Gender critical and working for NHS

[Brightstar29]

I’m sure this has been discussed before many times, but are there any other nhs or public sector workers who are feeling anxious about all the gender stuff coming into the organisations we work for? I’m anxious about things like being told to state my pronouns (we haven’t yet but I can see it coming, other teams in the same organisation already have them on emails). I believe everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect regardless of being trans or not, but I feel like my rights as a biological female at work will start getting trumped by trans rights ideology coming into my workplace but I won’t be able to do anything about it or say anything for fear of losing my job. A lot of the equality training I have been on in recent years has very much focused on the trans rights stuff. Hope I’m making sense but don’t want to say too much in case of outing. How do other people in similar lines of work manage this?

I completely ignore it. We were invited to announce our pronouns on emails a while ago. I ignored this and was relieved to see, so did 99% of my colleagues.

Nod, smile and ignore

@Justcallmebebes i did have a nosey on the policy for transitioning at work and it does say that anyone transitioning can use the toilet which aligns with their identified gender regardless of where they are in their transition. Although I’d feel at very low risk at work, this feeds into a wider ideology of female only spaces being threatened which I don’t agree with.

i’m just worried about how far it’s going to go.

Many nhs trusts are 'captured' however there are plenty of staff who don't believe in gender identity ideology.

You definitely aren't alone.

@Woman2023 I’m just wondering how we can fight back against the system to protect sex based rights without losing our jobs or facing disciplinary action?

I ignore it. Refused to add my pronouns to email and laugh whenever anyone brings it up

GC beliefs are protected in law. I realise that you will not want to put that to the test necessarily and go through proving that to an internal panel or through a court of law. But do take some confidence from that right.

The trouble is that one of my managers has a trans child who is having private treatment. The manger is very pro trans rights.

Nobody ever asked me about my pronouns, but when I began a placement at an NHS hospital recently, I was given an ID card with "My preferred pronoun is He/Him" printed at the bottom. I didn't say anything but as I don't have any preferred pronouns, I have covered that bit of the card with tape.

I guess the person printing the cards didn't like asking the question but was obliged to complete the field so he just looked at the person in front of him and put down sex-based pronouns. Maybe he'd ask the question only of people he thought looked likely to actually have preferred pronouns, such as men in dresses and women with beards?

This is so common. Where I work, 3 out of 8 board members have trans identifying dc and it massively affects the organisation's outlook. It should not.

I just feel like it’s feeding into all areas, it’s not even just the pronoun thing, it’s the patient data systems we use and the general ideology that’s being pushed, and fear of being called a transphobe or facing disciplinary action for speaking out.

I see the Royal College of Occupational Therapist has been trans captured. No doubt purposeful targeting of a women dominated profession.

I consider myself to be gender critical and work for the NHS. I've avoided writing anything about preferred pronouns at the bottom of my email and feel I have to be careful of what I say. I.e I just go quiet if it's mentioned at work. I feel like my profession is meant to be very 'twaw' but I simply can't agree with this.

I am supposed to ask the gender of the patient at work, I don’t. There isn’t a sex option now.

I've actually been quite vocal that I am gender critical and absolutely won't be adding anything to my email signature or wearing any pronoun badges.

I feel very strongly that language should be clear AND accurate AND succinct.

Luckily I haven’t been asked about pronouns at any of the trusts I work for, but a consultant I work with and another member of staff were discussing it saying they think it’s all bollocks and will refuse to put them on their emails, so I don’t know if it’s coming soon…

My hospital HR seem to use gender rather than sex now and there’s no option to opt for female sex - it makes a nonsense of the sexuality question that follows.
i am concerned that the NHS unions have also been captured - how I would ever fight for sex based rights when sex isn’t recorded?
A major concern is hospital policies that seem to have been rewritten to comply with Stonewall and not the law. The major push for single sex has been forgotten and I would not trust that a man with a fetish wouldn’t end up on a female ward if he says he’s trans.
In training we are told to be mindful that toddlers may identify as the opposite sex - I would think this is a major safeguarding issue.

*Single sex facilities

"I’m anxious about things like being told to state my pronouns"

If stating my pronouns at work was the only thing that made me anxious, I'd frankly consider myself very fortunate.

I don’t work for the nhs but wanted to add at my office, a lot were putting their pronouns on emails when it first became trendy while i was on mat leave. I didn’t bother and no one forced me, and I would think you can’t be forced either.

I would also say, my assumption is most patients would prefer you just to treat them as ‘normal’. I had a call with a consultant midwife the other day and it irrated me when she kept saying ‘pregnant people’.

I work for the NHS and either ignore or curiously challenge the dogma. There are others who outright rage against it. The trust seems to have lost its sense of menacing power in relation to silencing dissenters.
There is a bit of a split in the staff between those who are anti gender critical and those who are gender critical ......and many who want to keep a low profile (who I consider closet GC).
The Trust is feeling heat from the media, has lost a couple of court cases/tribunals and a big contract for delivering specific services but still sticks it's head in the sand about its shortcomings and is bullish about maintaining non evidence based aspects trans propaganda. They went as far as removing a couple of 'wrong think' books from the library.
However, several staff are vocal in demanding that alternative views are tolerated and they advertise via whole trust emails that they house copies of the banned books in their offices for private loaning

OP you can find out a lot more about what is going on in the NHS from these FOIs about the Rainbow Badge scheme.

NHS England has given a list of all the trusts involved here.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/costoffthenhssrainbowbadgee_pr

And this one helpfully supplied the induction pack which gives some indication of all the policies and gender neutral wording and other requirements that trusts are meant to comply with if they wish to be accredited to the scheme.

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/870748/response/2080857/attach/html/5/Induction%20pack.docx.html

Also someone on twitter posted this about pronouns:

"Pronouns in the social media bio is apparently sometimes used as a signal by older men to show younger men that they will talk about sex in DMs"

I'm totally going to use that if requested to share my pronouns and explain I'm not comfortable doing so incase it gives the wrong message.

Only this week our CEO has recorded a message encouraging us to add pronouns to our email so I'm excited to come out with that line!

Obviously (or not obviously here but to most who know me irl) I'm not an older man, but maybe women use it as a signal too ????

NHS here in Scotland - we don’t seem to be quite as woo as some of the Trusts in England thankfully. I wear my WSPU lanyard with pride and hell will freeze over before I add completely pointless pronouns to my email signature.

New staff wellness centre at my hospital. Not holding out much hope after filling in the gym induction form...