Transphobia’s Secret Attack on Stonewall UK
By: Gemma Stone
Tags: United Kingdom, Transgender, Equality, Charity, LGBTQ

The Stonewall group during the parade march at London Pride 2015. Lots of red t-shirts, rainbow banners and a massive banner with Stonewall’s logo reading: “Stonewall, Acceptance without Exception.”

I wrote recently about transphobia targeting the charity Stonewall UK for their trans-inclusive stance. I had personally seen multiple talking heads of the anti-trans movement take part in doing so, so I knew it was a big deal and needed to be talked about. However, even after researching and writing about it I hadn’t truly uncovered the full scope of this attack. So thank you to those who brought this to my attention!

To quickly recap; ‘Stonewall Law’ is a fairytale transphobes tell themselves in order to justify feeling victimised and oppressed. Transphobes basically argue that an organisation has been captured by ‘Stonewall Law’ if it's trans-inclusive and/or part of Stonewall’s Diversity Champions list specifically.

Transphobes have mentioned this idea to Parliament as part of the GRA Inquiry and other transphobes still are even currently attempting to ‘sue Stonewall’. This after they told an organisation that if they did not do something about transphobia at their workplace then they would be removed from the Diversity Champions list which could have negative repercussions for the business. Which no duh, you’re only allowed on the diversity champions list if you champion diversity? Not sure why that was a surprise to anyone.

So that’s most of the blatant attacks on Stonewall, but what’s the secret attack on Stonewall exactly? In the UK we have a system for obtaining information from public authorities. So, for example, if you want to know how many police officers there are in your local area you can put in a request for that information. I’ve made it sound really simple here and there are lots of caveats and nuances to the act and the system but that’s a general idea. It is called “Freedom of Information” and the act was passed in 2000.

Transphobes have taken a look at this system of being able to get information from public bodies, offices, and organisations associated with the government etc, and thought “bet I can abuse that for my political campaigning”. Then cracked right on with it, filing about 800 public requests (and potentially many more private ones) as part of one single campaign against Stonewall alone. You can easily find most of them on the website “WhatDoTheyKnow” which streamlines the FOI process for the user and publishes the results for everyone to access. Just search “DontSubmitToStonewall”. Important to note is that this site will only show the FOI requests submitted through it, if you sent one privately it does not show up here at all.

A screenshot from What Do They Know, a freedom of Information request website. The screenshot shows the results for the search term “DontSubmitToStoneWall” and indicates there are about 800 results.

A lot of the FOI requests in the search are just copy-paste jobs between each other, with even the same subject line used. Most specifically target the Diversity Champions list and also Stonewall’s Workplace Equality Index. The FOI requests have been sent out to organisations ranging from those within the NHS to Government science offices who have had to explain they don’t know if they are part of Diversity Champions or not because they just do science stuff, not admin. The requests ask for information such as how much money has changed hands between Stonewall and the FOI request recipient or for any communications between Stonewall and the recipient too.

Of course, the point isn’t the information. Sure, maybe they’ll get lucky and find a breadcrumb they use their imaginations to inflate to galactic proportions. But the point of all of this isn’t the information they appear to be about 50/50 on receiving, the point is to create a sense of mounting pressure against Stonewall in front of these public bodies and organisations. It’s a campaign, that’s why there’s a hashtag.

The campaign is being led by the account @ Legal Feminist on Twitter which I believe is run by a barrister named Naomi Cunningham. She has received endorsement from other transphobic accounts such as @ Sex Matters Org on Twitter which is partially run by Maya Forstater. You can also find a spreadsheet of those the group intend to target here on OneDrive. There can be no mistaking that this is a full blown political campaign via the FOI system, nothing more than an attempt to get bigoted propaganda on the platform through a back door. Its so misguided and dangerous for everyone, not just transgender people.

Tweets from @LegalFeminist first one reading: “A follow up on the Stonewall long read: this one is a very short call for a simple (2–3 minute) action. Please Share Widely. #DontSubmitToStonewall” and then linking to a blog post. Second reading: “Please share and submit a request or two. [What Do They Know link] makes it very straight forward. If you don’t dare ask your own public authority employer, maybe swap with a friend.”

I reached out to Stonewall UK for comment on this issue and would you believe it these FOIs are just the tip of the iceberg for the Europe’s largest LGBTQIA+ charity. Not only are transphobic campaigners abusing FOI requests against other organisations but they are also doing letter-writing campaigns behind the scenes too. Stonewall UK has had to spend a lot of time defending themselves from baseless accusations and straight up disinformation. According to a representative for the charity, this all poses an “enormous resource drain” and because of the constant nature of transphobia in the UK right now, it has likely meant other projects for supporting LGBTQIA+ people just haven’t been able to happen the way they were intended or even in some instances, haven’t happened at all.

Not only this but the resource drain being put upon the organisations being bombarded with transphobic propaganda and FOI requests are also significant. Not least since because of our crappy capitalist system where the bottom line is always what matters most if you can make supporting Stonewall and LGBTQIA+ people look bad for profits it becomes a lot easier to argue for dropping them. This would be terrible news for all LGBTQIA+ people who already have higher rates of unemployment when compared to cis het people. Usually directly because of queerphobia in the workplace.

Freedom of Information is an extremely important thing for everyone but especially marginalised people, activism, and the journalism that surrounds us. We can fast become an Orwellian nightmare if we aren’t checking in every now and then to make sure some awful crap isn’t occurring behind the scenes. It’s a vital step in holding the Government to account and has been crucial in bringing so many stories to light. Using it this way as a political campaign itself? That threatens to see it shut down altogether.

Our Tory overlords have already launched a review into Freedom of Information legislation in the UK. Government organisations are already reportedly granting fewer FOI requests than ever before and we all know if they could shut it down wholesale they would. This vexatious use of the system as a means of getting bigoted propaganda in front of government organisations is something all freedom-loving people should absolutely condemn in the strongest possible terms. The risks of losing Freedom of Information are just too damn high not to put your foot down and say this is just too far and needs to stop.

Stonewall is under siege precisely for being the largest LGBTQIA+ charity and not being transphobic at the same time. This is nothing more than a queerphobic attack by boring bigots, but it's having a real and tangible effect on everyone. At what point do we just say enough is enough and stop giving these people validation in their bigotry? At what point do we confront them and tell them what they are doing is wrong and damaging? How much do we all have to lose before it's not just LGBTQIA+ people speaking up about this?