Vet. Sailor Stripped of Medals after 25 Years of Service for Being Bi | Stonewall At 50 | Real Pride 🌈

Jan 30, 2022 | Stonewall: 53 years since the first LGBTQ+ liberation march, this was a turning point in LGBTQ+ history, an act of resistance leading to annual pride marches around the world. But 53 years on, many LGBTQ+ people continue to face discrimination.

How Stonewall Became Famous | Op-Docs

Attacking Stonewall for Defending Trans Rights Is a Slippery Slope

THE GUARDIAN: The gender wars are being fuelled by a Tory government – don’t let infighting destroy the LGBTQ+ community’s greatest champion

A Pride message at Piccadilly Circus, central London, on 27 June to commemorate the Stonewall uprising of 1969. Photograph: Hollie Adams/Getty Images
The UK’s national LGBTQ+ charity, Stonewall, has recently been accused of advocating for trans rights. Six years ago, there was another “Stonewall question”, but the issue wasn’t whether the organisation should be advocating for trans rights, but instead why it wasn’t.

For those of us who remember these fights, it’s discombobulating to witness a reframing of Stonewall as a sinister organisation that sneaked trans rights on to its agenda when nobody was looking. The very opposite was the case: it was hard won. Many petitions were circulated, letters written and debates had. The inclusion of trans men, trans women and all transgender people eventually followed in 2015.

Stonewall public campaigns, training, policy, work with employers and sports organisations, for example, included trans and transgender people. They could seek advice if they faced discrimination at work, in housing or health provision. For many people, this was an obvious broadening out of the title, to reflect the solidarity and diversity that already had long existed in LGBTQ+ communities, clubs, organisations and social groups. » | Finn Mackay | Monday, December 20, 2021

LGBT+ BBC Staff ‘No Longer Feel Safe’ as Broadcaster Expected to Cut Ties with Stonewall

PINK NEWS: LGBT+ staff at the BBC have said that they “no longer feel safe” at the broadcaster as it reportedly prepares to withdraw from Stonewall’s workplace diversity scheme.

The BBC is just one of around 800 organisations across the UK that are signed up to Stonewall’s Diversity Champions programme, which promotes LGBT+ inclusion and equality in the workplace.

Numerous organisations – including Ofcom – have pulled out of the programme in recent months as the charity has faced a barrage of attacks over its trans-inclusive stance.

The BBC is expected to become the next major casualty of the anti-trans discourse surrounding Stonewall, according to Vice.

BBC insiders told Vice that the planned withdrawal from the Diversity Champions scheme could happen as soon as next week. The broadcaster’s membership is due for renewal “in early October”, staff said, and BBC executives have reportedly decided not to continue it.

One anonymous BBC staffer told Vice that top executives at the broadcaster feel they can’t be connected to Stonewall “in any way” because the BBC needs to be “impartial on LGBTQ lives”. » | Patrick Kelleher | Thursday, October 7, 2021

Stonewall at 50 Documentary

Remembering Stonewall: On 50th Anniversary, Leaders of Uprising Look Back on Sparking LGBTQ Movement

Fifty years ago today, just after midnight, at 1:30 in the morning on June 28, 1969, New York City police officers raided a gay- and trans-friendly bar called the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. As the police began dragging some of the patrons out, the community fought back, sparking three days of rioting. Their historic resistance launched the modern-day LGBTQ movement and became known as the Stonewall uprising. We hear the leaders of the Stonewall uprising in their own words, in a radio documentary produced by Dave Isay in 1989 called “Remembering Stonewall.”

Catholic Leaders Furious at Stonewall's 'Bigot' Award for Cardinal Keith O'Brien

THE GUARDIAN: Gay rights group names Scottish cardinal bigot of the year after he called gay marriage a 'grotesque subversion'

Catholic leaders have reacted furiously after members of the gay rights group Stonewall named Cardinal Keith O'Brien "bigot of the year" for his vigorous attacks on gay marriage.

Stonewall said its 10,000 members had voted "decisively" to give the title to O'Brien, head of the Scottish Catholic church, after he described gay marriage as a "grotesque subversion" of the universal human right which defines marriage as solely heterosexual.

The church, which also alleges that people in gay marriages suffer greater risks of mental illness and premature death, demanded that the Scottish government and two sponsors – the banks Barclays and Coutts – withdraw their sponsorship of the group.

Barclays and Coutts have already warned they will stop financing Stonewall, the UK's largest gay rights group, if the bigot award is proposed again next year. The Scottish parliament is expected to vote to legalise gay marriages next year, despite intense opposition from religious groups. » | Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent | Friday, November 02, 2012

Ben Summerskill Responds to Article by Cardinal Keith O'Brien
Ben Summerskill, CEO of Stonewall, is interviewed on the BBC News Channel (4th March 2012) following an article in the Daily Telegraph by Cardinal Keith O'Brien

Related »

'Stonewall Gave Me New Gay Role Models'
A protest in San Francisco, California, against the Catholic Church's policies. Photo: BBC
BBC: The Stonewall uprisings 40 years ago brought the gay rights movement to the forefront of American culture. Writer and historian David Carter assesses what progress has been made since that pivotal moment and how far the quest for equal rights has to go.

The end of this month marks the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, an anniversary that has been duly marked by a number of events, including a White House reception on Monday.

But because the history of the gay civil rights movement has generally not been taken seriously by educators nor by the media, people are often uncertain about what exactly Stonewall was: why did the Stonewall Riots occur and what do they mean?

There had been a homosexual rights movement in Germany since the 19th century, a movement that regained some momentum after the setback caused by World War I. The movement spread in Europe, including Russia, during the 20th century and suffered further setbacks under Nazi and Communist dictatorships.

After World War II homosexual rights movements made progress in Western democracies. The homosexual rights movement began in an organized way in the United States after World War II during the Cold War when the Mattachine Society was founded.

While there was progress toward decriminalizing homosexuality in Canada and Europe, progress in the US was much slower. But in Europe, severe prejudice against homosexuality remained even in those societies where homosexual sex acts were not illegal.

It was the massive and sustained uprising against the police that erupted at the end of June 1969 when the New York City police raided a popular gay bar named the Stonewall that eventually changed the situation worldwide.

Because the riots broke out in the late 1960s after the successes of the US anti-Vietnam War movement and the black civil rights movement, the organizations that emerged immediately after Stonewall were cast in a New Left mould, which also meant a militant consciousness.

The most successful of these organizations, the Gay Activists Alliance, modelled its actions on guerrilla theatre and added camp humour to create "zaps", demonstrations that were highly creative, highly subversive, and designed to get media attention. The result was that gay people were seen over and over in the media acting from positions of power: challenging power and unafraid. >>> | Monday, June 29, 2009

David Carter is the author of Stonewall: the riots that sparked the gay revolution. He is a consultant for the BBC Radio 2 programme Stonewall: The Riots That Triggered The Gay Revolution, which will be broadcast on Tuesday 30 June 2009 at 2230BST.

British Spies Urged to Come Out of the Closet
TIMESONLINE: The intelligence service MI5 has teamed up with Britain’s leading gay lobby group to recruit more homosexuals and to encourage spies to be open about their sexuality.

MI5, which targets home-grown terrorists and foreign spies, has hired Stonewall to advise on how it can attract a broader range of applicants.

Until the early 1990s gays were barred from sensitive government jobs because of fears that they would be vulnerable to blackmail. The ban followed revelations about the notorious Cambridge spy ring, the 1950s group of Cambridge graduates who worked in the intelligence service. Two of the ringleaders, Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt, were both gay.

This year MI5 will appear in Stonewall’s graduate recruitment guide, which lists gay-friendly employers.

Since the London Underground bombings on July 7, 2005 MI5 has been expanding rapidly. Staff numbers are expected to hit 3,500 by the end of the year, up from 1,500 in 2001.

The drive to recruit British Muslims and speakers of Asian languages has been well reported, but MI5’s targeting of the gay community will come as something of a surprise.

Ben Summerskill, director of Stonewall, said: “I am optimistic that in 10 to 15 years their [MI5’s] employment profile will look very much like modern Britain. There is no reason why there shouldn’t be a lesbian or gay director-general.” Spies Urged to Come In from the Closet >>> By Jonathan Oliver | August 17, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Dust Jacket Hardcover, direct from the publishers (US) >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback, direct from the publishers (US) >>>