Pulled up at work for ‘trans views’

@wherearethemarsbars just to explain a point you made.

Paternity leave and pay are statutory entitlements. The legislation uses the term “paternity” because that was what was used in the Employment Act 2002. Subsequent amendments have changed eligibility but the name remains.

HR therefore retain “paternity” in their policies because they include the statutory requirement as the baseline.

You can, if you wished to prolong the larks, say that as you are agender, you would be considered under the trans umbrella, so if they insist on giving you a gender identity label, you will accept being called a trans woman.

Also that as a nurse in a senior position, I should be setting an example for junior colleagues 🤷‍♀️

Smile enigmatically and say "Oh, but I am!" 😉

There are larks to be had if you say you don’t have a gender identity so are agender and therefore reject cis, but you recognise biology so you are just woman.

In what way were “they” right?

Snap!

The minute you say you're agender, you're under the 'woke cloak' and their attitude to you changes... I've played this game at work to amuse myself and highlight the absurdity of it all....

Cis is a slur for many, and disliked by lots of women. It is not a neutral term! They could have used other neutral language, eg “Tell us about your experience as a woman who is not trans”. But, no, they tried to force the language of gender ideology on you, and then criticised you when you didn’t join in. That’s not on. You did nothing wrong.

It’s like having someone in to talk about their religion, and then saying, “Mary, tell us about your experience as an infidel”. Loaded and not neutral - and not necessary.

For those who don't understand the problem with requiring women to accept "cis" being applied to them, it is akin to being asked at a session on Catholicism (run by your workplace, no less) to give your experience of living as a Pagan.

You say, "but I'm not a pagan. I'm Protestant / Muslim / an Atheist," and everyone treats you as being difficult and unreasonable because eyeroll "it just means 'not Christian' don't make such a fuss!".

Well yes, maybe to Christians. But it's mildly insulting and it presupposes that Christianity is the default and must be the framework around which we all define ourselves. I am not one. So I decline to be defined by your beliefs and not my own.

And that's the end of the matter.

I suppose there's a difference between what's on the birth certificates and what you teach your kids to call you. If Freddie's kids call their mother mum, mama or mam I'd be extremely surprised notwithstanding what's on their birth certificates.

Correct May brought it in. She was a poor PM. Starmer even worse of course, for years didn’t even know what a woman was… something the average two year old knows. Yet people still vote for him… no wonder the country is going down the pan when two years olds know more than our elected representatives

If OP is up for it, she should apologise if anyone was excluded by her choice of language and ask what the correct term to use if one is a woman for the purposes of the Equality Act who doesn’t feel any alignment to a particular gender. Then she can be “agender” too - alongside most of the other women in the world I expect.

The “call me dad” issue is interesting. I thought the Freddie McConnell case had been settled by a judge denying FM the right to be labelled father on birth certificates because childrens rights to know their parentage trumps FMs belief that gestating and birthing a child is the same as impregnating an egg with your sperm.

I’m saying this kindly, if people feel ‘damage’ if everyone else doesn’t play along with their internally experienced, self claimed identity, they need to get help.

HR should emphatically NOT be punishing employees for recognising reality. The Free Speech Union may be of assistance.

Woman means a woman who isn't trans. Women who are trans are called transmen. I don't see the need for the term 'cis' and if it offends people why use it?

Yes - the SC ruling is the actual law so it’s not even as if this is a feminist campaigning issue any more - it’s literally just advising OP on how to enforce her indisputable legal rights she already has under the law.

Obviously, many, many women are going to be subjected to workplace harassment that breaches the EA 2010 over the coming weeks as these women with the protected characteristic of being biological women are unlawfully asked to justify why that protected characteristic should be protected in law, as people continue to debate the legitimacy of the SC ruling at work (and as employers issue public statements condemning the SC ruling, thereby implying that women shouldn’t have the sex-based rights they currently have under the EA) so it’s really important that other women outside of FWR understand that employers shouldn’t be subjecting them to this kind of harassment under the EA.

This argument falls flat tho because cis isn't the opposite of trans. "Not trans" is. Cis is like the terms "infidel" and "heretic". They describe not-being-the-thing from the point of view of being within the belief system.

I'm free to call myself atheist and not trans, just as another person is free to call themselves Christian and cis or Jewish and trans.

I'd be within my rights to complain if a work training session asked me to describe my life as a heretic.

How are you supposed to describe your experience of living as a ‘cis woman’? What did the other women in the room say??

I'd be stumped.

This

It is like requiring someone who says they do not hold a Christian belief to call themselves a sinner.

It is required engagement in the belief system.

No thank you.

I would be interested to know how they would have responded if you said, quite neutrally, “I don’t identify as Cis.”

The term for a woman who isn’t Trans is Woman.

That’s all, and is correct and valid.

Why ? I hate the term cis and refuse to recognise it for what it represents. So what you’re saying is that those who self identify as something other than their birth sex have to be accommodated, but women don’t ? Women are women. Cis is meaningless.

You did nothing wrong.

Imagine turning the table and asking the presenter her experience of living as a Teapot Green Potato Woman.

It's tantamount to the same thing.

They are conflating two different things. It is possible to be inclusive of other peoples opinions without holding that same opinion.

It's not confrontational to refuse to be labelled by people compelling people to use special incoherent labels for themselves.
She's a woman - full stop.