Charities advised no need to rush decisions gender issues - landscape is "evolving"

[IwantToRetire]

Fear has always existed in the charity sector but recently it feels as though it has become an invisible board member: Ms Fearity Doom-mongerer, sitting quietly in meetings, looking for opportunities to scaremonger, rushing people to action before they have had time to think.

One area where this is particularly evident is around trans inclusion and gender identity. Whatever your views on the wider debate, there is no doubt that many charities are navigating a genuinely difficult and evolving landscape. Court judgments, regulatory guidance, public expectations and lived experience all have a role to play.

Leaders and trustees are trying to make sense of complex issues while also worrying about challenges from campaign groups, social media criticism and, increasingly, the prospect of lawfare.

Sometimes the bravest thing a board can do is pause: not to avoid making a decision or to kick the can down the road. But to create enough space to make the right decision.

https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/debra-allcock-tyler-charities-not-allow-fear-become-chief-decision-maker/governance/article/1960836

And to think some of us thought if the highest court in the land made a ruling then it was then a law.

But apparently organisation can decide to balance what a law says against public expectations!

There is a desire to change the law and in the meantime circumvent it.

What is sad is that it is people like her that are making it difficult.
It is very simple.
If you are a charity for a single sex. then great Advertise as such.
If you are trans inclusive then do not advertise yourself as a charity for single sex.

You are unlikely to face serious consequences for carefully considering evidence, taking legal advice and reaching a reasoned conclusion, even if that takes time. You are far more likely to face criticism for making a hasty decision that later proves to be flawed.

She thinks shes Jack Sparrow and living under pirate guidelines not the actual law.

...and lived experience all have a role to play.

Does it? Does it really?

Hmm, not sure why any organisation, charity or not, needs to take time to decide whether to comply with the law.

Wouldn’t it have been nice if they’d paused, considered women’s ’lived Experience’ etc before diving into illegality re ‘gender issues’ in the first place?

It's the "confusion" and "it's just so complicated " activist tactic. But, because it's coming from the charity sector, we're supposed to be sympathetic and give it more weight. I think I'll post this over on my list.

It’s about time that people stop automatically thinking all charitable organisations and those who volunteer in them are entirely beneficial/beneficent without question.

Sometimes the bravest thing a board can do is pause: not to avoid making a decision or to kick the can down the road. But to create enough space to make the right decision.

Er no.

Cos this doesnt change the law. The law remains exactly where it is.

Pausing just leaves your organisation at risk of liability for longer whilst you find a backbone to recognise that men are male and women are female and you can't actually change sex and sex is not gender.

All this nonsense about confusion is not hard. Just use your bloody eyes.

Except women's lived experience - of course!

What is so bizarre for a group supposedly "leading" and advising the charity sector is this notion of having the choice whether to comply with regulations, let alone the law.

My experience of charities being monitored was almost unbearable details and exactness down to the last penny in petty cash.

Not some laissez faire "choice" of which regulation to comply with and which not.

I wonder if this is just the inane drivel of a not actually relevant charity advice group. But have a horrible feeling, such is the power of the rainbow umbrella that even normal monitoring officers are making this compliance the exception.

Its just daft.

Because either the charity is single sex and clearly states this.

Or it isn't and clearly states it.

What is the issue?

Ms Fearity Doom-mongerer, sitting quietly in meetings, looking for opportunities to scaremonger, rushing people to action before they have had time to think.

Of course it has to be a woman who is creating the problem!

Oh it's all such a conundrum isn't it?

I mean, who doesn't wake up each morning trying to decide which laws they feel like following that day? Trying to figure if I should or shouldn't do something that is against the law is a constant headache.

Oh wait. It isn't. Following the law is just the basic thing that the whole of society should expect everyone to do. And for there to be penalties for those who don't.

So many issues with the Charity Sector including growing public apathy resulting in reduced funding. The biggest donors being +75 who are now more sceptical and in their diminishing years. Charities have been growing their DEI at the expense of their core principles which adds to those withdrawing their support. They now have to figure out whether these younger generations will be willing to fill the gap and if they are, then mixed sex will take precedence which I believe, is within the law. However, they will keep pushing against the Supreme Court Judgement, hoping for a change in the law.
Charities are in a real bind of their own making. A charity like Amnesty declaring that TWAW was self harm on an industrial scale. How do they now row back.
If you have a society that moves from 'for the good of society' to 'minority rules and the individual' the outcome will be anarchy. I don't think the charity sector has the brain power to deal with their current conundrum.
I think it's time the Charity Commission got a grip and gave instructions such as, follow the law or get a big fat fine.

I think you're spot on without a lot of this

one of the problems is that ppl in the charity sector are convinced that they are inherently good ppl because they work for a charity - only good ppl work for charities amirite!

by that reasoning it follows that everything that do is therefore inherently good because they are good people

they are utterly captured because the charity sector is awash with lanyardocracy both within it but also because their funding is lanyardocracy adjacent - the big charities and even most of the medium local ones all get they're money from their council, the NHS and the same group of grant making trusts all of whom are captured too

im surprised at Deborah Allcock Tyler going all in on this - she does have a self brand of being the loud outsider who says the brave things the charity sector need to hear (which is nonsense btw - if you read her bios she's very establishment) but NCVO and even NAVCA have pulled back on this issue. It seems courageous in the yes minister sense to suggest charities knowingly ignore the law

It’s not as simple as that. To receive charitable status you must state your aims clearly and have a constitution as a minimum. So for example, a Charity that focuses on period poverty would be exclusively single sex. To then include males would change it to mixed sex and go against their charitable status. So as with Girlguides and WI, the choice is to continue with their single sex status or disband and form a new group that’s mixed sex. That likely would not receive charitable status though.

It’s so transparent! Encouraging charities to rush into ‘going beyond the law’ ie implementing unlawful policies. Then encouraging them to drag their heels getting back to lawful practice once the law is clarified. Suddenly it’s oh so complicated and there’s no rush. It’s only women’s rights, after all.

one of the problems is that ppl in the charity sector are convinced that they are inherently good ppl because they work for a charity - only good ppl work for charities amirite!

I think we are long past the time when this was or might have been true about some.

Thanks to Blair (of course*) who thought charities should become the "3rd Sector" that they have slid into empty of value business mode. Its all about your scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. Which is the current trend to follow to scramble up the hierarchy.

No doubt somewhere out in the wider world good people are volunteering.

This article alone suggests the rot.

Someone holding that position musing whimsically about whether to follow the law or not!

(*) It was Blair's concept that everyone should have a degree - which many nurses think has helped ruin their profession - that has led to universities become corrupted by business based decisions.

(*) It was Blair's concept that everyone should have a degree - which many nurses think has helped ruin their profession - that has led to universities become corrupted by business based decisions.

This old chestnut keeps being trotted out. Blair said nothing of the sort. In his speech to the 1999 Labour Party Conference he said-

"Today I set a target of 50 per cent of young adults going into higher education* in the next century."

(*) higher education including degrees, HNDs & apprentinceships.

a genuinely difficult and evolving landscape. Court judgments, regulatory guidance, public expectations and lived experience all have a role to play.

Yeah but.... The Law is THE LAW.
It absolutely, totally, completely overrules 'public expectations and lived experience'.

What was said in a speech and what happened in practice are not comparable.

I was addressing your claim that "It was Blair's concept that everyone should have a degree" . Whatever might have happened in practice that statement was always untrue.

I would say that it is as simple as that and you have explained why.