Work HR: Preferred Pronouns are mandatory

How are you getting on?

I hate all this. Fortunately my work hasn't insisted. If it did I'd probably write:

"I don't have a gender identity. My biological sex is female".

I like @GreenMonty response:

"I didn't believe in gender identity and only see myself in terms of biological sex."

Any news on this OP?

Not surprisingly they don't require you to state how many motorhomes you own and whether it's parked at your MIL's, @Morethanafeline 😉

It seems to be everywhere. I recently refused permission for DC to take part in a school survey sent out by the council (Scotland) because it only referenced gender identity. I wrote to the school and told them why.

The only time I'm asked about biological sex is when doing an econsult at my GP.

Ah so sex could have been included and should have been alongside the trans question.

I'm going to raise this with a trusted colleague in my workplace.

Make sure not to register for a website.

I have one with GoDaddy and one of the emails I got from tech help has their pronouns in it.

Which Christian denomination are you?

Catholic
Methodist
Baptist
Church of England
Other
Prefer not to say

If you are a Muslim the option ‘prefer not to say’ actually means you prefer not to say which Christian denomination you are. Even ‘other’ indicates you are declaring you have an ‘other’ Christian denomination.

I always tick “other” and write British

The questions about data collection and processing still apply, whether the questions come from HESA or the individual university.

Oh, and preferred pronouns is not (yet!) part of the HESA data collection.

All UK HE institutions are required to submit a staff data return to HESA each year. This is an individual record for each staff member. The HESA staff data specification includes some special category data such as gender identity, sexuality etc.

There are two separate questions relating to gender identity - one on 'trans' for Scotland which is optional to return, and one on 'gender identity' which is compulsory to return for institutions in England and Wales, optional for Northern Ireland.

The options for gender identity are:

Q: Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?

Yes
No
Prefer not to say
Not available

Definitions:

Prefer not to say – staff member doesn’t want to declare the information.
Not available – the provider is not able to get this data in order to send it to HESA.

Scotland has a separate question about trans:

Q: Do you consider yourself to be trans, or have a trans history?

Yes
No
Prefer not to say
Not available

I'd ask why Prefer not to say isn't presented as an option in your system at the very least.

Agreed. I'd be asking to see the DPIA.

You would think organisations would be very wary of collecting this data. I can't see why they need it, and it is highly sensitive data so if there was a data breach it would be a serious one

This is a really bad policy that unfairly impacts women who are often undermined when it is obvious they are women during interactions. This us shown again and again when the same email is sent from a male named account and a female named one.

I would want to push back, but I think you need to be careful. Goid luck @belgiumchocolates

My employer is also now making pronouns on email signatures compulsory. Previously 'encouraged to show support for LGBTQA+ colleagues' but not mandatory.

I'm thinking of asking to join the inclusion champions next meeting as a guest to tell them I don't agree with it and why. But I'm not sure how it would go😬

It's the wrong, unimportant, kind of diversity

Your employer is a university and they can’t spell Buddhist??

They do have "prefer not to say" as an option though so I wouldn't mind too much about daft questions if i don't have to answer them. It does bother me if sex is mixed in with gender identity such that they aren't accurately recording sex and if you choose prefer not to say to that question important sex stats are wrong.

Its technical points which HR has totally missed

The employer could collect data on if an employee ever seen a chicken cross a road.
Attaching that to a HR file and insisting that all employees supply the data is one problem.

The employer will say the data is for a third party but is not recognise that collecting and handing over data is a choice that carries obligations and that the responsibilty for having a lawfull reason remains with the employer. So the employer should make a IO complaint on its own behalf and ask for a decision on the lawfullness of the "ask" as well as its obligation to supply what is being asked.

What reporting purposes? Pronouns aren’t a protected characteristic?

and they’re not asking about race or sex from the look of it which are protected characteristics!

they do need it for reporting purposes

Collect, yes. Attach to your personal HR record, no.

Work don't actually need the
Info to know whether you can do your job. But they do need it for reporting purposes, so that they know if eg they have a gender pay gap (though this this should be a sex pay gap), whether they have a good balance of ethnicicity across the organisation, whether working mothers are being penalised etc etc.

The trouble is, as this thread clearly demonstrates, the data isn't accurate and woolly questions mean they can be answered subjectively rather than factually.

A business could claim to have an all female exco board, but if 50% of the board are transwomen, is that really an all female board? Depends on what data is gathered.

Some people might claim to be mixed race with just one g g grandparent of a non white race, others wouldn't. My DCs are technically mixed race, but both the races in their heritage are white, so depends on your interpretation of mixed race, etc.

Put Eskimo for ethnic origin.

seriously this is so awful, it’s untrue. I work in HE and have to fill out a paper form annually which I take great delight in scrawling all over about how gender is a social construct which I don’t subscribe to and that SEX is what’s covered by the equality act so maybe they need to ask about that as well.

I’ve also complained to HR that their training video on trans matters was legally incorrect. If a female employee complains to her manager about a trans female identifying colleague using the female bathroom the correct answer is not “the female employee needs to be spoken to about being kind”. The answer needs to be that female sex toilets are a legal obligation (that wasn’t an option).

• Your personal details: your title, name, gender, marital status and date of birth
• Equalities information: your ethnic origin, religious belief, sexual orientation and any disabilities, impairment or long-term physical or mental health condition

All the info in bold made me shiver.

If the physical or mental health condition is not registered as a disability and/or would not impact my work, why should it be disclosed to work?

Why TF does my work need to know who I feel sexual attraction to?

Same about marital status? Why does work need to actually know whether I'm married, single, etc? I know it's a standard question but why in earth is it relevant?

And the religious belief...well for any people who were born muslim but renounced it, this could actually be a DANGEROUS question for some.

I could pick at more but it just gave me shivers to have all that info collected.

I used to live in a real life dictatorship and even if didn't require all that info to be given to employers!

All of this information they are asking for is wildly intrusive and potentially opens you up to discrimination, however you answer.

Could you complain to HR about this?

Martial status and caring responsibilities opens women in particular up to discrimination as mothers and caregivers, and to misogynist judgements.

Gender ID, trans status and pronouns risks outing trans people, and people with various political or religious beliefs.

None of this is appropriate, it is none of your work place's business.