The black lesbian who threw the first brick at Stonewall

Gay rights titan Allison Bailey faces the former gay charity in court 25/04/2022

Above: Allison Bailey marches for LGB rights in San Francisco in 1991

You would imagine that if you notionally pretended some concern for gay rights as a charity that the prospect of facing off in court against a black lesbian with a lifetime of gay and women’s activism to her name might give you some pause for reflection. Not at Stonewall it would seem who are about to do just this in a four week trial scheduled to start Monday, the paradox that they claim to support lesbians while simultaneously accused of trying to get one sacked seems not to bother them one bit. All is paradox in gender of course; lesbians are not a sexual orientation, they’re “sexual racists” with desires shaped by “societal prejudice, cross dressing straight men are officially included in the Stonewall definition of trans and therefore said to be the most marginalised persons on the planet and gay and lesbian sexual boundaries are treated with downright contempt and referred to respectively as the “boxer” and “cotton” celling.

Above: Stonewall CEO Nancy Kelly speaking about the s.12 Equality Act 2010 protected characteristic of same-sex attraction

The case could not have come at a worse time for Stonewall. In the past few days UK government Secretaries of State have increasingly indicated they will no longer tread carefully around subjects previously regarded as too “toxic” or controversial to tackle. The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport was unequivocal in her defence of women’s sports (available here). The Secretary of State for Education followed speaking out against the sinister and secretive practice of “socially transitioning” children at school without parental knowledge. Finally, and perhaps most remarkably, the Secretary of State for Health ordered an inquiry into practices at gender clinics and compared the silence around the “affirmation only” approach at the Tavistock to that obtaining around grooming gangs in the North of England, a comparison so obviously connecting with serious harm that it cannot have been accidental.

Above: The Times front page lead story 23.04.2022

These developments come in the wake of increasingly eccentric political moves by Stonewall such as reporting the UK human rights regulator to a UN Human Rights committee who counted Russia among their members until relatively recently, a move Minister Kemi Badenock MP described as doing “this country no favours at all”. (The UN dispatched this strange legal strategy in short order). This was followed by the erratic charity storming out of a government conference (along with it’s legion of interchangeably proxy charities) after it’s proposals regarding the Orwellian named “conversion therapy bill” were recognised to be likely to criminalise doctors for simply doing their job in respect of gender dysphoria. It would seem Allison Bailey’s day in court could not have come at a better time with Stonewall badly haemorrhaging credibility and influence. The stars are aligning against gender ideology and they seem to have come out for Miss. Bailey.

What is Allison Bailey’s case about exactly?

Full details are available on the crowd funding page (which still needs donations if you can help!) but the claim was summarised by Employment Judge Stout in an interim hearing as follows: (ruling available here)

Above: Allison Bailey’s crowdfunding page available here

“23. The essence of the legal claim that the Claimant makes is that In December 2018 she made clear in an email to all members of Chambers that she was opposed to Chambers associating with Stonewall through its Diversity Champions’ Scheme and expressed herself in terms that alleged that Stonewall was acting in relation to its campaign in breach of the Equality Act 2010 (EA 2010). Then in October 2019 the Claimant launched (with others) an organisation known as the LGB Alliance to campaign for LGB rights without the gender theory espoused by Stonewall, and made various tweets in connection with that launch. As a result of these acts, some of which the Claimant maintains in these proceedings were protected acts for the purposes of s 27 of the EA 2010, and/or as a result of antipathy by others towards her expressed views (which antipathy the Claimant contends amounts to an indirectly discriminatory practice), the Claimant alleges that she suffered various detriments, including a significant downturn in instructions and consequent loss of income. Stonewall complained about her to Chambers, her tweets were investigated by Chambers and complaints about two of those tweets were upheld and the Claimant asked to remove the tweets, which she did not do.”

Legal basis for Stonewall’s involvement:

44. Stonewall is a provider of services, prohibited under s 29 of the EA 2010 from discriminating against and/or harassing persons to whom it provides services because of their protected characteristics.

The complaint Judge Stout referred to above is in the public domain available on Allison’s website here. It makes for extraordinary reading and was described by the Judge in the following terms:

51. Finally, I deal with the claim against Stonewall, it is plainly arguable from the terms of the complaint of 31 October 2019 that Stonewall sought to induce Chambers to subject the Claimant to a detriment because of her publicly expressed beliefs and the allegations that she had made against Stonewall (some of which were arguably allegations of unlawful conduct under the EA 2010). This is because the email itself sets out examples of the Claimant expressing those beliefs, and then examples of the Claimant making allegations against Stonewall (some of which are on the face arguably protected acts in terms of s 27 of the EA 2010 as they are in much the same terms of the Claimant’s email of 14 December 2018 that I have dealt with above).

The Judge here uses the language “plainly arguable” and was not reaching a final decision because those two quoted words represent are the legal test for “striking a case out”, something Stonewall attempted and failed to do at this hearing. At an earlier case management hearing the Judge described the complaint in these terms:

“The Stonewall complaint of 31 October 2019 in itself plainly seeks to put pressure "on Chambers to take action against the Claimant, indeed to the extent of urging Chambers to remove the Claimant from Chambers, and accompanies that with a threat about the ongoing relationship between Chambers and Stonewall itself if Chambers does not take action”

It’s worth remembering we have a fraction of the picture here, the Judge’s summary would be based on thousands upon thousand pages of evidence and disclosure which means that as the trial unfolds over the next four weeks there are highly likely to be new details of exactly what was going on between Stonewall and her chambers.

This case will throw into the spotlight exactly how Stonewall’s Diversity Champion’s scheme works behind closed doors with the court highly likely to be looking at the nature, frequency and tone of communications between the charity and chambers.

Many will of course marvel at the prospect of former gay rights charity defending itself from accusations it victimised a black lesbian and the evidence is the case is likely to be decisive in terms of Stonewall’s future.