Stonewall’s new chair on trans rights, JK Rowling and the future of the LGBTQ+ movement
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This is The Guardian. Today, a year after the Supreme Court judgment on trans rights, does Stonewall have a future?
If you know anything about the fight for gay rights in the UK, you will have heard of Stonewall. From its founding in 1988, it had one clear purpose, to overturn Margaret Thatcher's ban on teaching children about homosexuality.
Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay. All of those children are being cheated of a sound start in life. Yes, cheated.
APPLAUSE
Section 28 banned teachers from promoting the idea that it was okay to be gay, or what the law called pretend family relationships.
What challenges is Stonewall facing regarding trans rights?
After 12 years of relentless campaigning by Stonewall, the legislation was repealed in Scotland in the year 2000, followed by England and Wales two years later. And that's not all Stonewall has achieved. MPs will vote at around 10 o'clock tonight on whether to lower the gay age of consent. It pushed to equalise the age of consent, to lift the ban on gay people in the military, and to give gay and lesbian people the right to get married.
Britain's lower house of parliament has voted to back a law legalising same-sex marriage. Without equal marriage was still looked at in some way as different, as less valid or less important, and that simply doesn't reflect life in this country anymore.
But 38 years after it was formed, Stonewall's future is uncertain. Its income has halved, dozens of staff have been made redundant, and hundreds of organisations have severed ties with the charity. Now, as critics would say, that these are the consequences of Stonewall's uncompromising position on trans rights. But this is also a story about the challenges of operating in a world where diversity and inclusion have become increasingly dirty words.
And our country will be woke no longer.
Now Stonewall has a new chair, Kezia Dugdale, former leader of Labour in Scotland. But can she steady the ship and stop the charity heading into terminal decline? From The Guardian, I'm Helen Pitt. Today in Focus, what is Stonewall for in 2026? Kezia Dugdale, welcome to Today in Focus. Thank you, delighted to be here. So it's nice to see you.
How has Stonewall's history shaped its current position?
We are sitting in Stonewall's humble Scottish headquarters in Leith in Edinburgh. So you are about to take up this new role as chair of Stonewall. And it's a job that some people would see as a bit of a poison chalice for reasons that we're going to go on to discuss. But set out, why did you want to take this quite public role?
So I thought about it long and hard, as you would expect me to do. The first thing to say is I'm quite scared just now as an openly gay person in this country, looking at what's happening elsewhere in the world, in other countries. I feel myself just getting slightly more nervous about holding my wife's hand or being affectionate in public or wondering what other people's reaction to us is going to be. And I don't like that feeling. And I think we have to be really careful to think that all progress that we've made in recent times is cemented and absolute and that all we'll ever get is progress. It's completely possible in this country that things could go backwards. And there are now a lot of political actors that want to take us backwards.
So a bit of my motivation comes from a place of fear. And a bit of it comes from a place of hope, knowing that these battles can be won. And when you look at organisations that have won those battles and made the case and been in those positions of power and influence, Stonewall's right at the front of that. I mean, the fact that I have the right to marry is down to many people in Stonewall and many other LGBT organisations. So much good work over the past two or three decades has been driven by people who've played an active role in LGBT charities and campaigning organisations. And I feel like I owe them a bit of my time and energy to make sure the next generation of young LGBT people have every possible opportunity and every chance of an equal and fair life.
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