Rainbow badges at work - upset

[whatishappening123]

I work in a sector with vulnerable young people. A few years ago, we made the decision as a company to wear as part of our uniform, a name tag with the rainbow on as part of pledging our support to LGBT+
We have all received new name badges and for the first time ever- an option has been provided to have a red coloured one instead of the rainbow if staff 'do not agree with LGBT+'
I have raised this with HR and union and been told that staff are now allowed to choose and that is their right.
I feel really upset by this - colleagues I have known for years are now deciding against the rainbow badge.
We work with the most vulnerable- who are often LGBT. Some of our service users have asked staff directly why they are not using them- and they have lied saying " They'd run out , or the pin on the rainbow ones are crap, some staff are hiding the red ones.
It's not a majority by any means - it's probably about 11 staff in a staff of 60.
I just feel really really upset by it, but I can't quite put my finger on why.
I also don't understand how people can be 'against' LGBT
It's a protected characteristic.

Someone being trans is not "up to them"- any more than someone being autistic is "up to them". These are naturally occurring cognitive differences.

You can choose to accept people as they are or you can choose to treat them as you would expect/ prefer them to be based on your own presumptions/ prejudices, with judgement and misunderstanding. That's up to you of course.

Is there a badge that signifies total support for the LGB angle but concern about the T bit? Can it signal concern for individuals who are being told they can alter their sex, those who feel they don’t fit in and see trying to change sex as the key, and concern for those whose rights are being stamped on?

I don’t understand why LGB and then T are lumped together at all.

Well, that's great, but it doesn't happen everywhere. People are discriminated against. Women have been passed over for leadership positions so now we have quotas to counteract that. LGBT+ folk have been harassed, so we have badges to reassure.
If everyone operated as you say you do we wouldn't need these things, but they don't so we do.

In what way do you “feel female”?
What specifically makes you “feel female”?

This is just ridiculous, if people don't want to wear the badge so be it, I wouldn't agree with this at all at work. It's going to get to the stage there will be too many letters for the badge!

Women are now being passed over for men who say they’re women.

Progress 💪🏼

Gender reassignment is also a protected characteristic. So by my understanding, LGBT is a protected characteristic.

I would have chosen the neutral badge, and that is what I believe they are aiming for. The options aren’t pro-LGBT or anti-LGBT, the options are Neutral or Pro-LGBT. I find it ridiculous that they even have a rainbow badge to opt for. They presumably don’t have Pro-Religion, Pro-Female, Pro-Male, Pro-Old people…… badges so arguing that it’s because LGBT fall under the protected characteristics of Sexual orientation and Gender re-assignment is clearly not accurate.

A work badge has the following purposes:

• to provide your name to service users
• to provide a visual indicator that you are an authorised user of a space
• to designate your role

They should not be used to demonstrate your personal feelings about politics.

The same as any part of my identity. I'm a cis woman who hates shopping, loves nature and doesn't believe in an omnipotent deity. That's just who I am.

The only good thing about the red badge is that at least I'd know who to avoid sitting next to at lunch (to avoid someone boring my hole off about 'immobile gametes(large)/JK Rowling's completely not made-up story about being poor/other tedious stuff)

But what specially males you “feel female”.

None of those things make you “feel female” so what does?

These types of badges are divisive and they’re used to bully people or coerce them. At the very least showing “support” should be optional. I’d ban all political messaging, personally.

Most people feel that vulnerable young people deserve better than to be the victims of medication or pushed into surgery because of gender woo.

Question do you wear a badge showing your support for the disabled, ethnic minorities, the poor??

Being TRANS in itself is not a protected characteristic FFS

Does a forcibly worn badge reassure? I can understand how it could have been reassuring in the past when it would have been a statement to do so. But now that the rainbow flag has become a corporate signal for companies to change their logo on Twitter to in June it surely doesn’t quite have the same meaning?

Positive action (like quotas for women in leadership) would surely be far more impactful than making everyone wear a badge?

I don't think this is about 'politics' though - if a lot of the service users are LGBTQ+ it's there to show acceptance and solidarity.
I couldn't go to work, announce that I thought a lot of our customers were predators/mentally ill and expect to retain my job.

Thank goodness that this gender extremism is now becoming a thing of the past. Survey after survey shows that the vast majority of women want single sex spaces. Women should not be forced to pretend to support an ideology that actively harms us. Especially not while we're at work.

Can you provide a quote from the equality act please? I think I demonstrated quite well in my mentioned post that “LGBT” is not a protected characteristic, and if OP wants to continue discussing her issue with HR or her union she should have an understanding of the message she is trying to convey, when using legally defined terms.

There should be a usual day to day badge with a rainbow option if you want one. I would not like to be forced to wear a rainbow badge.

It's a free country and nobody should be forced to wear a badge supporting something

There’s no such thing as “cis”. Men who claim to be women aren’t actually women.

It’s just your personal ideological jargon. That’s fine, I’m not all that interested in your Myers Briggs type either but if it interests you, great.

I can never tell if I am cis gender, or gender fluid, is there a way you can tell? If there a list or a criteria? I know for a fact I’m
in a woman’s body, it’s not exactly how I would like it to be (big boobs, etc) and I really don’t like shopping or beauty treatments. I do like DIY and baking. Does this make me cis gender, trans gender or gender fluid?

interesting that you think that’s analogous to not wearing a rainbow badge.

I think your company made a huge mistake choosing to go with the rainbow badges. It's too controversial and restricting for all the reasons discussed here.

Hopefully it's not too late to convince them to scrap the idea and just go with the neutral ones.

What nonsense. I wear a MacMillan badge that shows support for the charity. By wearing it I am not promoting my dislike of other cancer charities . I don’t hate Marie Curie for example! It’s just a badge and does not really matter.

How do you feel female in your head? Describe that.

It still requires me to role play though and a role play that means my sex class loses out.

Thinking sporting accolades amongst all the other things I mentioned that you don’t care about.