Stonewall CEO attempting to adopt a more moderate position

[ItsCoolForCats]

He wants to "turn down the heat" 🙄

I can't imagine this going down well amongst the TQ++++.....

"Stonewall was not, Blake stressed, aiming to overturn the supreme court ruling.* *“We understand that this is the law. But we also want to ensure that trans people are protected and, along with other organisations, we are looking at what that would look like.”

Article in the Guardian today

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/nov/01/progress-takes-time-stonewall-ceo-on-turning-down-the-heat-on-the-trans-debate?shem=dsdf,sharefoc,agadiscoversdl,,sh/x/discover/m1/4

Trans people are already protected, he isn't clear on what more he wants, though I could take a bloody good guess.

Also I dont know how he can say this without his brain short circuiting

That the ban on conversion practices currently under parliamentary scrutiny is trans-inclusive matters to him personally because “it’s saying you don’t need to be changed, you’re good enough”, something he needed to hear as a teenager.

Acknowledgement, perhaps, that the money is running scarily low.

If they were raking it in, then they would be cranking it up.

#cynical

Was the defensive “no debate” position some activists then took, refusing even to acknowledge any conflict between trans rights and women’s rights, counter-productive? “What I recall that period to be was saying that there is a reality which is that trans people exist and that actually trans people should be around the table having the conversation, and that when trans people went around the table in some of those conversations it felt really difficult and therefore (they) didn’t feel able to participate … everybody needs to be able to have questions, we need to be able to have discussion, but we do have to find ways to do that without heat.”

Yes, of course, it was women making the conversation difficult. How did we not realise it was our fault all along. We should never have issued all those death threats.

https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1xkzkcj/progress_takes_time_stonewall_ceo_on_turning_down/

It has not gone down well with the TIMs.

Does he, aye?

In a 'women definitely need rights and lesbians shouldn't be pressured into interacting with dick' way, or a return to 'stitch it all up behind closed doors with all the other bien pensants' way?

We must have imagined all the rape threats and the pile ons and the sackings and the cancellations.

Silly us.

Gaslighting prick.

#realistic 😉

Ah, ye olde rewriting history. How very 2020 of you, Simon!

Isn't Stonewall one of the organisations that's pushing the Conversion Practices bill? The bill that makes no differentiation between adults and children & fails to recognise parental responsibilities. That uses the bill as a trojan horse to embed GI, non binary and other nonsense into the law without democratic consent? And in keeping with their anti safeguarding children stance, will criminalise parents who fulfil their responsibilities in protecting their children from the "born in the wrong body" merchants.

That Stonewall?

37% avoid single-sex spaces such as toilets and changing rooms, and 29% avoid exercise classes or sports teams.
Avoiding the same biological sex areas or avoiding the ones that are for women only? Context matters.

to be (un)able to use the toilets which you have been using successfully for 10 years at work,
Who falsely and illegally told them they could? DARVO anyone?

He is calling on government to monitor the ruling’s impact and act on any harms revealed.
What about the harms women and girls have been suffering for the past ten years? Where's our impact studies?

also found 22% of LGB and 32% of trans respondents reported having attempted suicide at some point in their lives.
Compared to what? That age group? Are a high percentage also autistic so did they compare it to suicidal tendencies in autistic teenagers? Were they already under CAMHS for another reason, eg school refusers, divorcing parents at war?

Gender-critical campaigners, however, consider the ruling not as a rollback but as a clarification of what the Equality Act always meant.
Consider? No, it was. Weasel words again.

It’s on government and our watchdogs and everybody with responsibility to understand the impact, and where there is a negative impact to take action.”
I finally agree with Stonewall. Unfortunately they are talking about men being allowed everywhere and not about the negative impact on women being coerced to accept men in their spaces.

Blake has reason to tread carefully. (...) Institutions from Whitehall departments to the BBC had quit its workplace diversity scheme – a key source of income – amid controversy over Stonewall’s tactics and the quality of its legal advice.
So they are broke. And more importantly giving illegal advice. They should be sued for that.

That the ban on conversion practices currently under parliamentary scrutiny is trans-inclusive matters to him personally because “it’s saying you don’t need to be changed, you’re good enough”, something he needed to hear as a teenager.
So why have they been pushing puberty blockers and modification/mutilation of the genitals? Why aren't their bodies good enough? Someone here has posted a FOI about the high amount NHS trans surgeries, absolutely horrifying.

What a load of absolute piffle. Did his nose grow as he was talking? 🤔

Possibly. Many of the larger organisations once proudly championing Stonewall have quietly dropped their name from their websites (along with Mermaids, who by recent accounts are now barely operational).

They tried playing hardball and that didn't work out too well for them. Having taken a sledgehammer to women's rights some 15 years ago and expected us to roll over and capitulate, now they're willing to forget their long-held mantra of #NoDebate and be oh, so reasonable.

#NoDebate, you say? How d'ya like them apples?

'Using successfully' re toilets is a very odd turn of phrase. Makes it sound like an achievement, which ties into the validation thing rather than just needing a piss.

to be (un)able to use the toilets which you have been using successfully for 10 years at work,

Guess what, Simon? "Successful" is not synonymous with "legal."

Stonewall deserve all the flack they’re getting. They betrayed us & now they’ve pissed off the other side too.

https://www.stonewall.org.uk/news/going-where-angels-fear-to-tread

I posted some of this article on the Stonewall in financial difficulty thread in September. It's another indication of splitting in the ranks, and Simon trying to paper over the cracks of this crumbling movement. Some excerpts:

"Solidarity, unity and courage do not mean we are all the same or we think the same. We will not agree on everything neither should we need to. Not within Stonewall, not across the LGBTQ+ community, not with our allies. Often not even within our own friendship groups.

We all have different needs, different priorities and differences of opinion. Pretending or expecting otherwise will not build unity or help us win. Even with differences of opinion we can still stand united to secure rights and freedoms for everyone in our community. To make that a reality we will have to learn to hold differences gently and disagree well.
Disagreeing well is an important disciplineespecially in the face of a well organised attack on our rights.

Disagreeing well calls on us to stay in the room, to assume good faith before bad, to have robust discussions about ideas without shouting at those who hold them. A movement that can only survive if there is complete consensus is not really a movement. Real change, real progress, brings people in with generosity and kindness, however hard that might be...." [bold, mine]

Not to mention various news items, interviews etc where the so called woman participating was a man.
Not able to participate my arse, is there a big rock somewhere that people peddling this shite all live under?

I wonder how long it will be before the most rabid of activists really turn on Stonewall? They certainly won't want a more "moderate" approach to anything.

Piss protests at Stonewall HQ in London? I don't think Simon has any idea where this could lead. If the Conversion Practices Bill fails, I give Simon a year before he is out.

As far as pissing off the other side is concerned, eventually, everyone always does. When your expecations are set so high that nothing but total capitulation will do, and when uttering one 'wrong' word is rewarded with death threats, rape threats or accusations of bigotry and phobia, then sooner or later every viable source of support is going to fall by the wayside.

Theirs is looking pretty thin on the ground now.

Oh bless, they're hilarious 😂

Do you think any of them have proper jobs. They don't sound very bright.

That struck me as odd too. I think by successful he means they used opposite sex facilities and nobody called them out on it because they were too afraid to say anything. Strange measure of success.

Turn down the heat now? Funny how Stonewall not only didn't condemn the rape and death threats and the threats to the livelihood of women but passively encouraged it.

A bit fucking late mate.

“What I recall that period to be was saying that there is a reality which is that trans people exist and that actually trans people should be around the table having the conversation, and that when trans people went around the table in some of those conversations it felt really difficult and therefore (they) didn’t feel able to participate … everybody needs to be able to have questions, we need to be able to have discussion, but we do have to find ways to do that without heat.”

.......... er, yes, there were a lot of very well publicised and loud conversations with trans people around tables, the people I don't remember being allowed in the room AT ALL , never mind permitted a seat at a table were women who spoke for women rather than for men with gender identities.

Those women have been intentionally shut out of all the conversations. Every time activists have been at lobbying and planning meetings with MPs and government and agencies and the NHS and everyone else, women haven't been permitted a voice at all, what is he on???

'Trans people didn't feel able to participate' - if women were permitted to even be present or have a voice at all! They are still requiring separate meetings and expecting trigger warnings if women speak or their voices and needs are actually heard at all - witness the meeting just this week! Women are constantly being reminded that their voices and needs and existence are so totally threatening to men with gender identities' agendas that they have to come with bloody trigger warnings!

Dear GOD the never ending fucking delusionality and alternative reality with the tearfully brave victimy posing - and he wonders why there's heat! Most of it's the breath of people shouting will you get a bloody grip!

I recall that it was Women's Organistations and women generally who were locked out of the conversation.

Stop peddling lies Simon.

You said it so much better than me Wishesandhorses.