Stonewall: LGBTQ+ charity faces tribunal after attempts to sack barrister over gender-critical views

Barrister Allison Bailey claims that LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall worked with her legal chambers, as a fee-paying member of the controversial Diversity Champions scheme, to start an investigation into her.

The lesbian criminal barrister helped to found the LGB Alliance, which is a charity that both does not agree with Stonewall’s stance on transgender people and is suing them.

Ms Bailey claims a row stemming from views on transgender issues, meant she lost income by losing work.

Judge Holly Stout, who is looking into the case at the London Central Employment Tribunal, said: "Stonewall complained about her to chambers, her tweets were investigated by chambers and complaints about two of those tweets were upheld and the claimant asked to remove the tweets, which she did not do."

Ms Bailey reportedly set up a crowdfunding campaign to cover her legal bills, says The Telegraph, and lodged a claim at an employment tribunal against Stonewall and Garden Court Chambers last year.

LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall had tried to get the case thrown out, claiming it was "unarguable" because conditions for liability were not fulfilled.

The next hearing regarding Ms Bailey’s case will now be held in June 2022.

In a previous hearing in February, Judge Stout had said: "It is plainly arguable Stonewall sought to induce Chambers to subject the claimant to a detriment because of her publicly expressed beliefs and the allegations she had made against Stonewall."