Threatened with HR complaint for being gender critical

FuriousAndFrustrated · 2019-11-28 01:06:28

(Namechanged for reasons which will become clear and apologies for length!) On Sunday I shared a post on Facebook from Standing For Women. "In order to believe in the crazy idea that men can have female brains you would have to think that the dna code got the sex right in every single cell in the entire body except in the brain where the XY made it female." It's challenging to some people. but I don't think it's particularly outrageous. There ensued a robust discussion amongst some of my "friends", along with the usual accusations of transphobia, denying the existence of trans people, denying the existence of gender identity, etc etc (I'm sure you all know the sort of thing!) I staunchly (but politely) maintained my stance that womanhood is defined by biology, not feelings. There were no insults and in the end the discussion dried up with the feeling that we'd agree to disagree, and neither "side" would ever understand the other's. In fact one of my friends went so far as to comment "I have no skin in this game, but can I just say that I enjoyed your discussion. No insults, no shouting, structured arguments, it was a very pleasant read, Thankyou!" And that was an end to it. Or so I thought. Today, I received a private message on facebook from one of the main opponents to my stance. We share an employer. He believes that my sharing of the post, and my "public approval" (ie a facebook like) of the group contravenes our employer's social media policy (which is basically don't post anything illegal or offensive). Although I did have my employer listed on my profile (not any more), that doesn't matter as they state that it can be inferred by being friends with colleagues. He finished his message "....because I’ve seen it I can’t ignore it. Would it be possible for you to remove the post you shared and “unlike” that group?" My response: "Are you threatening to report me to HR if I don't do that?" His reply: "The content of that site is against policy and I will have no choice as per my role as LGBTQI lead for localdepartment " I said he could just ignore it and move on. His reply was that he's only following process and would be complicit if he did that. I'm so unbelievably angry. I feel bullied and intimidated and haven't really stopped shaking since our exchange. And that's not like me at all. I've removed the post (after saving the comments) but I am not going to remove my like for the page. I know it can be a bit full on and I don't agree with everything that's on there, but it's a page supporting women's rights and that is to be applauded. It goes without saying that I'm going to unfriend him (and his acolytes). Ideally I would then post a calm, measured statement of what happened, and how I was bullied/intimidated into removing the post. But at the moment I feel anything but calm and measured - I'm still slightly shaky. Common sense says I should just leave it but then he'll think he's won and I really don't want that! Any bright ideas for what I should do next?

Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Saved Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Feminism: chat

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

This thread has been deleted

While this is an important discussion, the OP has got in touch with us with concerns that this thread may be recognised by someone who knows her in real life. Given this is about her workplace, we understand why she's worried.