'When it comes to cheek-by-jowl relationships between human rights organisations and UK government, Stonewall wrote the playbook.' (Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
As we move into the festive season, some unexpected joyful tidings: the UK’s foremost LGBT charity has finally discovered the importance of independence from government. This week, it was reported that Stonewall has successfully persuaded the UN-partnered Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) to launch a special review into the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission. The EHRC stands accused of insufficient critical distance from the Conservative Party, with the result that it has allegedly become “unfair” to trans people. At risk is its current “A” status accreditation, retraction of which would entail a loss of voting rights at the UN Human Rights Council and other associated punishments.
In pursuing this outcome, Stonewall has resurrected a set of complaints about the equality watchdog that it first co-authored with Jolyon Maugham’s Good Law Project and sent to GANHRI last year. In a lawyer’s letter also made public at the time, the two organisations claimed that there had been various murky political appointments of EHRC Commissioners “broadly supportive” of government, which had then produced a lack of “pluralism” in the organisation. As a result of these and other perceived infractions, it was claimed that the EHRC now insufficiently complied with the Paris Principles, first formulated in 1993 and described by GANHRI as the “minimum standards” a national human rights organisation must meet “in order to be considered credible and to operate effectively”.
This first attempt at forcing a special review failed; but this week it emerged that, in May, along with 29 other transactivist organisations, Stonewall once again complained to GANHRI and this time succeeded. The new ingredient appeared to be an explicit allegation that the EHRC’s recent attempts to make some women-only spaces genuinely single-sex — disingenuously described by Stonewall as seeking “to enable greater exclusion of trans women” — are “actively harming trans people”. Like thousands of organisations and individuals before them, when faced with the magic words “exclusion” and “trans women” in some combination, GANHRI appears to have succumbed immediately, without much reflection on why physical exclusion of males from a place where women undress, sleep, or play sport might be perfectly justified.
Stonewall bosses are probably now wondering why they didn’t cut to the chase sooner. Certainly, you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to work out that their pique at the EHRC’s rejection of the transactivist position on single-sex spaces was the reason behind such superficially high-minded interventions all along. If they really cared about the upholding of the Paris Principles and the knock-on effects for the rights of LGBT people, one assumes they might also have had something critical to say about the fact that GANHRI has awarded coveted A-list status to such homosexual havens as Qatar (where gay sex is illegal, and potentially a capital offence); Indonesia (where gay sex is illegal under Sharia law in one province, and frowned upon everywhere else); and Egypt (where gay sex is de facto criminalised under morality laws).
Instead, GANHRI is now operating psychically for Stonewall as the latest saintly supranational authority figure to be appealed to without question; no doubt pictured by its employees as standing shoulder-to-shoulder beside them in their ongoing battle with whichever nasty bigoted haters are currently standing in the organisation’s way. And this is quite amusing — because historically, Stonewall used to think of both the Conservative government and the EHRC as playing precisely that authority figure role for them at a national level. In fact, when it comes to cheek-by-jowl relationships between human rights organisations and UK government, Stonewall wrote the playbook.
This, after all, is the organisation that became accustomed to seeing Home Secretaries speak at its award ceremonies; ministers and committee chairs mindlessly parroting its campaign objectives; and government departments vying for top spot in its Workplace awards scheme. In that light, then, we should read Stonewall’s complaint to GANHRI not so much as motivated by a genuine concern for liberal neutrality in human rights organisations, but more like the vengeful retribution of a jilted lover, trying to cause problems for an ex’s new relationship by complaining vociferously to the ex’s mum.
This charity didn’t seem to care about the close relationship between the UK government and the EHRC as long as it was able to give orders to both. For a good while, it seems that it had the run of the EHRC in particular. The chair of that organisation from 2016-2020 was David Isaac, a former chair of Stonewall appointed by Conservative minister Nicky Morgan. This was an appointment criticised at the time for the fact that Isaac’s law firm Pinsent Masons was the recipient of millions of pounds worth of contracts from the government, thereby potentially reducing the EHRC’s ability to hold them to account. It is also clear from FOI requests that the relationship between Stonewall and the EHRC both during and after Isaac’s tenure was extremely chummy, with Stonewall assuming they could review EHRC documents before publication and instructing its office-holders to officially adopt their policy on self-ID. The EHRC was also a Stonewall Diversity Champion until 2021, which in practice means that it would have received every piece of campaign propaganda going, with the usual expectation that it would all be effortlessly ingested and then regurgitated.
In sum: for Stonewall to have the effrontery to complain to GANHRI about a “lack of political independence” demonstrates as much brass neck as you would expect from the very same organisation that, in 2022, petulantly withdrew at the last minute from partnering the Government in a major international conference on global LGBT human rights — thereby ensuring that the conference, and any resultant progress, could not happen at all — simply because the Government would not endorse their preferred stance on criminalising talking therapy for gender-confused teens. As is so often the case, Stonewall officials have apparently redefined a familiar phrase to mean its exact opposite. In future, when they complain about a lack of political independence, the reader should probably understand that the institution in question has finally found the balls to become politically independent from them.
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SubscribeA characteristicly splendid evisceration by Kathleen Stockof the faux moral high ground claimed by Stonewall and its underhand posturing.
This passage says all that one needs to know regarding their regard for the rights of gay people: “If they really cared about the upholding of the Paris Principles and the knock-on effects for the rights of LGBT people, one assumes they might also have had something critical to say about the fact that GANHRI has awarded coveted A-list status to such homosexual havens as Qatar (where gay sex is illegal, and potentially a capital offence); Indonesia (where gay sex is illegal under Sharia law in one province, and frowned upon everywhere else); and Egypt (where gay sex is de facto criminalised under morality laws).”
It is sad to see an organisation that once did good work to reduce prejudice against homosexuals descend into the gutter of hypocrisy in this manner. All decent organisations should disaffiliate from Stonewall and support a genuine pro-gay organisation like the LGB Alliance if they in fact care about gay people. Stonewall should be shunned as an organisation proselytising for gay conversion therapy.
All NGOs go the same way in the end. The only solution is to force them to raise money directly from public subscription rather than through rent-seeking. Let the people who support these agendas pay for them, not the rest of us.
In order for gay sex to be prosecuted under Sharia law, the act must be observed by four witnesses, so it’s more a question of public perception. I have many gay friends in Qatar.
I am not sure of the relevance of this comment. It’s great that most homosexuals are not executed in Qatar, but the vast majority of gay men weren’t imprisoned in Britain before 1967 either.
Stonewall is accurately identified as now being an utterly unreliable advocate for the well being of gay men and women, because of its obsession with trans rights and dishonest batting away of the obvious truth that the “rights” of different groups are sometimes in conflict. Such as obviously to anyone really, the rights of “transwomen” (who are not defined as having undergone gender reassignment surgery) to be treated as women in all circumstances, and the rights of actual women to not be forced to share a small number of women only facilities such as changing rooms, bathrooms and refuges, with people with fully male biological bodies.
Four adult Muslim men – the only witnesses given credence under Sharia. So the odds are even longer. A good point.
This excellent piece is not only a clinical dissection of Stonewall’s inability to see other perspectives but a perfect illustration of a broader phenomenon – the capture of various branches of the state by a mix of progressive, commercial and other interests. Our bloated Lethiavan has grown too large and complex to be controlled democratically by our current political arrangements. A good first step would be to stamp down on all forms of soft corruption including the “revolving door” between – in this case – the two faces of the charity industrial complex but the challenge is far greater than that.
“A good first step would be to stamp down on all forms of soft corruption.”
A noble sentiment but as you must know completely impossible in the Britain of today.
Defeatism?
Specifically, on the “revolving door” problem, the action required is to give ACOBA – the committee which vets post retirement /resignation jobs for ministers and senior officials – some legal teeth. Instead of being purely advisory its judgements should be legally binding and those who ignore it should be judged as presumed corrupt and get a six month jail sentence (plus loss of pension and any title).
ACOBA should then take a strict view on what jobs are acceptable. Not only roles involving lobbying past colleagues but any which assist companies or NGOs which have benefitted financially from earlier ministerial or official decisions – or are even in the same sector – should be forbidden. Anyone who has been employed as a lobbyist should be banned from public office for life. No one who has held public office should be permitted lobby for ten years – including special advisers etc etc.
This obviously would only be a start since soft corruption is increasingly widespread and pervasive in London and takes many forms but it would be a good start. In the past, both the Victorians in Britain and the Progressives in USA (1900-20) conducted successful house cleanings and eliminated the bulk of corruption – so it can happen.
The recent decline of Britain in corruption perception surveys from one of the cleanest systems to one on a par with Uruguay may act as a wake up call.
“The recent decline of Britain in corruption perception surveys from one of the cleanest systems to one on a par with Uruguay may act as a wake up call.”
That says it all, so yes ‘Guilty as charged’ with ‘Defeatism’!
That horror story the other day in the Sc*tch Parliament where some minister’s feral offspring had attempted to plunder the public account to the tune of £11,000 was but ONE example of the national malaise.
I also see no sign whatsoever that society is capable of even willing to follow the example of either the Victorians or indeed the Progressives. In fact it would be a miracle if it were otherwise.
However I am not downhearted having lived through the halcyon days of ‘Enid Blyton Britain’, but I am sorely disappointed that my Cohort of grandchildren will be denied that inestimable privilege.
Wonderful to read a comment containing ideas on how to actually solve a problem. I applaud you sir.
I wish. Just living in hope at present.
In cities, do not allow a council employee in one council to be a councillor in another. Stop any state employee standing for political office until five years after retirement.
Stop all state money going to charities. Remove charity status from all charities where salaries are greater than national average. Charities should be run by retired people who have pensions, not by people who need salaries to pay bills. Many people retire in the early sixties and have ten years working life in them. Senior members of charities do not operate in dangerous, high stress areas. Dangerous , high stress work is done by junior people.
What could be done to improve quality of charities is allow skilled people, 6 to 12 months leave of absence from work and be seconded to charity.
A craftsmen foreman or Chartered Engineer with over ten years experience seconded from industry to a development charity would be far more useful than someone with an arts degree. Any organisation needs people who solves problems, overcome challenges and obstacles, not talk about them.
I would suggest a problem with NGOs is that the problems have been solved for which they were created have been solved: or they no longer employ people who can solve them; or the situation has changed and they cannot solve the most important problems.
Clearly written by someone who is decades off from being 60, has no idea what it feels to have worked 60+ years, is so middle class he has no concept of the exhaustion of being one ones’ feet but then insults the 60+generation in the same paragraph by saying we have 10 more working years left in us. Absolutely and utterly clueness. Plus a lot of charities – such as cancer research which fund most research on cancer in this country needs to be run by experts in the field, that is, those working in the field now. Absolutely stupid comment. Ageism rules once again – wish Unherd would cover THAT topic.
I choose to differ about retired people running charities. There are many retired people already on charity boards. Some are great, the rest mediocre at best. Why? Those eho are mediocore have worked in the orivate and public sector often in senior positions in huge organisations well removed from the work done on the ground. They know very little about actual work and how peoole operate in a work environment in very often extremely stressful jobs reliant on public purse funding whether in the form of grants or directly from tbe public as donations. Staff in charities more often than not get a redundancy notice in their Xmas card every year, but stick at it because they genuinely care about the work they do.
Grant funding from government can cine in so late, in several cases in Scotland more than 7 months after the start of the financial year this year, that staff have the added stress if not knowing if they will still have jobs at Xmas. Those retired people from the private and public sector cannot comprehend why their staff are so stressed and why they struggle to keep going throughout the year doing their level best which makes them ill.
So maybe encourage retired peoole to volunteer in their communities but keep them far away from actually running the charities themselves.
Ah, well, this is one reason why the Liberal Left conducts its constant blare of accusations of all descriptions. The great purge of corruption during the nineteenth century was driven by a general religious revival, during which the State was reluctantly driven to embrace a virtue which it claimed, but did not practice. It was driven to recognise that its citizens possessed rights and duties.
The Liberal Left does not intend to repeat such a mistake.
It’s rather heartbreaking
You say that but no one seems to have asked who is funding Stonewall.
The answer is we all are https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/327_public_bodies_paying_stonewall_over_1_million_each_year
How is this insanity possible?
Next how the British Government funds HAMAS rocket building course and sailing classes in Calais
There is only one answer. And that is a lot smaller government. Cancers need to be separated from the blood stream of the body politic. Once they are sufficiently diminished, hopefully they can be cut out and allowed to exist on their own merits.
I agree but I think the emphasis needs to be on reversing the exponentially expanding flow of rules and decisions from the UK’s 90 regulatory bodies rather than cutting back formal public ownership.
Stonewall’s appeal to GANHRI appears to show a certain desperation. And we have still yet to hear how the ‘trans’ community is ‘harmed’ by not being able to go into women’s toilets, changing rooms, prisons, refuges, hospital wards, sports etc.
It is unbelievable that we are still discussing that fetishist transvestite men should have the right to intimidate women, accusing them of being some kind of extremist group, as if we’re responsible for their problems with men in men’s areas.
’Trans’ has nothing to do with gay rights, so how they have managed to hack the LGB movement is baffling. If you need to pretend to be the opposite sex in order to deny your gayness, you need therapy to accept the reality of your sexual orientation, not surgery. If you feel a deep need to have a woman’s sex organs you need therapy to address the reality of your body, not surgery (and if therapy doesn’t work & you have the money to mutilate yourself, it’s a painful & desperate option – and it won’t make you a woman). If however you simply like wearing stereotype women’s clothes, just go ahead. No one cares.
Having to make these obvious points over & over again is exhausting, but maybe that’s the point. Unreasonable people with an agenda and a flag to wave are noisy & insistent. Their hope is that the opposition will flag & fail in trying to communicate with them. Courage to you Kathleen. You are a heroine!
“‘Trans’ has nothing to do with gay rights, so how they have managed to hack the LGB movement is baffling” –
Unfortunately, it’s standard Trotskyite tactics. Socialist Worker is a good example: crash somebody else’s protest, turning up with high-production standard placards, “on message” but with the SW logo prominent, shove them into the hands of the unsuspecting rubes who’re there for genuine and stated reasons, then they essentially own the event, media and all. Stonewall is piggybacking then parasitising in the same manner.
I saw this regularly decades ago, as an undergraduate, before I became more wily and cynical. Same old game, and the same bad actors.
Technically, the SWP are not in fact Trotskyists, and real Trots get annoyed when they are lumped in with them.
… and the People’s Judean Liberation Movement are different from the People’s Liberation Movement of Judea!
I don’t think they have to ‘crash somebody else’s protest’. Does no one remember the gay bars of the 80s? The misogynist gay men calling women fish and f’..g in their toilets? Even today every gay bar I go into seems to have reverted to 70s New York with hard core porn on the walls and many ‘no women’ policy. A certain group of gay men are promoting trans so it’s up to gay men to stand up and say this is nothing to do with us. For one, lets get rid of the LGBT+ line. If talking about women, mention ‘lesbian’ if a man ‘gay’ because I read, all the time this line… and for heaven sake, destroy the T. Only gay men (unfortunately) can do this. But it’s time.
“And we have still yet to hear how the ‘trans’ community is ‘harmed’ by not being able to go into women’s toilets, changing rooms, prisons, refuges, hospital wards, sports etc.” We have had recent cases in Australia in which lesbians have been refused permission to advertise female-only lesbian events.
One official said the problem was that the organisers might have to carry out inspections of would-be entrants (i.e. look inside their underwear), and that would be a violation of privacy.
The real reason is that intact males who claim to be women who are attracted to women (as of course they were before transition, when they identified as heterosexual men) want the right to initiate sex with female-born-lesbians. That the lesbians might find that offensive does not occur to them, or if it does, they accuse the lesbians of bigotry and demand that they attend re-education sessions.
So, the “harm” to the trans community is that a group of biological women might not be available to them as sexual partners.
They’ll be complaining about nuns next!
Excellent point: “And we have still yet to hear how the ‘trans’ community is ‘harmed’ by not being able to go into women’s toilets, changing rooms, prisons, refuges, hospital wards, sports etc.” Also why they need to exist when there is an EHRC.
Terms like ‘pluralism’ and ‘diversity’ have a different meaning for woke organizations, such as the BBC and Stonewall. For them, the terms mean a bigger mix of ethnicities and sexualities, but everyone strictly on-message.
I note that both Iraq and Rwanda have ‘A’ status with GANHRI. So if the UK drops to ‘B’ staus, presumably future Iraqi small boats arrivals will be greatly relieved, were they to be sent to Rwanda.
That is hilarious: I wasn’t aware that Rwanda was now such a beacon of enlightened humanism! Perhaps we might use this information to enable a migrant relocation scheme and save these poor people from hellhole Britain…
If all three of the organisations mentioned in that one sentence were to disappear, the only loss to any of us would be an increase in the number of unemployed.
This would be a net benefit rather than a loss as we would only have to fund them from the public purse to the the extent of welfare benefits.
We would all be in a completely different place if the EHRC and the SHRC didn’t exist. They do exceptional work for marginalised groups, such people with dementia, homeless people, people with Learning Disabilities, women and men who have been sexually abused. They support the Third Sector to make sure their work upholds people’s rights.. And they try hard to make sure ordinary citizens know what their rights are, often thwarted by both government and the media.
Spoken like a man, with absolutely no idea how the EHRC has supported women and won women many cases of unfair dismissal in the work place.
Too bad we don’t have some kind of mechanism or rubric to establish when a movement has reached its stated goals. We’ve gone so far past anything reasonable on gender and race, that all the good that has come before is at serious risk of being undone. Trans activism is most definitely the nail in the woke progressive agenda.
Just under the surface lurks the question of the political and social philosophy of human rights. It may be a good thing in some countries and at some times (present day Pakistan etc), but a malign influence in others, like in the West. It’s easy to fall into the ‘all places at all times’ mantra.
Excellent point: I hadn’t considered that as clearly as you’ve put it here. I suppose it’s a type of natural cycle, in that good causes do often seem to descend into rackets, given long enough.
From reading this article one might conclude that the current government is doing a lot regarding women’s rights, while instead it is doing eff all.
I am still waiting on the highly anticipated new guidance for schools which, from what I read, has been so diluted to have become like a homeopathic remedy.
Homeopathy proved invaluable to me when I’d run out of options in the fight against my p***y’s piles and I won’t hear a word said against it.
Are you channeling Mrs Slocombe? If so then I award you five points.
Uganda and Zimbabwe also have GANHRI Category A status and both are very active in persecuting LGB people. Palestine also appears in Category A. Sweden, on the other hand, is in Category B. The United States is not listed. All in all it seems very fair to assume that a country’s GANHRI status and its effectiveness at ensuring respect for human rights are unrelated.
Please explain, if possible, who funds Stonewall and the other 29 trans-rights organisations. Thanks
I am sure they – like the rest if the uniformly political & Progressive Charity Industrial Complex – are largely funded by HMG and the EU. So answer is – you do!
I think Stonewall is largely self funded. They have some racket where businesses are assigned a rating based on their inclusivity, but it sounds more like a pressure campaign for donations.
You can look at their latest published annual report and accounts on the Charity Commission website.
Yet, one time at a trans venue in London, apparently run by the Worthies of that community, I was excluded from the loos since “I know what you gay men are like, you’re going in there to have sex!!”
Oh the humanity!!
Just another example of how once sovereign nations need to divorce themselves from this internationalist phalanx of mindless Woke and Progressive tinpot dictators claiming the right to judge right and wrong for the entire planet. Somebody please tell them to go p*ss up a rope.
Can’t help being minded of Eric Hoffer’s words: “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
Homosexusls were the original stirm troopers of the radical left
Give us an example.
He’s confused. He means that, historically, homosexuals were beaten up by the Stormtroopers of the radial right.
Such a shame. In the days of Peter Tatchell they did some good work. Respect should be given to all, including the very small number of genuine trans-gender people (See: Jan Morris).
Today Stonewall is solely crusading for a cause of fashionable (among a few) social engineering which harms many (See: the 50% who are female), annoys most and does no good. Time for it to be closed down.
Kathleen Stock is a profound force for sanity. Thank you.
The most insidious aspect of this is that Stonewall operate with total impunity, and without a single jot of democratic accountability. Unlike the stupid politicians who enable their totalitarianism. Everyone of us is being affected by their malign influence, from the workplace, to the media, to the democratic process itself. There is a simple solution to this, and this is to force Stonewall to become a registered political party rather than a ‘charity’. At least then they would have some form of accountability.
Charities are accountable – to their directors, to the law, the fourth estate (with notable exceptions!), and the public. It’s just that those who ought to be providing checks and balances are cowed, confused, ignorant, or ineffective. Unfortunately, this is often by design – manipulation, double-think etc.
Reading Stock the Scalpel always makes my day. There is simply no better writer capable of slicing so effortlessly through the 360 degree thicket of tangled nonsense and newspeak that Stonewall spews like the poor girl in The Exorcist. Is that fuddy-duddy old University in the city of dreaming spires capable of waking up and offering Stock a Chair? Who could that sleepy old princess the kiss of enlightenment?
“In that light, then, we should read Stonewall’s complaint to GANHRI not so much as motivated by a genuine concern for liberal neutrality in human rights organisations, but more like the vengeful retribution of a jilted lover, trying to cause problems for an ex’s new relationship by complaining vociferously to the ex’s mum.”
Kathleen Stock is simply wonderful. She has integrity. She’s wise. She writes clear prose and doesn’t ponce around with big words.
Even better, she’s funny.
“UN-partnered Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) to launch a special review into the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission.”
Do either of these institutions actually serve a purpose other than to advance their brand of cultural Marxism?
“described by Stonewall as seeking “to enable greater exclusion of trans women”
Stonewall needs to understand that, despite appearances, “trans-women” have wollies and are not in fact women.
All these international organisations (Geneva Grifters ‘R’ Us) are well past their sell-by date and need dismantling.
But that would leave an open goal for Vlad, Xi and their ilk so they’ll probably just slowly decline into irrelevance.
They’re already leaving an open goal by doing the China/Russia/Iran alliance’s work for them by undermining Western society and Enlightenment values in every way possible. This is not a coincidence, we’re being betrayed by our own institutions.
The charity-industrial complex is unravelling
Is it though? I wish that the ghastly Stonewell was unravelling – instead it seems all organisations and businesses – state and private – are terrified of them.
Indeed, I was pleasantly relieved to find so many active brain cells in the equality, human rights area.
To discover just how useless all this is just count the acronyms that denote talking shops of one sort or another, and also look at the weirdo fatties leading the march.
Trump cultists worried about “weirdo fatties”? That’s hilarious!
Here in Stow-on-the Wold it is widely believed that billions were spent/wasted on AIDS*research, when that money should have been spent on ‘Cancer’ research. This might then explain why our international performance against Cancer has been so pitiful?
Perhaps some of the Legion of UnHerd medical gurus may care to comment?
(*Normally referred to in these parts as A**l Injection Death Syndrome.)
But British cancer research is world-leading. The NHS, which is charged with delivering it, is behind pretty much everyone else in Europe, at least.
Thank you, how very encouraging.
For a bunch of reasons, partly to do with transmission, partly to do with politics, but mostly to do with very tiny bits of the body only seen through very fine instruments, it isn’t true.
‘Induced’ not ‘Injection’ Has been since the very earliest days
.
My recollection from skooldaze is A**lly Injected Death Syndrome. But recollections may vary.
For us uncouth Essex kids it was ‘Ar*e-Injected Death Sentence’.
Presumably if one is dead of AIDS, primarily a disease of the young, one wouldn’t reach the stage of life where one would be in need of a cancer cure?
Except the AIDS research has saved countless lives as people diagnosed in the last 20 years no longer have a death sentence hanging over their heads. Most are hard working members of society bringing up their families without the need for state intervention.If you haven’t had a friend or family member die of AIDS please keep your prejudice to your self.
Put another way Stonewall and similar charities that have blagged their way to being business consultancies are money making grifters that make 1950s Big Tobacco look principled and ethically spotless.
They’re the problem and not the solution anymore. They’re against the ‘L’ rights and careless with the ‘G’s… maybe a £BT$£ logo rights better describes them these days.