Janice Turner "Civil servants are being fed gender drivel"

I’m glad a light is finally being shone on this, but I am horrified at the level of capture. Thanks for sharing, OP.

Nope! You cay identify as whatever you like if you're angry enough, no one is going to question you

I'm honestly considering setting up as a trainer based on this, as there seems to be zero quality control and you can go into workplaces and say what you like. I know all the buzzwords, I can identify as what I like - is there anything actually stopping me?

My uncle, some years ago, relayed to me some EDI training he'd had along the lines of race, which included some rather eyebrow-raising terms. (By the white people leading the training, I should add).

www.acas.org.uk/the-equality-act-2010-agender-and-me#:~:text=Emma%20is%20intersex%20and%20identifies%20as%20female%3B%20her,was%20a%20pioneering%20moment%20for%20trans%20people%20everywhere.

I think it is a different one.

Is that the same Emma as does the civil service training?

Good lord, what a load of absolute SHITE! Agree that the bosses need to grow a spine and take charge. This kind of behaviour would be thoroughly unacceptable on any other topic and it is thoroughly unacceptable here, too.

Really interesting website, @Zeugma I've bookmarked it, thanks for sharing.

I've come to the conclusion that all the D&I stuff - in its current incarnation - needs to get in the bin. What we need is a framework to ensure that everyone is treated fairly; balance the rights of the different groups, and work within the law as it is (not how activists want it to be).

Given that departments have been told to model cuts of up to 40% and all the unions are captured it feels like any resistance is riskier than before.

So Emma says intersex people need their own toilets but trans people want to use the toilet for the gender they identify as. This is very confusing.

No, it's Emma Dunn who leads the sessions. I've never really understood what the I has to do with the T (or indeed the LGB) but clearly it's provided a very useful career for Emma.

Yes I gather it's rife in all parts of the public sector. Good to know our taxes are being put to good use. Not.

Imagine this was happening with data protection. And there was a set of lobby groups wanting you to either do more or less than the law says with data, and there there's a civil service network that mirrors this agenda / "a:gender". No one would find that acceptable. This isn't either and in fact, parts of it do mean not handling personal data correctly - for example diversity monitoring that does not follow the law.

I don’t believe so.

I think the civil service a:gender network uses their own network members to put on training events.

The chair of the a:gender network, is called Emma and identifies as intersex and female. Someone I know attended one of Emma’s training sessions last year and seemed to find Emma’s account emotional and persuasive. I don’t know any details of what was said in the session. It’s possible of course that there are two different individuals called Emma running sessions. So it wouldn’t be fair to assume that the same person delivered the session that was recorded, as that might not be accurate. Also, it wouldn’t be fair to assume that the person who delivered the session is acting in bad faith, they could be misguided and misinformed - I know someone who apparently genuinely believes there are more than two sexes. Having said that, the use of pejorative terms like “transphobic dogwhistles” in the session was inappropriate. (And I note that there’s never any mention of misogynist dog whistles.)

Thanks, Zeugma - she certainly is busy spreading her and unscientific nonsense.

I have worked in a central government (Whitehall) dept for 10 years and have never had to do training like this. So it definitely isn't everywhere in the CS. Maybe becuase our dept is small, we have escaped so far?

Just because they go to the training doesn't mean they'd buy into any of it. My civil service friends wouldn't.

I don't believe there's a part of the civil service or wider public sector untouched by this stuff. I'd work on the assumption they've all had "the training". As to the senior managers too scared to say no, I say pathetic. Do your job. This is your job:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-7-principles-of-public-life/the-7-principles-of-public-life--2

Selflessness
Integrity (especially: Holders of public office must avoid placing themselves under any obligation to people or organisations that might try inappropriately to influence them in their work)
Objectivity
Accountability
Openness
Honesty
Leadership

I find all this truly terrifying, it really is a shadow state, every single public institution is pursuing an ideological position in opposition to democratic control. Anyone delivering training to public institutions should be democratically scrutinised.
www.diversityandinclusionawards.com/award-nominee/emma-dunn

A:gender did not respond to a request for comment.

I’ll bet they fucking didn’t

great articles. I hope these woo pedlars find themselves out in the cold

As if by magic, the link provided by Zeugma has this:

Dunn explained to us what ‘intersex’ meant but did not refer to the myriad health conditions by the more correct terminology Disorders of Sexual Development (DSD).
Being intersex may mean the person might experience gender dysphoria. ‘If you’re literally not male or female, but you’ve been assigned to a male or female category at birth, you might not feel like that is a really good fit for you,’ said Dunn.
Which just isn’t true.
People with ‘intersex’ conditions are either male or female, just like the rest of us.

It seems a bit strange that Emma is 'intersex', aka has a DSD.

We're at a point where some time ago "intersex" stopped being a condition grounded in physical reality and became an identity umbrella which people can identify as being under.

Thank you, Janice 💐

When people are sitting in listening to this drivel at work, in a workshop etc context, do any of them just stand up and walk out and go back to their work? I’d love to hear from anyone who’s done this!

Interesting further details about a relevant event with the same host

I always take great comfort from the comments under these articles, which almost universally condemn the unscientific drivel being promulgated. The occasional troll is always speedily demolished.

Excellent article. In my experience in the public sector, we were subjected to this reeducation training. We had a transwoman explain to us how they had advised the ONS on the census, how any claims of the importance of biology were a nonsense, there was no advantage in sport, and all on International Women’s Day.

And we all, intelligent people, had to smile and nod or risk getting outed as a heretic by the Red Guards of the LGBTQ+ network.

Senior management wanted to move away from Stonewall - as they know it’s nonsense - but the internal staff networks scream ‘Transphobia!’, ‘Heretic!’. And so Senior Management give in and add their pronouns, to show that they are ‘kind’.

Drivel is a marvellous word and certainly underused at this point in history.