Do the arts nurture hostile environments?

As a victim of harassment, having recently won a tribunal against my ex-employer Arts Council England (ACE), I am sorry to say our sector does have a bullying problem, fuelled by an endless quest to root out ‘transphobes’.  

My story has been widely covered so I will just briefly recap. In April 2022, the LGB Alliance (LGBA) secured a grant of £9,400 from the Let’s Create Jubilee Fund to make a film about the achievements of gay men since 1952. It is a very moving documentary, giving voice to the elderly men who changed our country for the better.

You can watch a clip here. But beware, the film was made by an exclusively gay and bisexual organisation and, for some, that means it should be treated with caution. 

LGBA does not campaign for the rights of trans people – other LGBTQIA+ charities do – and it claims same-sex attraction is based on biological sex, an idea that bizarrely has come to be associated with transphobia.

‘Anti-trans’ or ‘a cancer’

When this modest grant was announced, online outrage ensued – most of it directed towards the devolved funder, London Community Foundation and ACE, as the funds came from National Lottery coffers. ACE’s Deputy CEO, Simon Mellor was sufficiently troubled he dedicated a 30 minute all-staff meeting to the subject.

To put this in context, the LGBA award represented 0.0012% of ACE’s £796m grant distribution for 2022-23. Mellor condemned LGBA as “anti-trans”, saying the grant was a mistake. It was withdrawn a few days later. 

There was been no independent investigation, so it’s unclear why that happened, particularly as LGBA went on to secure a further award from a National Lottery distributor.  

The Leeds Employment Tribunal panel “doubt[ed] the wisdom of Simon Mellor providing his personal opinions during this meeting” and were in no doubt that he “opened the door for the subsequent [internal] petition” against gender critical people – like me. 

The petition ran online for 26 hours and attracted offensive comments from ACE colleagues, in which I was likened to “a cancer”. I successfully claimed this as harassment. 

Protected characteristic

To be clear, once and for all, believing people cannot change sex (a belief termed ‘gender critical’) is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act. Some find this contentious, but it is the law.

Accusations of wrong-think can quickly degenerate into harassment. The sector’s central identity is ideas: what Peter Daly terms as moral capital. Daly notes “moral communities are overwhelmingly the locus of disputes around sex and gender” because many “are required, but fail, to undertake the requisite intellectual exercise to interrogate the contours of their own moral code”.  

Arts organisations cannot afford to fall into the same trap ACE has just clambered out of. There is a tsunami of legal cases coming through courts from all sectors: political parties to social work. So every theatre, gallery, publisher and music venue needs to ensure staff can express themselves freely and safely, including gender critical views.

People have different views, even in the arts. Some believe in God, some don’t. Some believe in access to safe abortion, some don’t. Some are pro-Brexit (yes, even in the arts), some aren’t. We are rightly tolerant of others’ highly divergent beliefs – except when it comes to the trans debate, when difference of opinion escalates into existential threat.  

Tolerance as a bare minimum

We have to get past cancellation, chilling of free speech and plain old bullying. In this, the law is our friend. The Public Sector Equality Duty (Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010) sums up arts organisations’ responsibilities in delivering goods and services to the nation.  

Forgive the legal speak but it’s worth spelling out. Organisations are required to 1) eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation, 2) advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not, and 3) foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.

There is little need to extend the interpretation of the law further when these duties alone are demanding and complex to deliver; tolerance as a bare minimum is surely key.  

As I advised in a tweet to the People’s History Museum – which faced controversy over hosting a gender critical organisation, and found their cold feet with the help of their trans and non-binary staff – if you are asked to discriminate against anyone or any group, please don’t. You may well be breaking the law, or worse, opening the door to harassment.

Denise Fahmy is a former Relationship Manager at Arts Council England.
@DeniseFahmy

Denise Fahmy worked for Arts Council England from March 2008 – May 2023. She took her employer to an employment tribunal which was heard in May 2023. More information and the judgement here. Follow the hearing.