Trans awareness training

[GreenFirefly]

I don't do much posting, let alone thread starting but I've become aware that I might be in line for trans awareness training in the next few months (probably not strictly compulsory but difficult to get out of). From recent threads on here I think it's becoming a thing, so what gentle probing questions might we ask without risking our jobs?

Literally no questioning is ok. Not even silent ones in your head.

If it's not compulsory, don't go.

I went to one yesterday put on as part of Pride...5 trans events , one lesbian film and maybe one for the boys. Run by a Transman whoworks for an organisation here in Spain called Huellas Trans, which claims to be involvedlved in helping families with trans children. The propaganda did not say anything about why children are seen as trans but although the trainer did not stop speaking for about an hour, i had had enough and intervened. I have no job to lose, but if nothing else I wanted to get across a gender critical point of view to the other 5 participants. BEcause I had to speak Spanish it was not a very subtle rant....but it's think it made them think about all the problems for women and especially lesbians. It was scary to do this ...not sure how it would have been with the men in dresses brigade. The ideology is being put across by seemingly reasonable people but is the same stuff about affirming trans without question. I was pleased I could point out the dangers.

If its to do with your job, stick to ringfencing existing rights. So for example, your employer can provide mixed sex toilets in addition to single sex and disabled toilets.

OP, an acquaintance of mine who works for a woke housing association hasn't done the full trans training but trans came up as part of a bias awareness training and she asked things like:

'So I suppose you would need to carry out a safeguarding consultation/ check the equalities legislation / talk to all the service users about how they would feel about changes before you implemented them?' She says she thinks she got away with it because she voiced them as questions that were running through her head, not as if she was objecting and up for an argument. A couple of times the trainer said no, no consultation or audit needed to be carried out and she was able to say 'Oh, I thought we were committed to consulting everyone'. Apparently a couple of people joined in the conversation in such a way as to indicate they were GC too.

I think if you can be brave it helps others to step forward. GC views are the majority, though you wouldn't know it.

I wonder whether a gentle wondering aloud about "how do we protect the rights of all minorities when single sex toilets are necessary for some devout religious people to feel safe?" might be a way forward.

Kind of "I see your trans woman and raise you a Muslim and Orthodox Jewish woman" kind of thing.

I mention this as, before I moved home recently, I used to go to a women only steam and sauna where there were a lot of Muslim women and they would have not been able to attend had male bodied trans women been allowed into the space. I know this as I discussed it with them.

I have no idea whether the sessions are now open to male bodied persons and, if so, how this has changed the demographic of women attending.

Can you describe what a female gender identity is?

I'll have to see how it goes on the day. I'm not sure I can keep quiet if it's anti-science that we're told - gender assigned at birth and feeling like a woman...
I'll try and practice my puzzled face

Get them to explain sex to you and bring a big biology book.

www.amazon.com/Campbell-Biology-11th-Lisa-Urry/dp/0134093410?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

"But it says here...."

I did my bit today. Was at a training event and controversial topics on Wikipedia came up. I shouted out "like how to define a woman... or a man". The presenter agreed.

'Well, obviously we'll need to retain actual single-sex loos, so where would you recommend to put the separate mixed-sex facility? How many do you think we'll need in an average company?'

'Of course, we need to be sure we've consulted all users/customers/clients and done a proper impact assessment'

'We can't expect the women to share facilities as that would disadvantage them, but what we could do is...'

Basically the lines in the sand need to be drawn so that women and girls don't lose on facilities intended to be single-sex or on programmes intended to redress a disadvantage of being that sex.

Meanwhile, there may be other things that can be done to make trans lives easier. And why not?

I did a bit today. I was updating some manual and it talked about a pregnant or breastfeeding employee. It used 'the employee and her infant' so I just changed all the 'they' and 'their' to 'she' and 'her' to maintain consistency throughout the document

Great suggestions from pp for how to approach this. I agree that you should not be confrontational but voice to the group things that the trainer might be skimming over or misrepresenting like questions about safeguarding or single sex provision and sex based rights under the EA.