New Team Member wants us all to do a training course on trans awareness

[Enterthewolves]

I am oddly cross about this, new team member appointed - our manager has emailed to say new team member is gender non binary they/them pronouns and wants us all to do an online course (offered by our employer) to inform us about trans issues.

The arrogance is gobsmacking - shall I ask everyone to do a training course on gender critical beliefs?

The lunch example is bizarre. I guess if the whole team were invited and the trans person wasn’t that could be seen as discrimination but I guess that situation could apply to a whole range of protected characteristics.

the training said non binary identities were protected in law

Was that the Jaguar Landrover case where the company had failed to protect the NB staff member from bullying? The case was about ultimately about the failure to protect from bullying I think. But I think misunderstanding around this is one of the reasons that the law needed clarifying in terms of interpretation of the equality act.

YY Joody

Put the Cass report in for discussion.

I’m pretty liberal and I can wrap my head around trans people but every ‘non-binary’ person I’ve ever met has irritated the shit out of me. They’ve almost all been biologically female, early 20s and desperate for someone to ‘slip up’ and say something they can take offence to. They’ve all looked and dressed the fucking same and all have had a giant chip on their shoulders.

My company has insisted we do that Global Butterflies video too. It's unspeakable, almost entirely transwomen focused, paints nasty women as the villains in nearly every clip - I felt quite attacked having watched it. Very misleading about the legalities too if I remember. I would give some pointed feedback.

Individuals are allowed to discriminate on any basis they like. They are not subject to equality law.

in the last 8 years the entire nature of humanity and sex has changed.

Really?

No, it really hasn't. Language has been mangled but people don't actually change much.

Sorry I was being grumpily ironic.

Not asking a trans colleague to lunch could be discriminatory? What a load of bollocks (no pun intended). If employers are going to eventually have the power to police who we make friends with at work to the extent that they also get to tell us who we have to invite out to lunch as well there's soon going to be precious little time left for doing any actual fucking work in between making sure we're not not misgendering anyone, indicating pronouns on our email signatures and not barring access to transwomen from using the female loos.

Just reading this has fucking enraged me. Why are they so entitled?!

It was the CPS who produced toxic guidelines for schools that tried to insist that children refusing to play / socialise with a "trans" child or to welcome the opposite sex into their changing rooms / toilets would be guilty of a hate crime. They withdrew the guidelines rather than allow any legal scrutiny of them - which tells you everything about what they were like.

Suella Braverman's speech today really has shed a light on the utter bollocks being presented by so many self interested groups pushing their personal demands on the rest of us.

Yes indeed, perhaps the OP could request for her colleagues to watch Suella's speech?

@BattyNorah gosh yes, women as harridans the whole way through!

I've now started to co- identify as NB if someone else does. (I exaggerate, I did it once and pleased myself no end.) Which is kind of true as I am GC, and not always the most stereotype-conforming woman. Who is?

But i AM in my 40s and deeply uncool. I dont think I'm especially welcome under the umbrella.

My response would be unrepeatable.

why is the worlds revolving around this one person and their ego? I’d suggest time and money is spend sending this person to a training session on being a considerate colleague.

they are going to be a pain in the bum. I can guarantee that.

We definitely need 40+ women to start identifying as non-binary en masse. The whole fad would be over in a matter of months.

Definitely give detailed feedback, copying in HR and focusing on the inaccuracies around legal points; and I'd innocently ask for some training or HR guidance on how excluding someone from a lunch with another colleague could be discriminatory and how that would be determined, with reference to the Equality Act (little hint: it wouldn't).

I wonder if Sex Matters is still doing that service (free) where they'll send relevant material to your company for you? (It seems so, you can just supply the details of the org. your own details aren't collected needed.)

sex-matters.org/take-action/gc-rights-at-work/

If you prefer, their short guide is available for dissemination.

sex-matters.org/posts/updates/sex-and-the-law-share-our-short-guide/

NRTFT so don't know if its been mentioned. Some friends well ex-colleagues used AEA Alliance for their diversity training. Apparently that focused on all 9 protected characteristics and discusses the way in which there can be some friction and conflict and how to resolve it. it was at the beginning of this year I believe and we know many things have changed since then with it becoming clearer and clearer that Stonewall have lied to many corporations

I'm well up for this. But I don't know how to do it. Do I just announce I'm NB?

I mean, I definitely am, I wear brogues.