The GutterView Transcripts

This article from October 2018. The original is here   Even our MPs are afraid of the transgender mob From magazine issue:  Divide and rule What are MPs thinking? It’s easy to assume, in the age of Twitter, that we know more about the positions our politicians take than ever before: quite a few of them, after all, spend rather too much time online telling us what they think about stuff. That has changed political journalism, but not always to the improvement of public understanding of politics. Journalism-by-Twitter, after all, runs the risk of missing the thoughts and opinions that MPs don’t put online. One of the issues that most MPs don’t tweet about is trangenderism and the laws and rules around gender. Indeed, that’s one of the reasons I write so much about those things here. The failure of MPs to do their job and discuss gender issues properly has left a vacuum that leaves a lot of people (on all sides) feeling a bit lost and prone to stridency, fear and anger. If y...

 This article is from September 2019 'Anti-women' trans policy may split Stonewall "Pioneers of the gay rights movement in Britain have discussed forming a breakaway organisation from the Stonewall pressure group because they fear women and children are at risk from its transgender policy. In a letter to The Sunday Times, 22 signatories including Simon Fanshawe, who co-founded Stonewall in 1989, said it had “undermined women’s sex-based rights and protections”. They are most worried primary school children are too quickly challenged to review their gender identity. They state: “If Stonewall remains intransigent, there must surely now be an opening for a new organisation committed both to freedom of speech and to fact instead of fantasy.” It has the working title LGB Alliance. Their intervention is timed to put pressure on the government as it prepares to announce the result of its review of the Gender Recognition Act 2004. It is considering whether to make it easier for pe...

Critics call for law firms to quit Stonewall Some lawyers say the charity’s diversity scheme is harming free speech Pressure is mounting on law firms, barristers’ chambers and leaders of the Law Society to withdraw from schemes run by the charity Stonewall amid concern over its stance on transgender rights. Allison Bailey, a black lesbian barrister, is suing Stonewall over allegations that the charity instructed, caused or pressed her chambers, Garden Court, to investigate her after she helped to set up the LGB Alliance, which sought to provide an alternative view to the charity’s position on trans rights. And within recent weeks it has emerged that the Equality and Human Rights Commission and Acas, the employment dispute service, have withdrawn from the diversity scheme for “costs reasons”. At the heart of the row is a move by Stonewall, which was founded in 1989 to campaign for gay rights, to shift its focus on to the transgender issue since the Marriage Equality (Same Sex) Act 2013 ...

Groped student reprimanded for naming abuser  "A woman who named and shamed a fellow student after he allegedly sexually assaulted her has been punished by the University of Edinburgh. The first-year student, who has requested anonymity, posted a photograph and name of a man — alongside text messages he had sent to her — on social media, alleging that he groped her. She claimed that she had been left traumatised by the incident and insisted that other women deserved to be warned. The man at the centre of the allegations admitted that he had touched her inappropriately and claimed he had apologised for doing so. Despite this, the university launched an investigation which found the woman had harassed him. The female student has posted a copy of an email, which stated that she had been found guilty of misconduct. It stated: “The posting of a number of private messages between yourself and [the male student] on social media has had a significant impact on him and has resulted in him ...

Stonewall has been accused of misrepresenting the law in its advice to Essex University, which failed to uphold free speech when it dropped speakers accused of transphobia. A barrister, Akua Reindorf, warned of “potential illegalities” and said the university should reconsider its ties to the campaigning group. Her report was commissioned by Essex after two professors were disinvited from events. Stonewall provides expert advice to hundreds of organisations, including employers, schools, universities and police forces, through its “diversity champions” programme. Jo Phoenix, a professor in criminology at the Open University, was due to speak at a Centre for Criminology seminar on trans rights, imprisonment and the criminal justice system in 2019. After protests about her inclusion, the event was cancelled. Rosa Freedman, a professor of law development and global conflict at Reading University, was told she would be invited to speak at an event on antisemitism. She was dropp...