Woke Waste Weekly Audit
Woke Waste Weekly Audit
Here's how your hard-earned money is being spent by the "Conservative" Party
Intro: Every week I will compile all the woke projects I’ve found so far in a spending audit. I will update it as I go. It’s a little bit depressing - but knowledge is power! So stay awoken, friends…
Up to £20,000 - Dr. XYZ; A Medical Drag Transthology
Funder: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
Woke Waste: Funding for a film titled Dr. XYZ; A Medical Drag Transthology to celebrate 75 years of the NHS. It “will engage the trans and non-binary community in Birmingham to help source their untold stories and experiences of accessing healthcare.” Participants are offered a “wellbeing officer” to support them “while recounting what could be traumatic experiences”, and they will be “using drag comedy satire”.
£19,237 a year (at least) - UKRI rate for PhDs - Trans Archaeology
Funder: AHRC
Woke Waste: A student is being paid a stipend by by AHRC of approximately £18,622 a year to research trans archaeology. The student gave a lecture titled Bones Don’t Care About Your Feelings: Challenging Transphobic Invocations of Archaeology in (Social) Media. A slide from the presentation asks: “What if I told you that when an archaeologist finds human remains, it is a fact that there [sic] only two choices for gender identification.” More here.
£19,237 a year (at least), UKRI’s PhD rate - Growing Up Queer: 1790-1918 PhD
Funder: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Economic Social and Research Council (ESRG), both UKRI funded
Woke Waste: Suggested research questions for the Growing Up Queer PhD include “How were race, gender and sexuality enfolded in personal and professional conceptualisations of queer childhood?” and “To what extent did ‘queer’ adults, many of whom married and had children of their own, reflect upon their own parenting? Another taxpayer-funded PhD is Podcasting and Pedagogy for the Planet: Examining the Nexus of Art, Entertainment, and Education Related to sustainability and climate change. Info about the PhD reads: “Do you love podcasts? Are you increasingly concerned about the looming climate emergency?” More here.
£854,260 since 2018 - Protection Approaches (a hate-crime charity)
Funder: Government grants - including Department for Levelling Up and the Mayor of London
Woke Waste: Hate crime charity that uses terminology such as “cis-heteronormative”, and recommends that States consider: “developing, adopting and implementing an inclusive, intersectional national strategy of atrocity prevention”, as well as running “active bystander” courses.
£875,700 since 2019 - Stop Hate UK (another hate-crime charity - and there are way more)
Funder: Government grants and contracts
Woke Waste: Has a glossary of terms on its website including Acephobia, Intersectionality, Micro-Inequities and pronouns. Like Protection Approaches, its ideological position aligns more with Humza Yousaf/ the SNP’s Hate Crime Act than the UK Government’s position on gender issues.
£627,710 (since 2019) - “Rainbow” Kayaking and LGBTQ+ socials
Funder: Government grants - including Camden and Islington Council
Woke Waste: Amount spent on a hate crime charity forum+, whose “charitable” activities include an art workshop to celebrate “queer joy and creativity”, a film club, cooking lessons, and LGBTQ+ “Rainbow Paddlers” Kayaking sessions (for adults).
£19,237 a year (at least), UKRI’s PhD rate - UCL’s Legacies and Futures Project
Funder: UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)
Woke Waste: An academic who told the BBC that trans women’s milk is as good as breast milk is working on a PhD project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), a subsidiary of UKRI. It will investigate “similarities and differences between lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, nonbinary, intersex, and/or transgender (LGBTQIA+) pregnant persons and heterosexual pregnant persons whose gender matches with their assigned sex at birth (cisgender).” More here.
£939,368 - FemIDEAS: Decolonising Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Higher Education - at the University of Westminster Centre for Social Justice Research
Funder: UKRI
Woke Waste: Project about “decolonising sexual and gender-based violence” in HE; includes “lived experience advisory group”; and stands for “Feminist, Intersectional, Decolonisation, Equality, Abolition, Survivor-centred”.
More here:
£614,582 - Soho Theatre
Funder: Arts Council England (ACE)
Woke Waste: Discussions of “top surgery” and pronouns on its social media (“I did cut the tits off”):
Identity politics galore - Pansexual Pregnant Piracy and 52 Monologues for Young Transexuals.
Has a comedy show that where “White audience members are encouraged to check their privilege at the door”:
£250,000, Vercida (a “tech platform aimed at jobseekers looking to work for employers that place diversity, inclusion and well-being at the top of the agenda”)
Funder: Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)
Woke Waste: Published blog claiming Napoleonic Wars were part of “queer history”; has Stonewall on its website and articles such as Creating safe and supportive spaces at the DWP.
More here:
£15 million - The Globe
Funder: ACE
Woke Waste: Turned Joan of Arc into a “non-binary” person in its production I, Joan; publishes a gender identity resource list; recommends Mermaids, Stonewall and Gendered Intelligence as charities/ places to get advice.
£800,000 - University of Roehampton
Funder: UKRI
Woke Waste: Facilitating a project that says the “disproportionate representation” of William Shakespeare in the theatre has propagated “white, able-bodied, heterosexual, cisgender male narratives”. Piece here:
Obviously this is just the tip of the Wokeberg when it comes to the UKRI - more here and here, as well as my thread on X:
£600,000 - BBC diversity drive
Woke Waste: Taxpayer money for “diversity and inclusion” roles, according to a Freedom of Information (FoI) request.
£50k - BBC comedy scheme
Woke Waste: Total number of funds for one of its comedy schemes, which invites “under-represented groups” to apply (using a rigid, woke definition).
Previous winners are an organisation “developing women, gender minorities and queer voices in comedy in Northern Ireland”; another a “North East-based comedy organisation supporting LGBTQ+ comedians by extending their programme to focus on workshops for LGBTQ+comedy performers in the region”.
£16,828,042 - Southbank Centre
Funder: ACE
Woke Waste: Shows including: Pxssy Liquor's Office Christmas Party, ““a cabaret collective for queer gals and nb [non-binary] pals” that provides an “antidote to the male-gaze saturated cabaret scene”.
Little Big Sing with Trans Voices, marketed for 5+:
“After witnessing the growing anti-trans rhetoric specifically aimed at children, both artists felt an urgent need to effect change and create a provision for mental wellness through music.”
“a tour around the human body with trans non-binary emergency doctor Dr Ronx”, for ages 6-9.
Recent article about Ronx:
£20 million (2022-23 report) - National Maritime Museum
Funder: DCMS
Woke Waste: Obsession with identity politics:
A Queer Love Tokens workshop including a chat “about historical queers” (for ages 12+):
My piece in January:
And lastly, a round up of £7,858,082 AHRC-funded projects, including Cuteness In Contemporary Environmental Culture: Developing Ecopoetic Practice and Queerness in nineteenth-century transatlantic spiritualism:
