Australian Polity, Volume 9 Number 3 - Digital Version

they can expect to receive a phone call or email from a
Stonewall representative making clear that they are at
risk of having their diversity rating downgraded. In one
particularly egregious example, Stonewall contacted the
chambers of lawyer, Allison Bailey, a prominent supporter
of sex-based rights and co-founder of the LGB Alliance,
and urged them to remove her from chambers or risk
losing their Diversity Champion accreditation.
More recently, UK government departments and
universities have repeatedly been caught out providing
incorrect legal advice and interpretation at the behest of
Stonewall. The volunteer-run group Fair Play for Women
was forced to take the UK Office for National Statistics
to court to stop incorrect advice being given to the
public about how to complete the sex question in the
national census. Fair Play for Women won and the ONS – a
Stonewall Diversity Champion – was forced to admit and
correct their error. It’s worth noting how one error quickly
leads to another in the field of identity politics: when
developing their own aforementioned sex and gender
standard which claimed a person’s sex can change over
the course of their lifetime, Australia’s ABS took advice
from none other than the ONS, right when the ONS was
in the middle of providing false and misleading guidance
on the same topic.
“It’s one thing for
woke left figures such
as the US Democrat
Congresswoman
Alexandria Ocasio-
Cortez to refer to
women as “people
who menstruate”,
but why are public
servants reporting
to centre-right
governments singing
from the same
hymnbook?”
As Stonewall’s agenda and inappropriate influence over
Government Departments and policy belatedly came to
light, agencies which never should have been signed
up as members of lobby groups are beginning to pull
out of the Diversity Champions scheme. A question
for policy makers in Australia is whether public service
agencies and departments here are falling for the same
tactics, and whether this is the reason for the recent rush
of embarrassing and out-of-touch forays into identity
politics by the bureaucracy. Because one thing is for
certain – everyday Australians never voted for this.
Claire Chandler is a Senator for Tasmania in the Australian Parliament.
26 Australian Polity