For younger readers it is probably not really possible for you to understand how far things have come for Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual people with regards rights. In the space of one lifetime, from the late 1940’s to the present day, we in Britain have gone from a time when Gay relationships and sex was illegal and Gay men were routinely arrested, imprisoned and exposed to the threat of blackmail, to a time when basically nobody really gives a toss which of the two sexes of adult you are attracted to.
For the majority of the time since the 1940’s, campaigning for equality for LGB people was done by those who often faced a lot of hostility from their opponents, it was only with the publication of the Woolfenden Report in 1957 into sexual offences that led the way for gay sex and gay relationships being legalised under the Sexual Offences Act of 1967. Whilst the ‘67 Act was not perfect and did not bring complete equality, it paved the way for future reform. Anti-Gay sentiment took a step up when the scourge of AIDS hit the United Kingdom in the early 1980’s and there was a much more outspoken culture of anti-Gay commentary and an increasingly purient interest in the lives of gay men by the Red Top tabloid newspapers. It was in this culture of increasing hatred of gays, bisexuals and to a lesser extent lesbians that the Stonewall group was founded in order to fight for equality. Stonewall did indeed fight for equality often at great personal cost to those taking part in this fight.
Stonewall achieved all it wanted, it played a large part in helping to gain acceptance for LGB people and bring about the legal changes that, for LBG people, made true Martin Luther King’s dream of a world where LGB people were not judged on anything other than the content of their character. At that point Stonewall should have shut itself down, secure and proud in the knowedge that they’d done a brilliant job of helping to bring about equality.
Unfortunately this is exactly what they did not do. Instead they hitched their wagon to causes that not only were ones that were not based in reality, the idea that one can fully change ones sex, but by following this path Stonewall created the conditions where LGB people and natal women, could be erased. After all if everyone is or could be ‘trans’ then what is same or both sex attraction? If anyone can say they are a woman then what is the point of having or keeping the very necessary single sex provision in services? Stonewall pivoted towards trans issues and bought into and started to promote some pretty questionable and also somewhat dangerous ideas.
Douglas Murray writing in Unherd is stating that whilst lauding the work that Stonewall did for LGB rights, it’s also time to admit that not only have Stonewall lost their way but also that they and the ideology that they are pushing has been exposed. I agree with Mr Murray, the emperor’s new clothes are now being worn by Stonewall. Mr Murray said that over time, Stonewall’s activities have been exposed, most notably by a report in The Times about the Stonewall Equality Index that the provision of services to allow companies and government departments had become a source of income for Stonewall. These reports and other revelations elsewhere about Stonewall’s questionable trans activities showed just how embedded the Stonewall group had become in the UK and its government and administration systems.
Mr Murray said:
After publication of The Times report, Equalities Minister Liz Truss called for government departments to leave the Stonewall scheme. Around the same time, the Equality and Human Rights Commission also left, saying that it was not best value for money. The fact that Stonewall had been appraising the work of the EHRC was a demonstration of just where the organisation had been sitting in the new clerical class that had come to dominate Britain. The principles of this new elite were centered around the new religion of “diversity” and “equality”, and the groups which claimed to be the holders of the doctrines of this faith had done exceptionally well. Until now.
As things started to fall apart Stonewall and its allies responded in the way of all trapped elites. They continued to accuse their critics of malicious-intent (specifically, in this case, bigotry) and refused to take any of the criticisms onboard. So a devastating summary judgement came down upon them which they did not even bother to answer. It came from a somewhat surprising source.
Mr Murray then went on to, in my view, correctly heap fulsome praise on the BBC Radio Ulster journalist Stephen Nolan for his multipart series investigating not just the way that Stonewall had embedded itself in the BBC and among other institutions. Stonewall responded to this investigation by Mr Nolan by toughing it out and being completely lacking in self awareness about why they were being criticised.
Mr Murray said that neither Stonewall nor its handmaidens and enforcers in the media have properly answered the questions put to them. Stonewall and those surrounding them have, Mr Murray said, become a new ‘priestly class’. However unlike other priestly classes, Stonewall and its supporters are unable to even begin to describe, to any degree of satisfaction, their creed. Mr Murray brought up the incident when Ben Cohen of Pink News was asked to describe what Mr Murray said were ‘gender bollocks’ terms and he found that he could not.
Mr Murray added:
It is one thing that a group should be caught out in a dodgy money-making scheme. It is another that people should be seeing through their influence-peddling operations. Yet it is far worse when a clerical class cannot explain the doctrines of their own faith. A faith they have been busy trying to spew out across the whole of society, but which is so baseless, that even the priestly class doesn’t know what they are talking about. It is the end of the faith.
Well said Mr Murray. Whilst it is right that we recognise Stonewall’s contribution to LGB equality, it’s also right to tell Stonewall that the game is up. We will no longer be bullied by Stonewall’s pet gender identity Stasi and believe that it’s time that Stonewall are removed from their positions of influence and hopefully, for the sake of their genuinely positive legacy, disband.
