The Times- Stonewall fails to stop lesbian suing in trans row
Stonewall fails to stop lesbian suing in trans row
Stonewall, the gay rights charity, has failed to stop a lesbian lawyer from suing it over allegations that it tried to silence her opposition to its policy on transgender rights.
The campaign group, which faces pressure over its interpretation of equality legislation, had tried to have a legal action brought by Allison Bailey, of Garden Court Chambers, dismissed.
It has emerged that earlier this year a judge at an employment tribunal rejected the attempt to strike out the discrimination claim.
Bailey is suing Stonewall and the chambers over allegations that they tried to silence her after she co-founded a group called the LGB Alliance. That group opposed Stonewall’s view that trans-women should legally be viewed as women.
Garden Court, where Bailey practises as a criminal law specialist, is a member of Stonewall’s “diversity champions” scheme.
Bailey claimed that “in retribution” for launching a group with a rival view to that of Stonewall, the charity “co- ordinated with the barristers’ chambers . . . to put me under investigation”.
In a fundraising campaign to support her legal action, Bailey said: “This was an attempt by Stonewall to intimidate and silence me and others critical of what we see as its malign influence in British life: workplaces, schools, universities, the police, the judiciary, the Crown Prosecution Service and all government departments”.
At the weekend, Liz Truss, the women and equalities minister, urged all government departments to withdraw from the Stonewall scheme. In addition to the CPS, the Ministry of Justice and the Home Officer are members of the scheme. Within the past fortnight it has emerged that the Equality and Human Rights Commission and Acas, the workplace mediation body, had dropped out of the Stonewall scheme. Both cited financial reasons.
It is understood that companies and public bodies pay Stonewall at least £2,500 a year to be part of the scheme and that it has raised more than £3.2 million in 2019 on the back of the diversity champions and other schemes.
Bailey, who is the daughter of Jamaican immigrants and was called to the Bar in 2001, said that “new trans activism operated a crude but effective system of punishment and reward: agree with every demand of the trans lobby and be safe; object and face vilification, abuse, boycott, character assassination and cancellation”.
Bailey described the view that “trans women are women” and “trans rights are human rights” as the “mantras” of trans activism. “The new trans activists are joined by politicians, journalists, lawyers, writers, entire organisations and assorted celebrities, in the chanting of these mantras to shut down debate,” she said: “While others who are appalled at what they see happening are too afraid to speak out. It is cult-like behaviour, it is Orwellian and it has disgraced and shamed a generation.”
Stonewall was launched in the UK in 1989, originally as a group that lobbied and campaigned for homosexual rights. One of its biggest battles was against the imposition of section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which had been implemented by Margaret Thatcher’s government. That legislation made the “promotion of homosexuality” by councils unlawful.
Many businesses and organisations in the legal profession have signed up to Stonewall’s diversity champions scheme. About 80 law firms, including all five of the so-called Magic Circle, are members, as is the Law Society.
One barrister, who did not want to be identified, said: “That so many government departments, police, judiciary, schools and universities are signed up to [Stonewall’s] inaccurate and unlawful view of equality legislation represents a national crisis.”
Stonewall and Garden Court deny discrimination and victimisation.
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