AIBU to think public racist / anti immigrant / anti trans posts can justify dismissal?

What kind of thing did they ask you?

Interesting, real life is complicated. It's like a lot of Jewish and LGB people are supporting far right parties in Europe because they fear the rising power and influence of Islam.

I obviously couldn't, I didn't spot mine!

I don't think they do them for internal applicants. I've been on two interview panels, and I don't remember having to dream one up.

You have to tread very carefully if you work for the public sector or in a charity or third sector role. The dominant ideology is immigration = good, transwomen = women etc.

However, increasingly people are realising that immigration and asylum is a racket which puts more strain on communities already disadvantaged. A lot of people are getting fed up with it, but we have to be careful to only say what we think in trusted situations. Bit like living under the Stasi, really.

I could absolutely go undercover in a genderist org if I wanted to. I would be able to pass the “disguised equality questions” as I have done before. Am intrigued as to why you think they’re so cunningly hidden though. I wouldn’t choose to though.

Yes, I think FSU are really needed right now. They are fighting for people to keep their jobs who have offended the crazy woke ideology of their employers, like the police or fire service who really should be impartial anyway.

You could use whatever pronouns you like, including they/them/their if you're non-binary or don't want to disclose.

Tbh, I would be surprised if anyone with gender critical beliefs would want to work for the organisation. The whole culture would be anathema to them. And the interviews always include a disguised equalities question, so if you got a gender one and fucked it up, you probably wouldn't get the job anyway.

It was very PC. Someone reported my mate when they overheard her saying "That's fucking mental!" about something. It was the "mental" they objected to, not the swearing. (Our client group was primarily mental health.)

It does help though.

Pre the inclusion of pronouns I'd been exchanging emails with someone called "Robin" for months before I met them, and assumed they were male.

I was wrong! Not only not male, but a very feminine, glamorous young woman. I only found out when someone told me "Robin's female, by the way" an hour or so before I met Robin in a community setting. I'd have been wandering round a public library introducing myself to strange men had I not known, they might have thought I was on the pull!

It made me glad that I always use a shortened form of my gender-neutral first name, and it's not one I've ever heard used by a man.

Where we draw the line is the difficult part.

I don't want businesses dictating what your political or cultural views should be and we're increasingly lowering the bar as to what constitutes "hate speech" a term I really dislike as it seems to come straight from the KHB or Gestapo playbook.

There was an example a good while ago where a Christian bakery refused to make a cake for a gay couple and were vilified for it which in my view was wrong on both sides. There's absolutely no reason that couple couldn't have found another bakery and there no reason why a Christian who doesn't agree with LGBT can't respect and accept that community without having to compromise their beliefs.

There's a complex discussion to be had about the freedoms of the individual Vs our responsibility to create a working society. We should not persecute minority groups or people of different sexualities and cultures but in turn those groups do not have a right to force the rest of society to bend to their every whim.

I'm very concerned about the direction the UK is moving on all sides of the political spectrum. People on the left are becoming too comfortable with calling all those on the right fascist bigot's or low IQ idiots and wanting them banned from society the same way as those on the Right are all too comfortable doing exactly the same.

That's a scary road to go down as history shows us that if one of those groups ever gains too much power it becomes all too easy to excuse atrocities when you believe your cause is "just".

I bet you can't voice your concerns at work though - obviously not in front of service users.

I call a man a man and a trans woman a man. I call a man he and a trans woman he. I'm not obliged to call them by anything that doesn't sit right with me. As I said earlier in the thread, thank God I no longer work. This coercion is only going to get worse.

In a part of my role I work with mainly immigrants, all of whom I treat with respect and whose individual stories fill me with compassion. However, working on an area with such high levels of immigration has made me more anti immigration not less. Im not racist or anti immigrant, but I have growing doubts about the wisdom of such high levels of immigration (really since COVID) in mainly areas of existing socio economic deprivation. I suspect you'd probably quite like me sacked.

I’m afraid I care more about myself being able to speak accurately than being “kind” to someone else by indulging them in a lie.

As a private individual, you are allowed in most developed states to express any opinion you hold. However, if you're well known in your professional capacity in any given community, or if your role brings you into contact woth people you are criticising, and have an inkling that your opinions might be offensive, you should post anonymously or reconsider posting altogether. This is especially true of public service employees, who should be even handed and seen to be even handed in the commission of their duties.

This is exactly how I see it, @mathanxiety .

Better to ask than assume what anyone thinks.

Yes

Again, that’s great. You do you and I’ll do me 😊

Kind of ok with they/them as a neutral although I find it annoying in sentences. I think it’s bizarre that you don’t grasp that any objection to men being called “she” is equally applicable to women identifying as “men”. And yes, they’re women, women’s spaces are not off limits to women of a masculine appearance.

I feel the same about pronouns. They’re just a social convention and have no specified legal or medical meaning.

General question on pronouns for those who won’t use ones they think wrong - are you ok with they/them for either sex, and are you calling trans men she, and comfortable accommodating them in women’s spaces?

People can call themselves whatever wild and wonderful things they want. I mean I could just call Linda Dave, but that might not have even been his original name so it’s a bit rude really.

Who says Linda is a a woman’s name? If a man has it, it’s a man’s name if he wants it, no?

So you’re comfortable calling a man a woman’s name, but not ‘she’. Makes no sense to me but each to their own.

Lovey? Is that you Keith?

There you go @Switchnow