Meanwhile, at the Arts Council…

The Arts Council England created a “toxic” culture of “fear” for staff who dared to question transgender views, a senior grant officer has said as she accuses the charity of harassment and victimisation.

Denise Fahmy claims Britain’s biggest arts quango risked “closing down free speech” after a grant was withdrawn from a charity that campaigns exclusively for lesbian, gay and bisexual rights.

Ms Fahmy, 54, who has worked for 15 years as an Arts Council England (ACE) grant officer, says she was targeted after she questioned why £9,000 of funding was withdrawn from LGB Alliance.

That’s not just transgender views, it’s actions. Homophobic actions at that.

She’s quit but she’s taking them to court for harassing her for being gender critical.

In April last year, LGB Alliance was awarded the grant to make a film for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee to celebrate how the lives of gay men had improved under the monarch’s reign.

However, the money was withdrawn amid claims the alliance was transphobic, an allegation the charity denies.

At an ACE staff meeting held a few days before the cash was pulled, Simon Mellor, ACE’s deputy chief executive, accused LGB Alliance of being “a divisive organisation with a history of anti-trans exclusionary activity”.

What is “divisive” supposed to mean? All organizations are “divisive” in the sense of being for some particular purpose as opposed to all purposes. Trans is not the same as lesbian/gay, so why are all LG organizations required to be inclooosive of trans people or be slapped with “divisive” and “anti-trans activity”? Also where the hell are the adults?

At that meeting, Ms Fahmy spoke saying she was “shocked” by Mr Mellor’s remarks, which she felt demonstrated ”worrying “bias” that threatened to affect funding of the arts.

Good. Well done.

However, a petition was set up accusing LGB Alliance of being a “cultural parasite and a glorified hate group” whose supporters were “neo-Nazis, homophobes and Islamophobes”. One of around 100 signatories to the petition, which appeared on the Art Council’s staff intranet, even said the group was similar to the Ku Klux Klan.

Is the whole world run by the people who comment at Pharyngula?

Speaking publicly for the first time, Ms Fahmy told the Sunday Telegraph she was “sad” to be leaving the “really hard working organisation” in which she had “never seen bias in grant-making before”.

However, she said she felt she had to speak out about the harassment she said she experienced because of so-called “gender wars”.

It’s funny how many women have felt exactly the same thing.

“I have seen too many people’s careers and their mental health ruined by spurious allegations of transphobia, especially in the wider arts community.

…

Ms Fahmy is now using a crowdfunding website called “Fighting bias at the top of the Arts Council” to raise £50,000 for her legal team to fight her case at an employment tribunal hearing in May.

She claims that if she wins she will prevent the public sector from “bullying staff” or deprive funds from organisations which question whether it is possible to change sex or are gender critical.

Let’s hope she does win.