Follow the money

Someone asked for some information I shared a while ago about funding and trans orgs in the UK. I can’t remember the exact tweet I was responding to at the time but it was something along the lines of “UK TERFs have been funded by the American right wing since 2016”. Anyway, my experience with trans activists is if you’re being accused of something you’re not doing, it’s an admission of something they are doing, so I went digging. This is what I found…

Not just Mermaids, of course, Stonewall was literally dying on its arse. Then, in 2015, they started peddling gender ideology, and look what happened to their finances…

Similarly Yorkshire Mesmac.

And here’s Allsorts, the origin of all the horrendous, unlawful guidance going into schools. You can see a talk I did about the Allsorts school guidance here. It seems their finances are looking well these days.

Interestingly, although they were founded in 2008, Gendered Intelligence only registered as a charity this year. So, unlike the others, we need to go to Companies House for their info, rather than the Charity Commission. Fear not, though, they haven’t been left out of this change of fortune.

This is how success is measured these days though, isn’t it? Ruth Hunt has been praised as being successful at Stonewall for turning their finances around. No mention of any rights gained, nor improvements in the lives of LGBT people, during her tenure, just a better bank balance. I guess that’s what charity is all about, in the upside down, squandering wealth.

Where could it all be coming from though? Money doesn’t grow on trees, as women in the UK know. We’ve crowdfunded and financially supported each other through the TERF wars. Meet Jennifer Pritzker, known to invest heavily in trans initiatives, along with helping to bankroll Trump’s presidency campaign. How’s that for some right wing, American funding? It’s not like Pritzker is the only wealthy individual with an interest in pushing trans activism. Martine Rothblatt is worth a Google if you have time. Then, lock yourself away for the weekend, binge watch Black Mirror, and despair.

The insinuation that everyone opposed to trans activism is some far right Nazi with questionable motives, while all trans activists are painted as paragons of virtue and social justice, really annoys me, to be honest. Nothing in life is that black and white. If you saw Yaniv’s debate with Blaire White this week, you’ll definitely have heard his racist opinions about immigrants. He’s the gift that keeps on giving.

On the one hand, it shouldn’t matter. I’d expect both right and left wing to be split on this issue. Branches of both sides will have arguments, beliefs, political stances that make trans activism incompatible with them. Let’s be fair, it only takes a grip on reality to start asking questions, and that’s enough. It does matter to me though. I find the bastardisation of the language of social justice and the left frustrating.

I don’t really know how to end this. It’s probably something I should write more about at some point. In the meantime, I’m going to leave you with this from Joseph Heller, maybe it says it all.

“The chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization, and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.“

Btw, if you haven’t watched the new TV series based on Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, please do. I was worried I would hate it, as I love the book so much, but Clooney has definitely done it justice.