Two statements competing for most craven newspeak capitulation of the week. First @SEBuitendijk Vice Provost @imperialcollege: "I support academic freedom to debate all ideas on social media. Except this. I will stop engaging with wrongthink in order to promote open discussion"
Then there is @PHMMcr We recognise there are different perspectives. "We encourage debate on all issues. Except this. We will remove expressions of wrongthink from our space in order to invite thought and discussion and be welcoming to all. "
And here is today's #newspeak#cravencapitualtion@andywightman "will engage in respectful dialogue" , apologises for "hurt and distress" caused by attending meeting on wome's sex based rights. "Defends free speech" but woman calling male attacker "he" should be shunned
Also, could women calling out their utter disappointment please fuck off #respectfuldialogue
@andywightman Adding to the thread of apologies . Here the @GreensNSW apologise for publishing an opinion piece by a member stating that women exist as a sex
Adding @TheStage to the #whereisyoubackbone list. There is an issue about which people disagree. So we commissioned two pieces to help people understand both sides .... and for that we apologise.
Here is the perfectly reasonable article by @sarahditum
@sarahditum The article that gave the 'right side of history' view was by @ambermb but she apologised almost as soon as it was published being the wrong kind of person (as a bog standard female) to write an article about whether women's toilets should be made unisex.
@sarahditum@ambermb Apologies and non-apologies..... back in June the @nscpcc appointed Munroe Bergdorf as an ambassador, and then quickly changed their mind when they realised they had not done their due diligence on Bergdorf's suitability bbc.co.uk/news/uk-486434…
This was a failure by @nspcc. It was right they they apologised to Bergdorf for their mishandling, but their first priority must be children, not celebrity hurt feelings, or rainbow branding nspcc.org.uk/what-we-do/new…
Concerns about Bergdorf being linked to the children's charity were serious: inviting children to make contact directly, and promoting sexualisation of children as 'drag kids'.
150 NSPCC staff responded with a letter saying they were "deeply disappointed about the treatment of Munroe by the organisation" - they said the concerns were pressure from “a relatively small group of people” and they condemned the decision theguardian.com/society/2019/j…
Let that sink in. There are 150 staff at NSPCC who see nothing wrong with an adult inviting vulnerable children to contact them by DM, and in saying kids are never to young to engage in sexualised behaviour for adult's entertainment. No problem at all.... dazeddigital.com/life-culture/a…
Another big fan of 'drag kid' Desmond is Amazing is paedophile Tom O’Carroll (of PIE fame)..... it is just not OK for an NSPCC celebrity ambassador to be promoting this.
@PeterWanless issued an apology mainly to Bergdorf (who was badly treated), but burying the bit where NSPCC recognised the failure of their due diligence processes right at the end. nspcc.org.uk/what-we-do/new…
The women of Mumsnet were concerned that NSPCC were brushing its internal due diligence failure under the carpet and taking their eye off the ball of child safeguarding and so they started to investigate.... mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_ri…
What they found out was that the person responsible for booking Bergdorf was an NSCPCC employee with a rubber fetish who posted obscene videos of himself filmed in work toilets and business trips & linking this with his professional Linked-in profile uncommongroundmedia.com/nspcc-employee…
This was the @NSPCC 's initial public response when whistleblowers raised this. They said that supporting staff was their priority & people highlighting their concerns were 'bullying'. They urged people to report them to twitter to shut them up.
Quietly it turns out the NSPCC has come to the conclusion that making homemade porn videos at work was 'inconsistent with the values expected of an employee' of the child safeguarding charity.
Will the @NSPCC and @Independent and @guardian apologise for smearing whistleblowers who raised concerns about whether Munroe Bergdorf and James Makings were suitable for working with the NSPCC as 'bullies' and 'anti-trans trolls'? @PeterWanless ?
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Peter Wilkins case exposes another public body (this one part of @DefenceHQ) that lost sight of the Equality Act and of civil service principles of impartiality and objectivity.
One colleague accused him of making a "threatening" FOI request when he tried to draw attention to @dstlmod 's Line Manager’s Guide.
The FOI was turned down but I tried again.
At first DSTL said they couldn't find the document.
I said "have another look, its on your intranet" and they located it.
Then they thought long and hard about whether they could withhold it on security grounds.
Lynn O'Donnell had writen a document entitled Line Managers Guide to supporting LGBT+ Identifying staff.
It included the old Stonewall definition of transphobia (which has now been withdrawn).
The action starts not long after the Forstater EAT judgment.
Prof Sophie Scott is awarded the Faraday Prize and O'Donnell goes onto DSTL's "distillery" chat forum to say 'tis a pity she's a TERF....and linked GC views to rise in violence against LGBT people
The High Court has granted an anonymity order in relation to three individual "trans and intersex" claimants in the Good Law Project's case against EHRC for its interim update.
The nomination of Mary-Ann Stephenson as new chair of the EHRC brought the witch hunters out.
Stephenson has a PhD in equality law. She is Director of the Women’s Budget Group, and has been director of the Fawcett Society, chair of the Early Education and Childcare Coalition and a board member of Coventry Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre.
A bunch of charity CEOs (some of whom are part of "Equally Ours" with her) wrote a letter saying darkly she "previously supported views seen at odds with inclusivity for all"
There was a petition accusing her of making "anti-trans statements" and "association with groups advocating for the curtailment of trans people's human rights"