"I felt a great sense of bereavement,” says Simon Fanshawe. The gay, 66-year-old writer, broadcaster, and adviser on diversity is talking about his ostracism two years ago from Stonewall, the charity he co-founded in 1989. Formed to fight for equality for gay, lesbian and bisexual people in the wake of the Thatcher government’s pernicious Section 28 legislation, the group now also campaigns on behalf of trans people: a move Fanshawe supported.
But when he suggested that allowing male-bodied people to self-identify as female might impact on women’s rights, he was told by the management “you have put yourself outside Stonewall”. Another co-founder called him a gay Quisling — the name given to Nazi collaborators. “This is silly language, and not the language of good politics,” he says. It shouldn’t need stating — though it sadly probably does — that Fanshawe, married to a black Nigerian husband, is sympathetic and supportive of trans people and has trans friends. His issue is with the “no debate” attitude adopted by Stonewall and other activist organisations, or what he terms “acceptance without exception”. “If you said a few years ago that you didn’t support Black Lives Matter because you had disagreements with it as a political organisation, you’d be labelled a racist,” he says. “The debate now is: if you don’t agree with me, you are a bigot.”
