Disappointed with our new head of DEI

[Ingenieur]

We've just got a new head of DEI at work, and he gave a company-wide presentation regarding his agenda over the next few years.

Among the usual stuff you'd expect, there was no mention of sex as something worthy of discussion (in fact no mention at all of sex). A colleague asked why sex wasn't being addressed at all, only gender, as sex is the principal vector of discrimination, to which the DEI head responded:

Sex is being addressed as we capture this data for everyone as a mandatory HMRC requirement, and are beholden to the Equality Act 2010 under which sex is a protected characteristic. However, sex is a narrow biological category rooted in genitalia and chromosomes. It is less useful as a frame of reference for understanding and discussing human behaviour and experience than gender which, although often (not always) directly influenced by birth assigned sex, refers to the roles, norms, behaviours and relationships associated with masculinity and femininity - which are socially (rather than biologically) constructed. Sharing my response here, but happy to pick the conversation up further offline

I feel like my company, by ignoring sex, is creating a huge blind spot and it's made me a bit sad. They're also applying to become Stonewall diversity champions, which is nice...

He can socially deconstruct my flooding bastard period if he wants to.

Idiot.

send him some stuff from sex matters, I think they will send anonymously.
https://sex-matters.org/where-sex-matters/the-workplace/.

That's dismissing the PC of sex (i.e. I am going to ignore the law). It's discrimination. Has he bothered to ask female employees whether they feel sex or gender is most relevant to them or is he, a man, just deciding.

Oh ffs. That is poor. He's saying that women are discriminated against because they are feminine, rather than because of their reproductive role and biological differences with men. I profoundly disagree with his point of view and regard it as sexist in itself.

Sex - as a biological category - is jolly useful for discussing workplace issues like pregnancy discrimination and maternity leave.

What a prick. How the hell is he head of DEI?

Yes, I'm disappointed that he dismissed sex as a "narrow category".

The irony is, when he was discussing biases earlier on, he was aware that people who don't experience discrimination directly are less likely to see it as a problem...

So sex differences aren't useful but gender stereotypes are?!

Do you feel able to "pick it up" with him further offline?

Sex isn’t a narrow category. It covers 100% of the population! I’d argue back on that point alone

Sex discrimination, maternity leave, let's see what role the gender feels plays out in employment law...

What utter bollocks.

Thanks @SoOpenitsbrainshavefallenout , I'll see if I can get something sent anonymously!

Good on your colleague for raising the question. I suppose a role like Head of DEI attracts the gender activist types rather than people who want to promote actual diversity, equality and inclusion.

Not sure if you feel comfortable sharing which sector you're in here, someone might be be able to connect you to other GCs in your industry/sector.

Do you feel that you could challenge the Stonewall membership?

Send them something like this : Employers: consider Stonewall risk - Sex Matters (sex-matters.org)

I have found ED&I leads, and staff, often have one or more protected characteristic. This makes sense because they usually have encountered discrimination due to their PC.

I have therefore not been surprised that in recent years there appears to be an over representation (based on %) of high profile Transwomen ED&I leads in the public sector. This is a role that can push forward the GI agenda so attracts TRAs.

@Ingenieur I don’t like saying this but in your position watching and waiting to see how this translates in practice may be the best course of action.

Challenging a specific issue is easier than an approach. For example toilet provision, revising family friendly policies to use “inclusive language” focus on retaining the word mother in maternity and surrogacy context but partner and employee are not an issue - others will disagree with me.

Keep an eye out for conflation of sex and gender, questionnaires etc that ask for gender point out not everyone has a gender so that needs to be an option just like not everyone has a religion.

Jesus, what a fucking idiot. Him, not you. Is there no bandwagon that these people won't jump on?

What the fuck?! Imagine if he stood up and dismissed race as a vector of discrimination?!?! That would be... discrimination.

You need to make an anonymous complaint.

”gender which, although often (not always) directly influenced by birth assigned sex, refers to the roles, norms, behaviours and relationships associated with masculinity and femininity - which are socially (rather than biologically) constructed.”

So it’s women’s “socially constructed role associated with femininity” that means they are the category of humans who have to risk their lives to bring the next generation of tax payers into the world, and need maternity leave, is it? Not their sex?

Did he use a chatbot to produce that response and then copy and paste it into the Teams chat box?

I have found ED&I leads, and staff, often have one or more protected characteristic. This makes sense because they usually have encountered discrimination due to their PC.

Everybody has at least 6 of the 9 protected characteristics. The only ones that aren't universal are disability, gender reassignment and pregnancy and maternity.

It seems to me that what he is saying is that he thinks the Gender" category will pick up sex discrimination issues, while also picking up gender discrimination. So, pregnancy leave would be sex related, but uniform related issues might be gender even for a woman.

I think he's wrong, but I can also see how someone might think in their head this makes some kind of sense, if they aren't very clued in, which I think many people in these roles aren't (sorry people in this sector.)

What I would point out is that actually, if you don't differentiate, you would have no idea if most discrimination women face is gender rather than sex based.

There are other issues too, like whether gender is even a think that has a separate vector than sex, or what it would really encompass, but that is the one I would tend to put out there in this instance.

Double post

So is it. his view that it is feminine people who are underrepresented on company boards, and they are underrepresented because they are feminine?

This is a man who has decided that discrimination against the female sex is unimportant, is it, aye?

I honestly would be raising merry hell about this and making him rue the day he ever applied for this job.