Simon Callow: ‘Stonewall militant trans ideology is tyrannical’

Acclaimed actor Simon Callow has criticised Stonewall over its campaign to axe rights based on biological sex.

The gay rights campaigner and star of stage and screen described Stonewall’s ideological position on transgenderism as “tyrannical” and one that was pursued with an “extraordinarily unproductive militancy”.

In June, Stonewall co-founder Simon Fanshawe hit out at the controversial lobby group’s transgender agenda and its unwillingness to engage with opposing views on allowing people to change their legal sex through self-declaration.

Militant ideology

Speaking to The Times Scotland, Callow said that the LGBT lobby group had adopted “a dangerously prescriptive position” on such a “complex issue”.

“When it impinges on women’s rights, hard-won women’s rights, the right to exclusive spaces for women, away from any threat at all — I think that’s a very serious issue”, he said.

Callow also questioned why Stonewall favoured children ‘transitioning’. He said that the “most dangerous thing” was that children may be “lured into thinking that they are obviously in the wrong gender”.

Earlier this year, gay columnist Matthew Parris revealed that he had cancelled his Stonewall membership, and accused the organisation which he helped to found of “anger, intolerance and partisanship” and of adopting an “extremist stance” on the “trans issue”.

‘Threat to women’

Callow’s remarks follow Surrey’s Police and Crime Commissioner urging its police force to cut ties with Stonewall over its promotion of gender self-identification.

Lisa Townsend called Stonewall “a threat to women” for claiming that men who self-identify as female should be allowed in women-only spaces, adding it “does no-one any good to pretend that biology doesn’t matter”.

She said that when speaking to victims of domestic abuse, “one thing that comes through every time is how terrified they are of being forced to admit males.

“These services are life-saving, and too many of the women who use them it is vital they stay single-sex.”