Leaked document includes ‘terrifying’ anti-trans guidance for UK civil servants

[IwantToRetire]

New draft policies for the UK’s 500,000 civil servants would block some trans staff from using single-sex spaces such as toilets, and force staff to accept transphobic views in the workplace.

Senior civil servants have told VICE News that they are “terrified” by the proposed plans, which were leaked to them.

The 39-page document produced by the Cabinet Office and the Government People Group is expected to be published within weeks.

The document outlines proposed changes to the UK Civil Service’s “Gender Identity and Intersex policies”. There are around half a million UK Civil Service employees – they are politically impartial officials who support the functioning of central government departments, such as probation officers, who are a part of the Ministry of Justice, or Jobcentre staff, who work for the Department for Work and Pensions.

The new policies state civil servants should equally recognise “gender critical beliefs” and “gender identity beliefs” – meaning that employees can openly share controversial views on trans lives without being penalised.

Responding to this policy, a trans civil servant – who did not want to be identified in fear of losing their job – told VICE News: “My existence is not a belief. How can my safety be just as important as someone’s belief that I shouldn’t be safe? This feels like it was written by someone gender critical, just to give transphobes more clout.”

The leaked document also proposes “changes on access to toilets'', so that only trans people with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) can use single-sex facilities.

Article continues at https://www.vice.com/en/article/3aka9y/leaked-document-exposes-transphobic-draft-guidelines-for-uk-civil-servants

This, if true, seems to contrast with guidance for Parliamentary staff https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4805464-parliamentary-staff-urged-to-police-pronouns-and-identify-transphobia

The utter hyperbole from TRAs would be hilarious if it didn't have such serious consequences for women.

Man says:
"It's terrifying for me that some witches say I can't use ladies facilities" and ALL the fucking mainstream media go along with it. Just Fucking hell!

The Civil Service can be a bit ridiculous at times, but I do wonder if someone has mentioned the word 'intersectionality' to them. The CS employs an awful lot of people from BAME backgrounds and a lot of people with disabilities- and those people are starting to speak up about how they are negatively impacted by the obsessive focus on trans as the only important PC. There are a lot of women in very senior positions, and they aren't all "be kind" types.

Why is the line always that gender critical feminists don't "believe" in the "existence" of trans people? Of course trans people exist -- no one is denying that. What GC feminists deny is the primacy of gender identity over the material reality of living in a woman's body. End of.

Because ‘you don’t believe I’m a woman!’ Doesn’t sound very bad at all

Also, the suggestion that men use the disabled/accessible facilities because they're not allowed to use the ladies is unacceptable.

They are not provided in order to accommodate men demanding validation for their feelings.

"employees can openly share controversial views on trans lives without being penalised. "

I absolutely cannot stand this phrasing that is used so commonly by those who support gender ideology, GC views are not about trans lives and they never have been.
They're about WOMEN'S lives.

So trans civil servant is upset that their existence is being eliminated by requiring trans people to have a GRC to legally recognise their existence.

@IncomingTraffic that’s so exactly on the money and absolutely what’s happening. Wow. And sets you up so effectively for the evil, angry apparently always middle-aged TERF that’s such a terrifying aggressor against the transwomen who seem to always want to refer to themselves as ‘girls’ though the most visible and loud are themselves also middle-aged. But being middle-aged as a woman somehow sidelines you or makes you bitter or angry or a dinosaur when age doesn’t do that to men. Or transwomen, strangely..!

🔥🔥🔥

You work with a bunch of people.

Is the trans person likely to be unsafe in their place of work? If they are unsafe that's a matter for HR.

Are the women likely to have their dignity removed by having to budge up? Yes. That's a matter for HR.

If the concern is about safety then we need to teach the blokes they can't be tossers, not the women to budge up.

Women's dignity and religious rights are sex based so that can't be compromised.

Transperson is trying to argue it's about safety then changes mind when made safe and then says what? That it's affecting their dignity? Well if dignity is the argument then youve got a bunch of women with equal rights to dignity.

And that means you need an alternative solution to accommodate the women just as much as anyone trans.

Funny that.

Hardly 'bleak'

If TRAs are using the word terrifying it usually means women have a voice

Sounds good to me

This is good. It represents the law as it is, not as wish fulfillment exercise.

Also the senior civil service will not be objecting. I imagine they are delighted because it's Cabinet Office, ie weapons grade guidance.

I think it's because some of us don't believe in transness as a real thing. People who claim to be trans obviously exist, but it's the reality of 'being trans' that some of us dispute. I don't believe that anyone actually changes sex, no matter what medical interventions they have and I don't believe that anyone is literally born in the wrong sex body.

When people like me say that they don't believe in the existence of 'trans' as a real thing, this is being interpreted as saying that trans people don't exist. But I do believe that those people exist, it's just that I'd dispute that they are really 'trans' because I don't share their belief system. To me, they are people who identify as trans rather than 'trans people'.

If they could explain what makes someone 'trans' other than an indefinable feeling in their head, then maybe I could be convinced that it's real.

I can't say I follow this logic. I'm not religious, I don't believe Jesus Christ is the world's saviour (or mine), but I definitely believe Christian people exist. I don't need them to prove the "reality" of their Christianity to me, since they can't anyway. It's a non-issue, and a distractor.

Sorry if there is an existing thread about this.

However I started the thread as much because of the language in the reporting.

Its a reminder that much as we appreciate the Times or the Telegraph doing a fairly rational reports about the clash between women's rights and trans rights, they aren't the most read papers (and are behind a paywall).

And yes the source was Vice but it was promoted as a top story on a news web site, where large segments of the population get their news from.

On one hand the language is laugh out loud, on the other a reminder that this is still the how much of virtual news media reports trans issues.

You've actually made the same point as me.

I don't believe Jesus Christ is the world's saviour (or mine), but I definitely believe Christian people exist.

I don't believe in the concept of 'trans', but I definitely believe people exist who identify as 'trans'.

Or to put it another way, saying that I don't believe 'trans' exists is like saying that I don't believe God exists. I'm not saying that people who do believe in these things don't exist.

I don't believe that people are really born in the wrong body or have a brain of one sex and the body of another. But I know that people exist who do believe those things.

Correct.

Nobody is saying that they shouldn't exist. They should simply use the correct toilets for their biological sex.

I honestly don't give a shit if a man wants to wear dresses and make up. But if he was born a male with a penis then he should not be using the women's toilets.

My reading is yes those pesky witches have a point however trans people who hold a grc are legally entitled to use same sex toilets for the gender they identify as....

We don't have the right to know who has a grc therefore all transpeople need to be treated the same irrespective of a grc or not, therefore all trans people can use the toilets by identity...

But we'll say we were excluding transpeople (except those who fall into the above categories)

And they're not bloody controversial!

I suppose it's to do with what you believe "trans" actually is.

IF the definition of "trans" is "someone who's a woman despite being born in a male body (or vice versa)", or any other definitions put forward that rely on the existence of an innate gender identity, then GC people don't believe "trans people" exist.
If you use a broader definition where "trans" means people who believe in and understand themselves according to this belief system, then obviously trans people exist.

In the same way, if the definition of "Christian" is "a servant of God", or anything that relies on God being real, then an atheist doesn't believe "Christians" exist. But obviously they can see that people who sincerely believe in Christianity exist.

It just shows up where the TRA demands are so much more than any other belief system. You can't just acknowledge their belief system, no matter how respectfully. You have to look and act as if you believe it to be the truth. You are expected to do this no matter the personal or societal cost.

It's weaponised pseudo fragility, that tired tactic is employed constantly.

It’s like psychics.

I don’t believe that psychics exist. I don’t believe any of the woo.

But I am aware that people who believe themselves to be psychics or who believe in people who say they’re psychics exist.

I don’t deny that a category of people who can be called psychics exist. I just don’t believe that they actually are psychic.

I don’t want people who actually believe themselves to be psychic to be persecuted for that belief. But I’m
not going to participate in that belief system or pretend it’s real.

OTOH, I do very much think that people present themselves to be psychic but who simply intend take advantage of people who believe in the existence of psychics should be dealt with firmly and unambiguously.

That last point relates to the kind of men who do suddenly develop, for example, prison onset gender dysphoria because they believe there’s an advantage to be gained. And I simply don’t understand why TRAs want us all to pretend that these charlatans are the same as the people who genuinely believe themselves to be a woman despite their biology or whatever.

Honestly I think that we should recognise that someone saying that they feel 'terrified' for being told to use the toilets reserved for their biological sex as either a mental health issue or a cynical anti-woman hate crime. We should not be giving air space to people who are either unwell or anti-equality campaigners. It's a very, very big shame that the guidance does not clearly state that spaces have always been divided by biological sex and bear no relation whatsoever to your identity and if any man or woman in any way harass or intimidates a TW in the male toilets, that will be a disciplinary.

The 'exist' thing is very interesting. I don't believe in any religious beings. I don't believe in star signs. I don't believe that someone can change sex. I wonder, by their reasoning, how many people I actually think exist in the world?

Senior civil servants have told VICE News that they are “terrified” by the proposed plans, which were leaked to them

Or you can read this bit as senior civil servants are terrified of the backlash they're going to get from trans people and their advocates when they finally implement policies in line with the law.

They are going to have to dial back on some things, I don't blame trans people for being upset especially when certain organisations told them they were entitled to be treated as the opposite sex. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

In recent years more and more people are self id-ing into being able to use the disabled loos. Once upon a time my disabled colleagues would tear a strip off someone able bodied they found in the loo, more recently they've been told 'not all disabilities are visible' which is absolutely true but open to abuse.

I guess some TW are disabled in that they don't have the equipment to use the men's loo unless they queue for the cubical. It's not simple, provision of single sex facilities plus a few unisex facilities fixes it in practical terms but I believe plenty of trans people refuse the unisex because it doesn't affirm their identity.