, you know, like normal people.

I really don't want to believe in conspiracy theories, but, I suspect there are a lot of connections...

Important also to note this was a global campaign and happening across countries all around the same time. Does it all start with Yogyakarta Principles, a global framework established in 2006. A group of legal representatives, judges, human rights advisers all came together and listened tonloads of experts and then agreed and signed this treaty. It was expanded again 2017 with more gender identity claptrap. Stonewall did the damage here but were following this higher body.

'Global Impact: While not a legally binding treaty themselves, the principles interpret binding international treaties. They have been widely used by activists, NGOs, and global leaders to shape foreign policy, urge law reform (such as legal gender recognition), and combat discrimination'

taken from google search

I’m reluctant to invoke Godwin‘s law, but I’d like to suggest that there are wider issues here that reach out into other current political problems.

What the article describes is a case study in how objectivity is insidiously lost. That deserves deeper investigation, because it can happen to us all, and to any institution, unwittingly and with the best of intentions.

Mumsnet thread from 2023. Be afraid.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4712381-global-butterflies#:~:text=Global%20Butterflies%20are%20the%20go,Counsel%20which%20drafts%20primary%20legislation.

From the thread: "Global Butterflies are the go to provider for law firms on this stuff. They were involved in creating the guide to gender neutral drafting used by the Government Legal Department and the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel which drafts primary legislation. The guide makes it clear that government legal services accept the arguments of gender ideology. As Global Butterflies says in the intro, "because the next generation of the workforce no longer see gender as binary".

Be very afraid.

That sounds about right. It's fascinating, though, when you look at it. Every single major charity, every single police force, every single NHS organisation, every single local authority etc etc etc ad nauseam appears to have a) been ideologically captured b) operated a policy of silencing dissenters within the organisation through vindictive and repressive HR policies.

The scale of organised infiltration needed to make that happen isn't trivial. It still amazes me that none of these organisations possessed anyone at a senior level willing to say, "Hang on a bit, surely this is ridiculous? And illegal?"

I am so grateful to read this article - I stumbled across it on AOL news today. And then found Mumsnet had a thread on it, thanks to all you brave, outspoken women. Little by little things are moving in the right direction and people are finding their courage. But so much harm has been done to families like ours and I cannot help but be angry at those who didn’t question and who went along with something they clearly did not believe for the sake of being “kind”. The harm to young people who were brainwashed online is devastating and there will be no accountability. Nick Wallis is taking his time with this. I cannot understand why.

In terms of "how did they did it" this is a nice quote from Rachel Reese of Global Butterflies (copied from an earlier MN thread, originally from Global Butterflies own website but was taken down.)

"I believe that governments disappear and change, but corporates don’t. And most of the organisations I work with are global. If you can change a company’s internal structure, then they can change the minds of government through their influence. I’m a big believer in corporate power."

So there we have it. Governments come and go, the BBC remains. It wasn't a conspiracy in the formal sense of people getting together and making a grand plan and following it. But there were a lot of people with a similar goal, each with influence and each with knowledge about how to use that influence towards the goal.

What Stonewall did to the BBC was superbly effective. Getting people to pay you to train them to say what you wanted them to say. Creating a scheme for insitutions to compete in public on how well they followed the rules you made up. Influencing HR and staff and language policies to create a workplace ethic so that the (supposedly independent) content policies would inevitably follow the rules you made. Even if someone thought it was a bad idea they couldn't argue because you'd already made them ban the words. Nice work if you can get it! Like Steerpike working his way through Gormenghast Castle.

What is awful is that a lot of universities are still Stonewall champions.

^LGBTQ+
As a Stonewall Global Diversity Champion, we are finding even more ways to ensure X (Russell Group University) is LGBTQ+ and non-binary inclusive.^

Yes, it is a worry but there's hope. Stephen Nolan raised an interesting question and one that I expect will be asked more often and more loudly as time goes by: why ask Stonewall and not LGBA? Universities are supposed to be another bastion of unbiassed knowledge and inquiry like the BBC and OfCom - so why one point of view and not the other?

The days when Stonewall could claim they know what's good for everyone who is L, or G, or B, or even T, are gone. They're not unchallenged any more from the people they claim to represent.

I always get over excited and forget to say thankyou! Thank you @lcakethereforeIam for sharing the article. It's comprehensive and most people don't know this story - and some of them might be convinced to read it.

Stephen Nolan raised an interesting question and one that I expect will be asked more often and more loudly as time goes by

I think a lot more time will go by unfortunately. I have just found two more Russell Group quite local universities are Stonewall too. These are places I’ve checked randomly just now.

They are too embedded to question. They have paragraphs of propaganda and boasting.

Yes, it will take time. But in the end questions are going to be asked about the whole DEI/EDI process and how that fits other duties. Even in universities. The wheels are starting to come off the bandwagon. Well, maybe not coming off yet, but loosening.

Rob is on X, he's got MS but he's still buggering on, works at Times Radio now .. he's been arguing with that knobhead David Yelland since the article was published. I can't be arsed going into the details, just the usual shite. I agree there's enough material for a book, would be great if him and Nick put their heads together and Cath Leng too.

It wasn't a treaty, as those can only exist between the governments of nations. It was a wishlist, an open letter, but one that was given far too much credence.

David Yelland is so desperate to rid himself of the sins of his past life at the Sun and for not getting rid of Page 3. Yet he repeatedly makes statements which make it clear that he remains the chauvinist he always was. Why the BBC have him on a podcast to advertise his PR consultancy business is anyone's guess

@PrettyDamnCosmic thank you for the update - I love the way the wise women of Mumsnet check and double check claims and get to the bottom of the facts!

Bbc 'under pressure', pardon me if I'm not immediately breaking out my suffragette pompoms*

https://archive.ph/Xy7rQ

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/05/23/bbc-director-general-under-pressure-free-corporation-trans/

The article gives a few more example of Auntie's failure. It's enraging.

*not a euphemism

(BBC editor/LGBT Desk manager) "I'm shocked, shocked to find that there is gambling going on here!"

(BBC lackey) "Your winnings, sir."

(BBC editor/LGBT Desk manager) "Oh, thank you very much."