Stonewall co-founder says ‘disparage and mislead’ tactics causing lobby group to shed support

Stonewall co-founder turned critic, Simon Fanshawe has hit out at the LGBT lobby group’s “divisive” actions as a host of organisations leave its ‘Diversity Champions’ programme.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Fanshawe told presenter Justin Webb that it was because the charity disparaged as a ‘bigot’ anyone who disagreed with them, and that the advice it gave was what “they want the law to be – not the law as it is”.

Stonewall opted not to participate in the interview but their actions were defended by Benjamin Cohen, CEO of LGBT news website PinkNews.

Failure to debate

Fanshawe stressed that Stonewall’s push to have men in women-only spaces carried “implications” which would disadvantage women.

He argued it would be unfair for top-performing female athletes in a school to be “required to compete against somebody who has had all the advantages of male puberty and what that gives you in terms of musculature and athletic ability”, because they would be at an immediate disadvantage.

Fanshawe also criticised his former organisation for failing to “reasonably and sensibly” discuss the various issues and challenges posed to society by allowing people to change their legal sex through self-declaration.

‘Transphobia’

Defending Stonewall, Cohen became hostile when asked about comments made by the controversial lobby group’s CEO Nancy Kelley, who recently likened ‘gender critical views’ to antisemitism.

An angry Cohen supported Kelley’s comments and suggested that defending the reality of biological sex was ‘hate speech’ before branding ‘gender critical’ views a “polite way of saying transphobia”.

Despite the evidence, he went on to describe accusations that Stonewall wants men who identify as women to be permitted access to female-only spaces as “misinformation being spread by a homophobic and transphobic media”.