Thread by @fairplaywomen

NEW ARTICLE OUT TODAY: An open letter to trustees and chief executives: you’re being taken for a ride /1

fairplayforwomen.com/open-letter-to…

Dear leaders of public sector organisations,

You think you are doing the right thing. It’s time to open your eyes. Your own people are doing the work of transactivists and you’ll be the one left carrying the can /2

LGBT means trans-focused, at the expense of other groups, especially women. Gender ideology is now deeply embedded within most organisations and it’s your own staff facilitating it. Stonewall and co can keep their hands clean & orchestrate the erasure of sex from a distance /3

When things do go wrong – when your organisation is taken to court and your policies ruled unlawful – it will be your organisation, and you, as the leader, that ends up with egg on your face. You suffer the reputational damage and legal costs. Stonewall are nowhere to be seen /4

Take the recent #Census2021 debacle, ending in public humiliation for the @ONS and its bosses. Reading the breezy statement on Stonewall’s website welcoming the “clear and inclusive guidance on how to answer the Census sex question”, you’d think they had nothing to do with it /5

It was Sir Ian Diamond getting grilled on the #Marr Show about unlawful guidance, and it was the government’s first treasury counsel, Sir James Eadie QC, left fumbling to the judge how sex is an ‘umbrella term’ and that ‘social sex’ is now a thing. What a stitch-up /6

There’s a pernicious form of gender ideology ‘group think’ going on. Staff who disagree, or are simply questioning, don’t speak up for fear of shame or disapproval – or at worst disciplinary action /7

There’s a civil service LGBT network pumping its propaganda around your intranet and into your staff inboxes, ready to pounce if anyone dares step out of line /8 civilservice.lgbt/networks/

Many of your staff have been duped by the rhetoric that advocates for sex-based rights must be some kind of a ‘hate group’ and that using phrases like biological sex or male puberty is a ‘transphobic dog-whistle’ /9

We are viewed with suspicion when we reach out to support you in policy development. The truth is you need a range of views and perspectives. We are the ones who can help you get your policies right from the start /10

Stonewall is considered wrongly an expert rather than a lobby group with its own priorities and objectives.

No wonder you get given bad advice – trans groups aren’t the experts on sex-based rights and legislation – quite the opposite in fact. /11

That’s why you are getting your policies so wrong and why you are blind to your exposure to litigation risk. It’s obvious from the outside – you are sitting ducks /12

Stonewall is extending its reach into your women’s policies too. We see them using their established, behind the scenes relationships with staff to muscle into other policy areas /13

Stonewall uses its #NoDebate tactic to silence opposing views.

This serves to keep public awareness low, and sensible, respectful difference of opinion out of the mainstream media. Our campaigns can then be monstered from the shadows /14

Refusing to participate in live discussions or to appear at all alongside “transphobes” is an easy and commonly used strategy to silence us. The BBC code of practice says guests must not veto others but in practice staff let it happen. /15

It is no surprise the BBC is scared of this topic. Even the chair of @Ofcom says ‘Stonewall are the experts’ when asked about how to achieve balance in the media.

Why on earth are you giving a lobby group the power to influence who it deems fit to be its opposition? /16

We now see Stonewall setting the terms of the stakeholder debate too.

They allege fear of a ‘hostile environment’ to restrict free and open discussion in official stakeholder meetings. What’s worse is we have evidence your staff are facilitating it /17

This no isolated incident. We get warned by nervous staff not to use "hate speech" and we told to restrict the words we use to discuss our rights. Even male and female are supposedly off limits because others in room find it offensive /18

Nevertheless, we always respectfully and determinedly decline to omit the words male and female from our arguments. We advocate for sex-based rights for females. We cannot do that without access to the most basic words of all: male and female /19

While we have the courage and position as stakeholders to argue that we must keep using those words, many others do not and we’ve seen many ‘women’s groups’ crumbling under pressure and submitting to replacing their language of sex with gender /20

The result is women and girls get overlooked and forgotten about in policy – that’s exactly what Fair Play For Women is set up to address and why we are needed /21

Public organisations must hold the line.

Lobby groups lobby and will always try to get their voice heard ahead of others. That’s how lobby groups work. Influence and persuasion is the name of the game /22

But it’s the role of staff in public bodies not to be unduly influenced. It’s up to you to insist on and facilitate the open and transparent process of consultation during policy making. Policy should not be made in back rooms /23

You’ll be the one left picking up the pieces when the house of cards falls.

In the end the buck stops with you /end

fairplayforwomen.com/open-letter-to…