Mick Hartley

All these organisations that've signed up for Stonewall's Diversity Champions scheme seem to be desperate to be awarded points in their "fairest employers" ranking, so they can boast about what good boys and girls they've been – like some trans Blue Peter awards. It's pathetic – and astonishing. How did a lobbying organisation for gender ideology get so powerful?

Stonewall has been accused of using a workplace equality scheme to “coerce” publicly-funded organisations and companies to lobby for changes to the law.

Documents show how the charity seeks to control what NHS trusts, government departments and local councils say on their social media accounts, demanding public support for its controversial views on gender identity, in return for points on its Top 100 Employers index.

The scheme is commonly thought of as a celebration of the fairest employers in the country and their efforts to eliminate discrimination in the workplace.

However, The Times can disclose that the charity is using the index to force organisations to lobby on its behalf, rewarding them with higher rankings if they bring their own policies in line with Stonewall’s agenda, and dropping them from the Top 100 if they do not.

Stonewall is already under fire for ordering public bodies to banish the word “mother” from their maternity policies and replace it with “birthing parent” or “pregnant employee” to boost scores.

Hundreds of documents, seen by The Times, now reveal how the scheme is being used to encourage organisations including the Scottish government and the Intellectual Property Office into campaigning for controversial changes to the law in return for a higher ranking as a “top employer”.

It also shows the organisations being rewarded for promoting Stonewall’s rigid views on gender identity and suppressing freedom of speech within their organisations.

Simon Fanshawe, one of the original founders of Stonewall, told The Times: “[The index] started out as a way of helping employers ensure their lesbian and gay staff were well looked after, so for example, that they got compassionate leave if their partner was ill or died. It was a kind of kitemark.

“But what it has turned into now sounds more like coercion — a way of coercing employers in their language and structure, instead of encouraging them to embrace the different needs of their LGBT staff.”

Legal experts have warned organisations that coercing all staff to conform to Stonewall’s rigid stance on sex and gender may leave them at risk of legal challenge.

“Employers want to be one of the good guys,” an equality officer and former Stonewall volunteer told The Times who considered signing his organisation up.

He knew that winning a spot on Stonewall’s Top 100 employers would bring bragging rights. If it won a place, his public sector employer would be celebrated and could woo the top talent with its stamp of approval as a discrimination-free workplace.

He agreed to a meeting with its representatives, keen to learn more about the Workplace Equality Index.

“There was a very manipulative tone. I remember being told, ‘well, you don’t have to apply, but if you don’t, do you really feel you have the expertise to deal with this in-house?’ It felt like emotional blackmail. The tone of the meeting felt quite high-pressured,” he said, “with a ‘We can sign you up today’ vibe — a little like a time-share presentation.”

It wasn’t the £2,500 Diversity Champion membership fee you had to pay, before being eligible to apply, that put him off; it was the “sheer volume” of work the application demanded. He had heard of another organisation that spent three months working on a submission of hundreds of pages. He declined, but plenty others did not.

Naomi Cunningham, barrister and chairwoman of Sex Matters said: “Stonewall sells its Workplace Equality Index as a scheme to help organisations comply with equality law. But what it offers is lobbying — it presents its own highly contentious understanding of what the law should be presented as ‘training’ on what the law is.

“It tells organisations to treat anyone who identifies as the opposite sex as if they have changed sex, and are therefore automatically entitled to use spaces such as toilets, changing rooms and showers that others rely on for privacy. That’s not the law. But Stonewall presents it as if it is and encourages organisations to treat any objections as a disciplinary matter.

LGB Alliance co-founder Kate Harris:

I was working at American Express in the heyday of Stonewall’s brilliant campaign for LGB equality at work. As a “Stonewall ambassador”, I was pleased and proud to support the Diversity Champions programme created in 2005.

The equality index itself was a relatively small part of Stonewall’s efforts to make employers aware that LGB people existed and should have our rights protected. There were meetings, training schemes and an annual conference with high-ranking speakers such as the home secretary.

The index was a simple set of questions which enabled LGB people to check that our employers knew what the law said and to help them build a diverse workforce by encouraging us to be out and proud.

In those days it was such a mild, well-intentioned programme. Its present-day version makes me shudder. It’s vile. Stonewall encourages organisations to be “ahead of the law” and gives incorrect advice on the Equality Act. It says the protected characteristic of gender reassignment really means gender identity. That is factually incorrect.

It is a mystery to me how what started out as a brilliant and progressive programme went so badly wrong. Stonewall has created an environment where you either toe their line or you are a transphobic bigot. It’s very easy to get it wrong. Ask Stonewall whether we really need to make employees use preferred pronouns or whether women would prefer to keep women-only loos and you’re soon marked as transphobic.

Why are employers in thrall to an unelected lobby group that misrepresents the law, and not safeguarding their organisations’ reputations and the wellbeing of all employees?

The reason people trusted Stonewall was because sensible and thoughtful volunteers told employers it had integrity. We did so in the firm belief that we were making the world a better place. Then, somehow, we took our eye off the ball. Years later, we realised we had created a monster.