Stonewall Has Lost the Plot

Stonewall head Nancy Kelley has defended the organisation's position amid a freedom of speech row and criticism from a founder.

Matthew Parris said in the Times that Stonewall had become "tangled up in the trans issue" and "cornered into an extremist stance".

But Ms Kelley told the BBC she was "really comfortable" with the direction the charity was going in.

She likened so-called "gender critical" beliefs to anti-Semitism.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has said its defence of the right to hold "gender critical beliefs" - that sex cannot be changed - "does not have an impact on our commitment to uphold the rights of transgender people".

The new EHRC chair, Lady Falkner, has said women have the right to question transgender identity without being abused, stigmatised or risking losing their job.

Ms Kelley said that while Stonewall believed in freedom of speech, it was "not without limit".

"With all beliefs including controversial beliefs there is a right to express those beliefs publicly and where they're harmful or damaging - whether it's anti-Semitic beliefs, gender critical beliefs, beliefs about disability - we have legal systems that are put in place for people who are harmed by that."

Challenged as to whether it might be considered offensive to compare anti-Semitic beliefs to gender-critical views, she insisted it was appropriate.

"We're talking about protected groups. We're talking about people that are protected on the basis of their sexuality, people that are protected on the basis of gender identity, people who are protected on the basis of race and that's why I think the analogy is apt."

Journalist and former Tory MP Matthew Parris, one of Stonewall's 14 founders, recently suggested the charity had "lost its way".

In an article for the Times, he said: "The organisation is tangled up in the trans issue, cornered into an extremist stance on a debate that a charity formed to help gay men, lesbian women and bisexual people should never have got itself into."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57281448

I mean she is saying that stating sex is real is equivalent to antisemitism. I mean seriously WTF?

Best response to this lunacy from Stonewall is by Professor Alice Sullivan:

Prof Alice wrote:
Nancy Kelley, CEO of Stonewall likens "gender critical" beliefs to anti-Semitism. The core tenets of the beliefs that she objects to are that sex is real and that it matters. The only motivation for this crass comparison is to justify #nodebate

Recall that Nancy Kelley was involved in no-platforming me for arguing that sex should be measured accurately in the 2021 Census.

The reason gender identity extremists invoke anti-Semitism, fascism and Holocaust-denial is simply so that they can bring "no platform for fascists" into play.



https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-9752.12549

This hateful tactic of smearing women who argue that sex matters as fascists, Holocaust-deniers and anti-Semites has consequences. It is intended to monster these women in order to justify taking any means to silence them.

Analogies which make light of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism always contain an undertone of anti-Semitism. When Jewish women are attacked in this way, as Rosa Freedman was by a lecturer at the University of Essex when she was no-platformed on Holocaust memorial day, the anti-Semitism appears brazen, almost unbelievable.

Will Nancy Kelley condemn these abuses, designed to shut women up? It seems unlikely.

This is a new low for Stonewall.

https://twitter.com/ProfAliceS/status/1398536826374270977