Sex Equality and Equity Network - Gender crit network for civil servants.

[fromorbit]

Important new initiative for government workers. This is where a huge fight back is going to happen in behind the scenes government, in memos and meetings. If we don't win in the civil service, it doesn't matter how many demos or cases we win, how many twitter threads we write, sooner or later sex differences will be erased. If you work in government/public sector get involved asp.

seen-network.uk/

"We are happy to announce the launch of our new UK cross-government staff network, the Sex Equality and Equity Network.
SEEN is a staff network committed to promoting and supporting sex equality and equity between women and men in our workplaces, and helping all staff to thrive at work and fulfil their potential. The focus of our network is on challenging sex discrimination and upholding rights and protections that relate to sex (including the protections provided to those with the protected characteristics of sex, pregnancy and maternity and sexual orientation, as set out in the Equality Act 2010). We recognise that to achieve this and ensure sex equality and equity sometimes requires treating women and men differently, according to our different rights and needs.

We are also committed to the protected belief (covered by the protected characteristic of religion and belief in the Equality Act 2010) that biological sex is binary and immutable, that biological sex matters for both women and men in our everyday lives, including for our rights and needs in the workplace, and that biological sex must not be conflated with, or replaced by, the concepts of gender or gender identity."

I'll just drop this here:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12260447/Civil-servant-likened-womens-rights-groups-far-right-head-Whitehalls-LGBT-network.html

In their role as a rep for the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) trade union, they recently called on its executive to ‘produce an information leaflet and organise a campaign for members which highlights the links between the far-Right, religious fundamentalist, and gender critical ideologies and many of their supporters’.

He also said:

...fascists giving Nazi salutes have been ‘welcomed’ on rallies by gender-critical campaigners and alleged that some leaders of the movement have made ‘statements of a genocidal nature’.

How's he not only allowed to get away with such egregious lies, but be promoted into such a position?

Hilarious!

https://www.civilservice.lgbt/election/2023/votes

You can see which department voted for who here. The EHRC network voted for him among others.

56 Civil Service organisations were eligible to vote in this election, having met the criteria for eligibility prior to the close of the voting period.

24 LGBT+ networks submitted a valid vote before the deadline. Across the 24 networks, 853 people voted in their internal elections.

Tiny numbers voted. He's a representative of a couple of hundred people. (30 percent of the vote.)

The sheer weight of disinterest is far more interesting. Hardly anyone cares.

And yet the influence he’ll have over the tens of thousands in the CS, off the back of a couple of hundred people’s vote…

Also this joint ticket thing is a bit of a farce really.
The next two combined have 60 percent of the votes.

Candidate % of votes Rank
Saorsa-Amatheia Tweedale and Jefferson Welsby 30 % 1
Nic Turner 27 % 2
Ross Starkie 23 % 3
Eamon Evans 14 % 4
Re-open nominations 1 % 5

Will he though? Barely any one seems interested. That's not influence.

I meant in terms of influence over policy. I don’t know about your department, but we always consult the major networks as part of any wide-ranging equality assessment when producing key strategies, target operating models etc.

Major? 800 odd voters?

No.

You can see clearly which departments have the most trans activists.

The department of science! What laughs. I bet their colleagues must have very rolly eyes.

Much sympathy.

If an employee survey got 800 ticks for an issue out of a potential of almost half a million it's not even registering as an issue of any importance.

As of March 2023, there were 488,400 full-time equivalent (FTE) civil servants

This just says it's irrelevant to me.

I do get what you’re saying Hepwo but the LGBT+ Network would be seen as one of the key diversity networks to consult on equality-related issues. We both know that the overreach of the GI movement far, far outweighs the numbers it actually represents.

Sure and as they have very kindly published the numbers to evidence that it can be pointed every single time.

There are only 250 or so people in the civil service that believe this nazi far right guff according to voting patterns so it's a miniscule position to take and disseminate as fact.

This is very useful data I would suggest.

as they have very kindly published the numbers to evidence that it can be pointed every single time.

Which is good, I agree. But that's always going to be challenge after the fact. Their influence - baseless as it may be be - gets in first.

Like our recent staff survey that completely left out 'sex' as a category in the EDI part (had 2 questions on gender identity, though - a max.of 1 for each of the other protected characteristics). So that's a whole year's data that cannot be disaggregated by sex, despite the EDI plan specifically stating that they know about and want to address the underrepresentation of women at higher grades. Of course that can be challenged, and it may be fixed next year, but this year's data is permanently shot.

(HR's excuse was that they asked the LGBTQ+ network, who thought the questions were fine. They didnt ask the women's network - because we didn't have one.)

Hepwo · Today 08:57

Sure and as they have very kindly published the numbers to evidence that it can be pointed every single time.

There are only 250 or so people in the civil service that believe this nazi far right guff according to voting patterns so it's a miniscule position to take and disseminate as fact.

Unfortunately, we've seen that their deluded ranting has influence far out of proportion to their tiny numbers. People are still scared to call out their lies.

I'm sorry to hear that sinnerboy. It's disconcerting that the public sector dog can be wagged by this tiny tail.

Knowing how few of them there is puts it into perspective.

All of the above is very pertinent regarding numbers etc. however it is unwise to ignore the chilling effect this has on staff who are not in the trendy GI LGBTetc gang (possibly greater numbers?) and who have felt unable to speak out on their own views for several years.
only recently, and thanks to the recent successful legal challenges has it been possible to create SEEN or demur on groupthink such as pronouns in signatures etc.
Seeing ideologues rise into any kind of overarching position is uncomfortable at best, worrying otherwise.
The tacit endorsement of his views, despite working in CS, implies we are captured and not impartial. It’s an insult to ordinary CS and indeed union members

Has anyone else seen the updated draft civil service policy on “gender identity and intersex”? I received this from the CGGN today and they are asking for feedback. I would encourage other civil servants to respond.

How would you go about getting a copy?

Hepwo · Yesterday 14:46

I'm sorry to hear that sinnerboy. It's disconcerting that the public sector dog can be wagged by this tiny tail.

I'm not in the public sector, I'm simply saying what I've learned from blogs, news reports, posts on MN...

Aargh my lot go on and on about intersex belonging to the LGBT+, I'm sure if I had a chromosomal disorder I'd be spitting feathers being co-opted in this way. They are so ignorant, but the groupthink is very strong and it is difficult to speak out. I daren't actually wear my SEEN lanyard as so many people wear the Proud Trust one, the one with rainbow stripes on one side and blue and pink stripes on the other. The Proud Trust who made the dice game for schoolchildren 😡

I got a copy through the cross-government gender network. So you might be able to sign up to their mailing list or contact your department’s networks to be involved. It can’t be shared outside the civil service so I can’t post a link.

The head of a:gender (the cross government trans and intersex network) is intersex herself and my understanding is she’s happy for the “I” to be included with LGBT (as long as the movement actually advocates for the particular and distinct needs of intersex people). Although I appreciate some other people with DSDs/intersex variations feel differently.

Ah I see. Well as this data shows less than half the Departments even took part in the election for an LGBT chair which is a massive amount of disinterest and the actual voting was from 800 people out of half a million so really, that's homeopathic proportions of relevance and should be treated accordingly.

It’s true that most people weren’t that interested in the election of the new chair, but it is still the case that the vast majority of those involved in departmental LGBT+ networks (who are the majority of LGBT civil servants) are emphatically not “gender critical”

Well then you've nothing to worry about have you? You can happily carry on intimidating lesbians who don’t want to have sex with men with the full backing of the civil service

I don’t know why you spend so much time here telling off women when you’re so sure nothing is happening, no one is GC & you’re completely in the right

I expect that they also know that believing sex matters in life and law is a protected beleif and people can't be discriminated against for this too?

I'm still a bit skeptical about the emphatically not though when so few bothered to vote and only 250 or so out of half a million voted for the two that are now the joint chairs. Seems underwhelmingly passive about it rather than emphatic.

Maybe nobody puts another perspective to you because you are so emphatically on the other side and as pp have said, this has a chilling effect. So you could quite easily be imagining this emphatic position held by others.

The voting certainly indicates that.

Yes, I hope no one would harass or discriminate against anyone for their beliefs. The difficulty sometimes though is drawing the line between that and appropriately challenging individuals if they choose to express views in a work context which may amount to harassment of others.

As I said, I don’t think many people were that interested in who the new chair would be - that doesn’t mean they don’t care about LGBT inclusion. It’s worth noting that most individuals didn’t have a chance to vote - it was up to each departmental network to organise a poll of its members or committee, and half of them just didn’t get around to it - probably because of work pressures.

I’ve discussed these issues with a few colleagues, and there are a range of views - most of us understand there are a number of really complex and difficult issues to which there are no easy answers. But the people I have spoken to who are furthest towards the GC end of the spectrum are all - apart from one - not LG or B (as far as I know).