1971 candlelight parade in New York City during Gay Liberation Week, in commemoration of the 1969 Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village. (Grey Villet—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images) #pride #stonewall #tbt https://www.instagram.com/p/BzNv6eOH4md/?igshid=1v80uwdkudfi5
So, I thought everyone would be excited for the new Stonewall flick. Well, apparently not. There has been a huge controversy brewing around the release of Stonewall due to accusations of a ‘Whitewashing’ attempt by the director Roland Emmerich. To give some context to these claims for anyone who is unfamiliar with the actual events of the Stonewall Riots I will take this opportunity to fill you…
This pioneer was a notable transgender rights activist and popular figure in New York City’s gay and art scene, as well as one of the city’s best known trans women of the times. She was a leader in clashes with the police amid the Stonewall Riots.
She was a co-founder, along with Sylvia Rivera, of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.) in the 1970s, and also the “mother” of S.T.A.R. House along with Sylvia, getting together food and clothing to help support the young trans women living in the house on the lower East Side of New York.
Once, appearing in a court the judge asked Marsha, “What does the ‘P’ stand for?”, Johnson gave her customary response “Pay it No Mind.” This phrase became her trademark.
In July 1992, her body was found floating in the Hudson River, shortly after the 1992 Pride March. Police ruled the death a suicide, but her friends and supporters denied this, and a people’s postering campaign later declared that Johnson had earlier been harassed near the spot where her body was found. Attempts to get the police to investigate the cause of death were unsuccessful.
Remembering the trans women of color who kickstarted the queer revolution with love, respect, and admiration. Happy pride.
Education is a great way to honor their memory, so we’ll make it a little easier for you with a sale. Use promo code STONEWALL at http://thegenderbook.com/shop
“Honey, I don’t care if I never have nothing ever’ till the day I die. All I want is my freedom.”
Marsha P. Johnson, a black trans woman who was known for pioneering a movement that has had incredible long lasting systematic change. During the so called Stonewall riots (riots which broke out after the police had once again raided the lgbtq bar Stonewall Inn) in 1969, she was one of the first to begin resisting the police. Without her and other black lgbtq+ folks, we wouldn’t be celebrating pride. #HappyPrideMonth ✨
I’m so proud to announce that I am partnering with Stonewall - Europe’s biggest LGBTQ+ rights organisation - on the Stonewall x Yasmin Benoit #AceProject!
We are going to be conducting research into the issue of asexual discrimination in the UK and putting together a report which will be used to provide a clear set of actions to influence policy and legislation.
It’s time for asexuality to be recognised as a legitimate orientation in the UK and protected as such. It’s time to end the medicalisation of asexuality. We can only do that with research, and we need YOU to be participants! It’s time for ace voices to be heard, so we need you to be loud!
If you’re over 18, based in the UK, and have experienced any degree of asexual discrimination during your time in education, in the workplace or in healthcare, please register your interest in being part of our focus groups: https://www.stonewall.org.uk/stonewall-x-yasmin-benoit-ace-project or email me directly at [email protected]!
Stonewall are the biggest LGBTQ+ rights organisation in Europe and have been pivotal in the fight for equality, now they’ll be pivotal in protecting the ace community too. It’s an absolute honour to partner with them on this and to be entrusted with such important work. Representation in research and legislation matters too. I’ve always wanted to use my background in social science to contribute to that. Thank you to everyone who has shown their support for the project so far.
If you can’t help, please share this so we can attract more participants and raise awareness for the initiative! It’s time to change the game.
I’m so proud to announce that I am partnering with Stonewall - Europe’s biggest LGBTQ+ rights organisation - on the Stonewall x Yasmin Benoit #AceProject!
We are going to be conducting research into the issue of asexual discrimination in the UK and putting together a report which will be used to provide a clear set of actions to influence policy and legislation.
It’s time for asexuality to be recognised as a legitimate orientation in the UK and protected as such. It’s time to end the medicalisation of asexuality. We can only do that with research, and we need YOU to be participants! It’s time for ace voices to be heard, so we need you to be loud!
If you’re over 18, based in the UK, and have experienced any degree of asexual discrimination during your time in education, in the workplace or in healthcare, please register your interest in being part of our focus groups: https://www.stonewall.org.uk/stonewall-x-yasmin-benoit-ace-project or email me directly at [email protected]!
Stonewall are the biggest LGBTQ+ rights organisation in Europe and have been pivotal in the fight for equality, now they’ll be pivotal in protecting the ace community too. It’s an absolute honour to partner with them on this and to be entrusted with such important work. Representation in research and legislation matters too. I’ve always wanted to use my background in social science to contribute to that. Thank you to everyone who has shown their support for the project so far.
If you can’t help, please share this so we can attract more participants and raise awareness for the initiative! It’s time to change the game.
I will speak on behalf of polish LGBT+ community. Today (10th of July) the president of Poland (Andrzej Duda) signed a law called "THE FAMILY CARD" established to “protect” the children. The law says that for children the most dangerous are LGBT+ people. Alcoholism, pathology, domestic violence or pedophilia are not even mentioned.
Formally they call us “ideology”, “pedophiles”, “strangers”. A lot of people threaten us. We have to deal with insults everyday. They do not listen to us at all. They want to get rid of us. They use the flag of our country against us!
They want to protect children by banning sex education. By restricting the law. By restricting human rights. By restricting the individual liberty.
Please, visit the side I linked below. You will find more info on the site, a controversial video and a petition to sign for free.
On this day in 1969, a series of demonstrations by members of the LGBTQ community against police took place at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, later to be known as the Stonewall riots. To commemorate this watershed moment for LGBTQ rights, artist Cary Leibowitz designed Stonewall Yarmulke (Shalom Independence: July 4, 1776 - June 27, 1969) custom-made skullcaps now part of the Jewish Museum collection. A symbol of traditional Jewish observance, the yarmulkes become a canvas for the expression of various social and political ideas from domestic politics to Holocaust remembrance to gay pride.
Wow it’s been a long time. I cringe looking at some of my old photography on here but I also feel it’s a cool measure of growth. Anyways here’s some new stuff from the last few years. Stonewall Peak, Cuyamaca Rancho State Park San Diego, CA
#LGBTHM15 #SylviaRivera (1951 - 2002) Rivera was one of the protestors in the Stonewall riots. She was a founding member of both the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance. With her close friend, Marsha P. Johnson, Rivera co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR). Rivera worked tirelessly for drag queens and trans women of color.
Stormé DeLarverie (1920 - 2014) the Black #butch #lesbian who was rumoured to have kicked off and started the #Stonewall riots. She was reported to have shouted “Why don’t you guys do something?” as she was manhandled into the police wagon handcuffed and this sparked the fight back. In the 1950s and 60’s she was a drag king performer in the Jewel Box revue. Michelle Parkerson made a documentary about her called Stormé: The Lady of the Jewel Box. photo Diane Arbus
London lawyers have been transfixed this spring by a humble employment tribunal — one that goes to the heart of both the trans debate and the ethics of the legal profession.
Garden Court, one of the country’s most prominent chambers of human rights and civil liberties barristers, is in a bitter battle over allegations involving transphobia and claims that it was in the pocket of Stonewall, the UK’s leading LGBT rights organisation.
The chambers and the charity are being sued by Allison Bailey, a lesbian criminal law barrister, who claims that senior lawyers at Garden Court discriminated against her — to the point where she lost a significant amount of earnings — because she had said publicly that sex was immutable and that men could not become women.
Wider evidence has emerged during the four-week hearing that some female barristers at the chambers claimed that, quite apart from its progressive and diverse image, Garden Court was rife with sex discrimination that put them on lower earnings than their male counterparts. Further evidence showed that senior barristers at the chambers routinely posted inflammatory comments on social media.
Arguably most damaging, it has been alleged that Garden Court is a fundamentally badly managed chambers with its QC heads and other senior lawyers having told the tribunal they were on holiday, too busy, looking after their children — or even based abroad — at crucial times in the dispute with Bailey.
As one lawyer said as the main evidence session finished this week: “The trial has been reputationally appalling for both Garden Court and Stonewall.”
Garden Court and Stonewall have denied any wrongdoing and are defending the claims.
Evidence during the hearing, which finished on Thursday, has been lurid and fractious, with barristers who are used to asking questions in court being forced into the uncomfortable position of facing a grilling in the witness box.
There have also been moments when the hearing slipped into the realm of the bizarre. One witness, Kirrin Medcalf, Stonewall’s head of trans inclusion, told Sarah Goodman, the tribunal judge, that he required a support worker, his mother and a support dog to be with him while giving evidence.
On another occasion Ben Cooper, QC, Bailey’s lawyer, questioned a former senior figure at the Bar Council, which represents the profession in England and Wales, who supported the principle of a training session in which trans women who self-identified as lesbians were “coached” on how to “coerce” female lesbians into having sex with transpeople with penises.
Bailey says that she will not comment on the case until a ruling is given. The parties are expected to return, remotely, to the Central London tribunal on June 20 for closing statements and judgment is likely to be reserved to a later date.
Sarah Phillimore, a family law barrister in Bristol, who has been following the hearing, described it as “a reputational car crash” for Garden Court, which until now was held in high regard. “They talk the talk,” Phillimore said of the chambers, adding: “They give a picture of being a respectable, well-run, ethical establishment, but when the rubber hit the road, they crumbled.”
More generally, Phillimore said the case offered salutary lessons for the barristers’ profession. “If you leave the management to a group of self- employed people who are doing their demanding day jobs, inevitably things are going to crack — no one had time to consider things properly,” she said.
Several outcomes are possible when the tribunal panel gives its ruling. The case is legally interesting because despite Bailey being a self-employed barrister, she has been allowed to bring a claim in the employment tribunal since under equality law, chambers are viewed as trade associations.
Bailey is also able to sue Stonewall because the Equality Act 2010 states that it is unlawful to induce, cause or influence prohibited conduct. In this case, it is alleged that Stonewall put pressure on Garden Court to discipline Bailey over her gender-critical comments.
Bailey could triumph over both Garden Court and Stonewall or only one, with damages awarded. Or she could lose the claim entirely.
Regardless of which way the ruling goes, the case has illustrated that the culture wars in the supposedly sedate Inns of Court over the fraught issue of transgenderism are only beginning.
A spokesman for Garden Court said that the chambers “strongly refute the claims made against us”. He added: “We have a professional obligation to investigate any complaints received by our chambers. Following an investigation in 2019 into complaints made about Ms Bailey’s social media posts, it was concluded that no action was necessary.”
Yesterday, while watching the Allison Bailey case online, I heard one of the worst takes on the ‘transgender rights’ to date. Bailey, a criminal defence barrister, is suing her former chambers, Garden Court (GCC), alongside Stonewall, after claiming she was unlawfully discriminated against. Her crime? She believes that sex is biological and cannot change.
Bailey, a black lesbian, argues that GCC wrongly treated her views as transphobic. She is also claiming that her chambers, as a member of Stonewall’s Diversity Champions scheme, came under pressure from Stonewall to get rid of her.
One of two tweets by Bailey deemed to be ‘unacceptable’ by Stonewall and GCC was in response to the announcement of a series of workshops run by Morgan Page, a transwoman who was subsequently employed by Stonewall. The series was called ‘Overcoming the cotton ceiling’, the premise of which being that transwomen are discriminated against when lesbians refuse to have sex with male-bodied transwomen. This, apparently, amounts to discrimination and unfair treatment.
As Bailey tweeted in 2019: ‘Stonewall recently hired Morgan Page, a male bodied person who ran workshops with the sole aim of coaching heterosexual men who identify as lesbians on how they can coerce young lesbians into having sex with them. Page called [it] “overcoming the cotton ceiling” and it is popular.’
Stonewall complained to Bailey’s chambers and it was soon announced that Bailey was under investigation, which was carried out by Maya Sikand QC, member of Garden Court’s management board. Relying on advice from Cathryn McGahey QC, vice-chair of the Bar Council’s ethics committee, Sikand was told that Allison’s tweets were “probably over the borderline of acceptable conduct”.
But during yesterday’s cross-examination by Bailey’s QC Ben Cooper, McGahey argued that a lesbian could be persuaded to have sex with a transwoman “in a way that was not coercive”. McGahey added that Bailey’s view that the workshop was coercive “is not substantiated”. “I cannot see that the sole purpose of the workshop,” she said, “was to coerce lesbians into having sex with transwomen”.
But even more shocking than dismissing the substantiated lesbian fears over sexual coercion was the analogy that McGahey used to back up her assertion, comparing a workshop to help trans-identifying males overcome lesbians’ sexual boundaries “to South Africa attempting to racially integrate society”.
Nancy Kelly, Stonewall CEO, has previously complained that the ‘highly toxic’ cotton ceiling issue was ‘analogous to sexual racism’. “[Allison] AB did not have a basis for this tweet,” said McGahey under cross examination. But she did. All lesbians do. It is endemic to the context of anti-lesbian prejudice, bigotry and sexualisation in which we live.
The fear lesbians experience of corrective rape is very real. I have interviewed women in South Africa and Uganda who tell me that men have a get-out-of-jail free card if they tell police they carried out sexual assaults on lesbians to ‘straighten them out’. I have lost count of the time men have told me to get over myself and learn to love the penis. “All you need is a good f**k” is a phrase that lesbians universally recognise.
A senior lawyer comparing transwomen coercing lesbians with black South Africans fighting the system of Apartheid is appalling. To do so in a case involving a black lesbian who has spoken out about being a survivor of childhood sexual abuse is almost beyond belief.
This is one of those great blunders trans rights activists can’t help making.
I met Doctor Az Hakeem and Stella O’Malley (who is being smeared in a similar way in Ireland by the deeply dishonest Mick Barry) only this Friday along with some other fascinating people, Helen Joyce, and Heather Brunskell Evans among them, and while he couldn’t tell us about the patient that Strudwick had interviewed without breaking doctor-patient confidentiality, he did let us know that Strudwick’s hitjob was coming. He seemed entirely nonplussed about it…carefree, I would say, and now I know why.
Poor old Patrick Strudwick has, along with Nancy Kelly, proved that basic talking therapy would be made illegal in the world that they’re fighting for. I was about to explain all this in a post when I saw that Dennis Kavanagh had already written the piece. He very kindly gave me permission to re-publish it here.
That’s TWO gay people of colour whose livelihoods Stonewall have now targeted.And as to Dennis’s contention that Doctor Az has a credible legal claim to make against Nancy Kelly, I want to use this opportunity to tell the doctor that the second I tweeted about a Pink News story accusing me of supporting conversion therapy, they took it down, without even the need of a solicitor’s letter. Nancy Kelly has made a grave mistake.
Anyway, over to Dennis!
Must be an interesting gig being Stonewall’s lawyer, certainly not one lacking in excitement or “challenges” as they say. That was my reaction, at least, to this statement from the CEO on Sunday. It’s the gender borg queen in full cancellation mode attacking a (surprise surprise) homosexual man on the basis of an article that conveniently appears just at the point where it might serve her political interests. As will become clear, this amateur hour defamation is dubious in the extreme and one doesn’t have to dabble in conspiracies to regard the timing as deeply suspicious. As I’ll demonstrate, this has the appearance of a coordinated hatchet job and for Her Majesty here to describe it in the terms she has done is what us lawyers would describe as “unwise”.
The political background
For anyone new to this issue, Stonewall are currently furious that the British Government accepted arguments made by organisations like the Gay Men’s Network,Sex Matters, Transgender Trend etc. regarding the misleadingly called “conversion therapy ban”. The nub of it is basically this: gay conversion therapy has a long (and deeply saddening) history, it happens infrequently now (thank goodness) but there’s nothing wrong in principle with banning it particularly in the case of young gay people facing conversion therapy practices often carried out overseas. (I should add though I personally know about five lads who’ve been through this awful experience both here in the UK and the USA).
“Trans conversion therapy” is by contrast not a thing. Patients presenting with gender dysphoria can and should have access to high quality talking therapies so a “ban” in these circumstances would simply criminalise therapists trying to help vulnerable young people who in the main grow up gay. The point is essentially this: conversion therapy by gender is still conversion therapy and these bans world wide have seen gender non-conforming children mass medicalised by doctors scared of prosecution.
We weren’t alone in this concern, the statutory regulator for the Equality Act, the Equality and Human Rights Commission said the following in their response:
“We are supportive of measures to end harmful conversion therapy practices, but the likely significant and wide-ranging implications of the Government’s proposals for a legislative ban for criminal and civil justice, clinicians and therapists, families and religious organisations require careful and detailed consideration. The consultation document contains no clear definition of what will amount to “conversion therapy” caught by its proposals, nor of the meaning of “transgender” – a term which has no clear legal meaning, is potentially wider than the concept of gender reassignment in current UK law, and is understood by different people in different ways.
Nor does the consultation address the possible need to consider a differentiated approach in relation to sexual orientation and being transgender so as to ensure, in particular, that clinicians and therapists are not prohibited from providing appropriate care and support for individuals with gender dysphoria.Given the documented lack of evidence about conversion therapy in relation to being transgender, recent attention and litigation on the implications of medical and surgical transition, and the ongoing NHS-commissioned independent review of gender identity services for children and young people led by Dr Hilary Cass OBE, we consider that these matters require further careful and detailed consideration before legislative proposals are finalised and the implications of them can be fully understood.”
As you can see, strategically this left the gender borg with two significant problems. First, they could point to no evidence of anything outside therapy that might constitute a social harm. Second, various organisations has cottoned onto the fact the ban had potentially disastrous implications for the free exercise of clinical judgment. (Let us just put to one side that Stonewall is in theory a gay rights charity and you might think it would be concerned by homophobia being identified as a safeguarding risk at gender clinics. The truth of the matter is Stonewall has no concern for young gay people facing that life changing and deeply damaging risk and is now obsessed with biology denial to the point it’s taken leave of it’s senses.
It’s important to recognise what a hammer blow the government’s decision to break apart the CT ban was. Everywhere else in the world this trick has worked, the gender borg have snuck “trans conversion therapy” bans onto statute books leaving the mostly kids who play with the wrong toys staring down the barrel of life long medicalisation. The UK Campaign to protect young gay people was unprecedented and while there’s still a way to go, we should all be proud of what we’ve achieved.
How do you solve a problem like having no evidence?
Anyway, what do you do if you have no evidence for your claim and no way of answering the charge this is just going to lead to the harassment of doctors?
Well, if you’re deeply, deeply stupid I guess the answer is you publicly scout around for stories (remember this is aftera demand for legislation was made, not before)
In due course, efforts such as this resulted in the article Kelly links to in her tweet, you can read it for yourself here. What becomes painfully clear in the article is that Dr. Az appears to have done no more than any reasonable therapist/psychiatrist would have done, namely interrogate a claim to a gender identity at odds with the biological sex of the patient presumably because, I don’t know, maybe a whole lifetime of medicalisation or irreversible surgery is sort of a big thing maybe? With decades working in the medicine in the field of mental health, Clive does a much better job than I ever could breaking down the quotes in the article and pointing out why the reported questions are entirely appropriate and responsible.
His excellent video is here:
Above: Clive, the second best thing on YouTube after lol fail videos
As Clive’s video suggests, us gay men are frankly less than impressed at seeing Kelly go after a fellow gay man and some excellent threads in response have been penned today, Malcolm Clarke of LGB Alliance’s here andHassan Mamdani of the Gay Men’s Network here to name but two. Let us be under no illusions as to what is really going on here, for those who don’t know. Dr. Az believes in biological reality and is not afraid to speak eloquently and clearly as to what is really going on in gender clinics. His real crime, and the reason he’s being targeted by the gender borg on cancel mode is that he won’t simply shut up and leave young gay people to the terrible prospect of gay conversion by gender. If you haven’t heard him before, I highly recommend it, here he is speaking at the LGB Alliance conference:
Above: Dr. Az Hakeem (around 1.02) being erudite, morally forceful, decent and pretty damned attractive in my view, should definitely be the next Bond
Back to the law
Given Clive, Hassan and Malcolm have shredded this amateur hour cancel-job the most useful thing I can do it return from whence I came, namely, to the subject of that tweet.
Above: Sort of thing that gives us poor lawyers sleepless nights
The borg may be great at assimilating people, repeating mantras and body modification but I really don’t rate them on the law of libel or the law generally for the following reasons.
In stating that the subject of the article is “conversion practices targeting trans people” the clear and obvious meaning is that Dr. Az is so practicing.
Such practices are soon to become criminal offences in the case of gay people.
Further, or alternatively, such practices would at the very least amount to serious medical malpractice.
The meaning is therefore that the subject is a criminal or as close to one as makes little difference.
Calling someone a criminal and accusing them of medical practice amounting to a criminal offence can only do “serious harm” to a reputation.
Linking the article to a campaign to effectively cause gay conversion by gender obliterates any potential fair comment defence. You are saying people need the protection of the criminal law from a professional. Professionals have money. This may be deeply unwise.
Beyond this, no debate, unfettered access to the corridors of power and cancelling people leaves the gender borg pretty arrogant and ill equipped for adult society. If I were the lawyer for Stonewall I would also be gently making the following points to her majesty:
It is wholly inappropriate to comment on any sort of ongoing proceedings.
There are no findings of fact in this case by the GMC and the proceedings are sub judice
The subject of any investigation could argue you are pushing a political agenda in public and running the risk of potentially influencing an independent tribunal
The Charity Commission may well regard that as rather eccentric as should the trustees of Stonewall
Stonewall have become increasingly erratic of late not least in reporting the EHRC to a UN Committee with the help of ongoing legal sitcom character actors “The Good Laugh Project”. That committee contains Uganda (not a haven of gay rights) and latterly Russia (also not a great place for us gays). Even they found the approach odd and told Stonewall and comedy pals to go away. What we see here is that the more and more Stonewall face embarrassment and defeat at every turn, they more and more turn on their own community. Last week they were in court facing off against lesbian and gay rights hero Allison Bailey, on Sunday their CEO goes for a homosexual man.
Gratifyingly, the whole thing seems to be backfiring, Dr. Az is enjoying enormous support on social media and (as people cleverer than me have pointed out), this episode demonstrates that the original Stonewall position of “Of course we don’t want to criminalise talking therapies” was merely their standard level of mendacity.
Knowing that trans women of color started the movement in the united states and were literally immediately erased and excluded from what they started is the most deeply jading knowledge.
It is the original sin of the so-called queer community and it damns it from the cradle.
no white gay boy will ever reblog this, watch:
no white gay will reblog this
no white lgb person will reblog this
Without Stonewall, without the efforts of Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, the LGBTQ Community wouldn’t be where it is today. Don’t forget the roots, don’t forget the catalyst.
and then TERFs wanna be like, “hmm well the LGBT community existed before Stonewall!”
but like…Becky, of course LGBTQ+ people existed before Stonewall. We’ve all existed since the beginning of time. But the movement got a shock to its senses, a jump-start, a rocket-into-space when that glass shattered via Marsha P. Johnson, and when Sylvia Rivera was up on-stage protesting guess who was on the sidelines heckling her?
The same fuckers who won’t ever reblog or acknowledge this
