Some thoughts on Stonewall's rebrand and strategy.
Erm.... does anyone else think that the rebrand is an 'up yours' to EHRC??
They went from LGB to LGBT in 2015 .... now adding "queer, questioning and ace" (asexual .... a spectrum which includes "demisexual", which means heterosexual who experiences sexual attraction based on emotional connection with a person...)
This is likely to mean that lesbian and gay men are a minority in the LGBTQ+ movement.
The government's LGBT survey (not a representative survey, but still interesting) suggests this is already the case amongst 16-24 year olds
Stonewall's charitable objects concern human rights and in particular sexual orientation
The word "women" appears twice, both times prefaced by LBTQ+
There can be no category of women that does not include males who identify as women
Their vision is that "LGBTQ+ people should have the same rights as everybody else"
What rights do "LGBTQ+" people lack in the UK?...
Hmm... 1. A legally enforceable ban on conversion therapy
(there is no evidence of a trend of actual abusive conversion therapy going on in the UK. This is clearly intended to outlaw 'watchful waiting' of children w gender issues) & medical assessment in general
Hate crime and hate speech laws
(this is deeply illiberal and worrying - anonymous hate crime reporting?? 😬)
Legal gender self-ID - including for people who identify as non-binary
They are expanding the Diversity Champions workplace scheme, work in schools, and sports.
And with faith communities and "elders" (the photographs are all of youngers though...)
They lobby governments across he UK to "protect and extend LGBTQ+ rights"
LGBTQ+ is not a category recognised in the Equality Act 2010 - public and private bodies would be wise not to delegate decision making to this lobby group.
It feels like a protection scheme.
Everyone can join.
And anyone who doesn't Stand With Stonewall will be fair game to be reported to their school, university or employer.
You are "Free to Be" what we tell you to be...
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I am also an advocate of people sitting around talking for solving problems (what else is there?)
Orgs exist to do this - it's what justifies their overhead cost.
This is the office of CGD Europe where I used to work. You can see the Palace of Westminster from the windows
When I started talking about this it was with the naive hope that CGD might use its sunlit meeting room to host a discussion amongst development professionals about sex and gender in their orgs & policy advocacy.
Fawcett and Felicia 's tweets get so little engagement from ordinary women outside of the Westminster-voluntary sector backslapping bubble that experiences women asking why Fawcett will not lift a finger for sex based rights as a pile on of abuse ...
I say this not to be mean to be Felicia
But because Fawcett is campaigning on online Harms