In a further complication to the Allison Bailey-Stonewall situation, it turns out that trans activist group Mermaids, and possibly Stonewall, are fighting back by lodging an appeal against the Charity Commission’s decision to award Bailey's group the LGB Alliance charitable status.
Dennis Kavanagh – Extraordinary legal spectacle in Pride month as multi-million pound trans focused charities try to silence the only LGB charity:
The public campaign against the LGB Alliance by established trans-focused charities Stonewall and Mermaids escalated into litigation today with an appeal against the Charity Commission’s decision to award the LGBA charitable status…. This follows ferocious objections from the groups to the initial application for registration and a campaign of well publicised subsequent complaints to the commission itself by supporters of both charities, (many of which were dismissed as “emotional”). It seems then that 2021 Pride month will set the stage for an extraordinary legal spectacle of large, multi-million pound trans focused charities seeking to silence and effectively destroy a lesbian/gay/bisexual focused one. […]
The grounds themselves rehearse a number of complaints already dealt with by the Charity Commission and so the appeal, to some extent, represents an attempt at having a second bite of the cherry. Perhaps most strikingly, the grounds appear to claim that anything other than complete agreement with the gender identity position is in and of itself a de facto attack on trans focused charities. The grounds specifically complain that Bev Jackson [co-founder of the LGB Alliance] said in March 2020 “We’re applying for charitable status and building an organisation to challenge the dominance of those who promote the damaging theory of gender identity”. The complaint that this speech is enough to make good the objection may be extremely difficult to establish in law given recent the statements by EHRC chair, Baroness Falkner to the effect that a gender critical position is a protected characteristic and the fact the body recently intervened in the Maya Forstater Appeal Case to protect extremely similar speech and thought.
The core of the complaint appears to be that any dissent from a belief in gender identity is political in nature and therefore outside the objectives of a charity. Logically this may be a difficult argument to pursue as it is based on the premise that one side of a discussion is political, but the contrary Stonewall/Mermaids position is somehow above politics or reasoned discussion.
As the piece goes on to say, it's not quite clear if Stonewall are involved or not. Perhaps it was decided that with all the bad press they've been receiving it might be better to underplay their involvement. Not that Mermaids are any better….
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