Jo Bartosch: “Given the high toll the pandemic has taken on public services, it’s astonishing that teaching NHS staff about queer theory is deemed worthy of tax-payers’ cash.”

Forget PPE or pay rises, NHS England have decided what employees really need is to be educated on ‘plurisexual’ identities and the importance of trans* literature. An online Pride march this Friday signalled the end of a week of NHS events “to educate, elevate and celebrate the huge contribution of LGBT+ colleagues”. Speakers included Stonewall CEO Nancy Kelley and Tara Hewitt, co-founder of the Trans Equality Legal Initiative (TELI).

For all the claims about diversity, the only people invited to proffer opinions were those who conform to the queer theory line on gender identity. NHS England would not be drawn on the cost of the virtual Pride week; their press office declined to respond to enquiries from Lesbian and Gay News. Given the high toll the pandemic has taken on public services, it’s astonishing that teaching NHS staff about queer theory is deemed worthy of tax-payers’ cash. It’s even more shocking that identities such as ‘non-binary’ or ‘plurisexual’ are being presented to medically trained professionals as immutable characteristics.

Whether in a back-office battling budgets, or emptying bed pans on the frontline, who NHS staff fancy and how they see themselves is surely not a priority. Indeed, whilst it is right that employees everywhere are protected from discrimination at work, part of the contract one makes on starting a job is to sacrifice a degree of individuality to act as a professional.

Prejudice in workplaces will always exist, and those who are marked-out as ‘different’ will to continue to suffer in ways that pass below the radar of an employment tribunal. Ultimately this runs wider and deeper than the internal culture of organisations.

It’s even more shocking that identities such as ‘non-binary’ or ‘plurisexual’ are being presented to medically trained professionals as immutable characteristics.

Nonetheless, the trend to embed the tenets of queer theory in workplaces is lucrative and showing no signs of abating. On Thursday, Iain Anderson was appointed as the government ‘LGBT Business Champion’. He says he sees his role as “to build a bridge” between government, LGBT communities and business. But given the civil war raging within the so-called LGBT community, it seems fair to ask where exactly his bridge will lead to.

Anderson is the executive chair of Cicero, a communications and market research agency. A Stonewall Ambassador, Anderson sits on the board of ‘LGBTQI community foundation’ Give Out, alongside vocal trans activists including Baroness Barker and head of Global Butterflies, Rachel Reese. In 2018 he tweeted that Cicero were proud to support Stonewall’s campaign for reform of the Gender Recognition Act.

Anderson’s role complements the Special Envoy for LGBT rights, Lord Herbert. Earlier this year Herbert was charged with showcasing “the UK as an inclusive place to live and work ahead of the UK’s first Global LGBT Conference”. Both Anderson and Herbert seem to subscribe to queer theory rather than to the simple principle of advancing equality regardless of sexual orientation or ideas about identity.

At the same time as Stonewall is slowly crumbling, the queer theory approach promoted by mainstream organisations is continuing to creep across institutions.

Each new pointless job role or tax-payer funded ‘LGBTQ’ event is justified by spurious claims about hate crime and workplace discrimination. A 2018 Stonewall report claimed 12 per cent of those who identify as trans “have been physically attacked by customers or colleagues in the last year because of being trans” (based on a self-selecting sample of 353) and that 18 per cent of LGBT job seekers claimed to have experienced discrimination on the basis of “sexual orientation and/or gender identity while trying to get a job in the last year” (based on a self-selecting sample of 223 people). Thankfully, Stonewall exist to sell workplace solutions to this apparent epidemic of violent bigotry.

An investigation by the Tax Payers’ Alliance found government bodies spent around one million pounds each year on Stonewall programmes. Propped-up by invested charities and fuelled by government posturing, the queer grievance industry is growing.

It is notable that the most prominent civil cases of the past few years have been brought by people who have fallen foul of the institutionalised queer orthodoxy. People like Harry Miller who was advised to ‘check his thinking’ by a police officer following a tweet that was reported as ‘transphobic.’ And others like Maya Forstater, who is suing her former employer after her contract was terminated when her colleagues complained about her gender critical views.

An investigation by the Tax Payers’ Alliance found government bodies spent around one million pounds each year on Stonewall programmes. Propped-up by invested charities and fuelled by government posturing, the queer grievance industry is growing.

Arguably the most important upcoming case, and the one that illustrates how far Stonewall has deviated from its original aims, will be heard next year. Lesbian barrister Allison Bailey is suing Stonewall and her employer after she was investigated for tweeting in support of the LGB Alliance, an organisation she helped to found.

Initiatives such as NHS virtual Pride and new government posts only seed to emphasise difference, seeding resentment and reifying a controversial, harmful ideology. Homophobia cannot be undone by a mandated diversity training course, nor a rainbow rebrand. Searching for common experiences and building genuine relationships is the only effective way to neutralise bigotry.

The idea that workplaces will degenerate into breeding grounds for fascism unless money is paid for LGBTQetc training does everyone a disservice. And those organisations who drape themselves in rainbows to show their woke credentials are the corporate equivalent of baboons in heat; dumbly showing their swollen backsides to the world.

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