Stonewall: How they influenced the BBC with use of a 'genderbread person'

The BBC has been showing staff an image of a ‘genderbread person’ as part of an internal course set up in conjunction with LGBT charity Stonewall, depicting sex as a spectrum and defining gender identity as ‘how you think about yourself.’

The broadcaster is now refusing to answer questions from presenter Stephen Nolan who recently produced an episode of podcast series ‘Nolan Investigates’ which claimed no alternative explanations were given during the training course, despite the ideas being contested.

Stonewall set up The Diversity Champions programme in 2001 and bills for advice on how to promote gender inclusion.

The programme has been criticised for giving out ‘extremist’ advice, including stopping the use of the word ‘mother’ due to it being ‘gendered language.’

Mr Nolan’s podcast explored how the BBC and other public bodies such as Ofcom and the Welsh and Scottish governments have been influenced by Stonewall due to involvement in the charity’s diversity schemes.

As revealed in a Freedom of Information Request, the Scottish Government has paid Stonewall over £400,000 in grants between 2017 and last month.

Other organisations which include the Cabinet Office and the Equality and Human Rights commission have already left Stonewall’s initiative after criticism of its policies and after their chief said believing a person’s sex cannot be changed is as bad as anti-Semitism, reports the Mail Online.