Mick Hartley

Jo Bartosch at UnHerd on why Stonewall deserves to go broke:

Once a powerful lobby group that reshaped law and public opinion, Stonewall now occupies itself with campaigns of steadily diminishing relevance. Over the past five years, the charity has spaffed millions in taxpayers’ money on causes ranging from an app for reporting LGBTQ+ “hate incidents” to an asexual hub and a suite of resources urging schools to “centre trans students and staff”.

The latter includes transition care plans which demand whole-school compliance; advice that pupils and staff should use whichever facilities they “feel most comfortable” in; guidance on sleeping in the dormitory that reflects a student’s “gender identity”; and the provision of “non-binary” facilities. Since the Supreme Court ruling on the meaning of sex last year, this guidance now appears to sit firmly on the wrong side of the law.

Children have paid the highest price. Data from the-now disgraced Gender Identity Development Service showed that, of those referred, three-quarters of adolescent girls and half of boys were same-sex-attracted. The implications were so clear that clinicians joked there would soon be no gay kids left. Instead of sounding the alarm, successive Stonewall CEOs promoted the myth of the transgender child, endorsing a medical framework in which gender non-conformity and nascent homosexuality were treated not as ordinary human variation but as defects requiring clinical intervention.…

Stonewall once existed to challenge the pathologisation and suspicion of homosexuality. Today, it has helped normalise both. The charity’s moral bankruptcy is finally reflected on its balance sheet. It is what happens when an organisation abandons its compass and then acts surprised when it runs aground.

What people will look back on with astonishment is the huge impact Stonewall had in its heyday. Practically every institution, every large business, signed up to the Stonewall doctrine, and held seminars where staff were told about gender replacing sex and the importance of using the right pronouns, and letting people use toilets according to their gender identity. They all signed up to be Stonewall Champions, and waited with bated breath to see if they’d make the grade as leaders. They thought it was the latest thing, after women’s lib and gay rights – but a moment’s thought would have made it clear that this was all bunkum, driven not by a progressive ideology but by misogyny and homophobia. It was the most ridiculous movement I think I’ve seen in my lifetime – here in the west, that is. Our very own Lysenkoism.

And it’s still not over.