BBC quits Stonewall Diversity Scheme

I am coming to the end of the podcasts now, and thoroughly recommend them. Each one examines a different aspect of the issue, so Nolan can go into depth about it, and experts of various kinds are interviewed. They are well worth a listen for anyone with an interest in the topic, whatever their perspective.

Also, they are about organisations that have been influenced by Stonewall, not just about the BBC, so anyone who feels that they would be tainted by listening to something that refers to an organisation that has been criticised can listen with a clear conscience.

BrightandBreezy

Very good news. I have never understood their 'no debate' stance. Such a stance seems very strange in an organisation originally set up to stand against prejudice.

In my opinion the 'no debate' stance was because they knew they had nothing that would stand up to rigorous scrutiny, so their aims had to be achieved by diktat. Sunlight is beginning to pour in, and as the general public become more and more aware of the full implications, pushback is happening.

Are the BBC finally listing to what people are saying outside the bbc bubble

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10200481/BBC-chief-tells-LGBT-staff-used-hearing-views-dont-like-Zoom-call.html

From the article:
Stonewall said it was 'a shame' that the BBC had left the scheme, adding in a hard-hitting statement: 'Many of the arguments against trans people today are simply recycled homophobia from the 80s and 90s. 'We all remember being told gay people were predators and lesbians were a threat in single-sex spaces. 'That wasn't true of lesbians, bi and gay people then, and it isn't true of trans people now.'

We get this argument peddled on here, too - that not buying in to the whole TWAW stance is akin to homophobia.

This does not stand up for a number of reasons, the main ones being:
(1) that lesbians in a female space are exactly where they should be, as are gay men in locker rooms. Clearly, people suggesting that they should not be there are out of line. Single-sex spaces are segregated on the lines of sex, not sexuality. Segregating on the lines of sex is done to protect the (usually) weaker from the (usually) stronger. That segregation is exactly what gender critical feminists are arguing for.

(2) it is Stonewall who insists on adding the 'T' to LGB(TQ+) to conflate trans issues with gay and bi ones. To suggest that these issues are the same (outs of the human rights issues that apply to everyone) is to push the needs of gay people aside. It is responsible for the idea that a gay person is a trans person who hasn't recognised that yet. It is also behind the idea that a lesbian who prefers sex that doesn't involve a penis, so doesn't want to have sex with a transwoman (who has a penis) is transphobic and deserving of threats and intimidation.

If those things are not homophobic, I don't know what is. Wanting to be counselled by a woman after being raped by a man, or not wanting to undress in front of the opposite sex, or not wanting crime or social welfare statistics to be skewed by self-identifying 'women' is nothing to do with homophobia, and the two things cannot be compared in any way.

Another good post, Doodledog

Why are trans people so embarrassed about admitting to being that status that they have to keep pretending to be something else?

It is nothing to be ashamed of.

From the Times:

The BBC’s head of news told LGBT staff that they must get used to hearing views they disagreed with as the corporation faced accusations from its own employees that it was “institutionally transphobic”.

Fran Unsworth, who is due to leave the corporation in January, was speaking on an often-hostile Zoom call with the BBC’s Pride network on Friday morning. Two sources who attended the meeting said Unsworth, 63, told staff: “You’ll hear things you don’t personally like and see things you don’t like — that’s what the BBC is, and you have to get used to that.” She added: “These are the stories we tell. We can’t walk away from the conversation.”

A BBC journalist said: “Fran was totally calm but determined about it. She was reacting to questions from the network that implied people shouldn’t come across views they disliked. To me, it felt like she was having to explain journalism to idiots.”

Davie and Rhodri Talfan Davies, the BBC’s director of nations, who was also on the panel, also defended a recent article by the reporter Caroline Lowbridge, who interviewed lesbian women who felt “pressured and coerced into accepting trans women as partners”. The article on the BBC News website caused a furore both inside and outside the corporation, with more than 16,000 people signing an open letter demanding the BBC apologise. The pair are understood to have said that it was a good piece of journalism, with the caveat that a quotation had had to be removed after publication. A BBC source added that the meeting was “extremely hostile” towards Davie, 54, who was previously chairman of a lesbian, gay and bisexual working group at the BBC. “He was told by one member of staff that he was not in a position to make decisions on this issue, because he’s not trans,” the source said. “Another said the BBC was institutionally transphobic.”

Davie told LGBT staff he would listen to their views, that he was concerned by the idea that LGBT staff were leaving the corporation over its policies and that it was a priority to make them feel comfortable at work.

So lesbian women shouldn't be allowed to speak about the coercion that's happening to them and they should be silenced? And if anyone tries to discuss it, they're transphobic?

M0nica

Why are trans people so embarrassed about admitting to being that status that they have to keep pretending to be something else?

It is nothing to be ashamed of.

Great point, M0nica. I might quote that in future if I may?

Be careful where/when you use it Doodledog!

I don't know how people can be so stupid at to say there was concern about lesbians and gay men in single sex spaces.
Obviously they were already there and legislation was not going to change that.
Unlike the situation that has now been pushed onto us.

FarNorth

I don't know how people can be so stupid at to say there was concern about lesbians and gay men in single sex spaces.
Obviously they were already there and legislation was not going to change that.
Unlike the situation that has now been pushed onto us.

Exactly! Most people didn't give a thought as to whether or not there were gays or lesbians in single sex spaces, it just didn't enter our heads, I can't ever remember considering it as anything to be thought about. I can't remember who it was, but I distinctly remember a gay man saying the "backs to the wall" gibes were silly as they assumed a complete lack of discrimination as to who was desirable ? the complete putdown of the hetero male ego!

M0nica, maybe those trans who wish to live in their trans state without trauma would prefer not to declare it at the moment. If they have gone to great effort to fit in why It may eventually become as normal as being gay or lesbian. Maybe those who want to claim they have actually become women or men, which implies an impossible sex change don’t want to use the accurate term TW or TM even though, as you say, it is nothing to be ashamed of.

M0nica

Why are trans people so embarrassed about admitting to being that status that they have to keep pretending to be something else?

It is nothing to be ashamed of.

Transwomen are often subject to vile abuse, so are not necessarily embarrassed but aware of the unpleasantness and hatred they can receive. Our football club welcomed a trans woman, well known in trans circles, who was waiting a certificate from the FA to play. She put it on her fb how excited she was, only to receive lots of vile and threatening abuse, so much so she decided not to play for us. She never revealed the Club’s name as she didn’t want us to receive similar abuse when we had treated her as any other player.

Rosie51

FarNorth

I don't know how people can be so stupid at to say there was concern about lesbians and gay men in single sex spaces.
Obviously they were already there and legislation was not going to change that.
Unlike the situation that has now been pushed onto us.

Exactly! Most people didn't give a thought as to whether or not there were gays or lesbians in single sex spaces, it just didn't enter our heads, I can't ever remember considering it as anything to be thought about. I can't remember who it was, but I distinctly remember a gay man saying the "backs to the wall" gibes were silly as they assumed a complete lack of discrimination as to who was desirable ? the complete putdown of the hetero male ego!

Sorry but gay men were seen as a threat by some organisations. The army didn't permit soldiers to say they were gay until 2000 and gay men were denied their medals until quite recently. www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/16/british-soldiers-sacked-for-being-gay-can-get-their-medals-back The idea that men were in danger from gay men isn't too far in the past

The idea that men were in danger from gay men is not to far in the past. But it is in the past so . . .

Sorry but gay men were seen as a threat by some organisations. The army didn't permit soldiers to say they were gay until 2000 and gay men were denied their medals until quite recently. www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/16/british-soldiers-sacked-for-being-gay-can-get-their-medals-back The idea that men were in danger from gay men isn't too far in the past
No, I agree. Homophobia was alive and well until very recently (and still exists in the minds of many).

Where I disagree is with the notion that dissenting voices against the Stonewall agenda are parroting homophobia. They are different things, and the objections are different. There are those who are just intolerant of anything 'different', but it is perfectly possible to be homophobic and a TRA, just as it is possible to be gender critical and entirely comfortable with homosexuality.

There are so many generalisations on these threads that it feels like every post has to start anew with a definition of terms.

It has always puzzled me, when I am in communal changing room, how can I recognise who is lesbian and who isn't? They all just look like women to me.

If you are worried avoid communal changing rooms- change in the loo.

Gay men may have been perceived as a threat but no-one was afraid that more & more gay men would start to use men's changing rooms and men's lavatories, because obviously they were already doing that.

Unlike the current situation where we are being told to accept any man at all as a woman if he says so.
The obvious result being more & more men, who are not trans at all, taking advantage of the chance to harass women and girls.

You really think that's the solution varian?

ps. No-one is worried about lesbians.

FarNorth

You really think that's the solution varian?

Yes I do.

varian

FarNorth

You really think that's the solution varian?

Yes I do.

In dress shops? How will that work without alerting the attention of store detectives? And how will you see yourself in a full-length mirror and take your friend in to tell you if your bum looks big in it?

varian what made you think I was worried about this?