Thousands for guidance
More passengers are disembarking.
A string of high-profile public sector employers are cutting ties with the LGBT charity Stonewall amid mounting disquiet over its diversity training on transgender rights.
Campaigners have warned of a “flood” of departures from the Stonewall Diversity Champions scheme, after the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the equalities watchdog, did not renew its membership over “value for money” concerns.
The Telegraph says it knows of at least five more leavers.
The scheme counts 250 Government departments and public bodies among its members. They pay thousands for guidance on gender neutral spaces, pronouns and trans inclusion and are ranked on the charity’s Workplace Equality Index.
Imagine paying thousands for “guidance on pronouns” – i.e. on using the wrong ones. It’s all so cultish as well as wrong.
As scrutiny of the programme grows, last week its list of 850 members disappeared from public view on the Stonewall website.
But several major names on the list confirmed to this newspaper that they have left, though this was not related to the EHRC’s decision and they all stressed their commitment to inclusion and equality.
The House of Commons said it did not renew its membership for 2020. The Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) said it exited in December, while Acas, the employment dispute service, said it had withdrawn “for cost reasons” last June.
Tired of paying thousands for guidance on pronouns, no doubt. Who wouldn’t be?
See also: Dorset Police and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. The Crown Prosecution Service is having a think.
Last night Stonewall’s chief executive, Nancy Kelley, prompted a furious backlash on Twitter by likening so-called “gender critical” beliefs to anti-Semitism. ‘Gender-critical’ academics and researchers argue that male-born trans women are not women, a view the EHRC has said is protected by equality law.
That is, we “argue” that men are not women, which is not so much a “view” as reality. The fantasy that men can identify out of being men is the “view,” not the awareness that they can’t.
Reminds me of those ‘white guilt’ dinners – pay thousands of dollars, and all you get in return is a hectoring lecture.
Needs a cheap t-shirt.
All these mentioned are government/public organisations. I wonder when/if corporations will start following suit? I would have thought Stonewall’s dodgy legal advice would put off the law firms at least.
Withdrawing “for cost reasons” or concerns about “value for money” is such a convenient form of moral hedging. If the tide of the struggle happens to swing back, you can just blame the stance on the callous tightfistedness of the far-right Johnson administration and avoid making yourself a target for reprisals.