GC Group at work

[SEENMember2023]

Hi All

I work in the public sector in an organisation of 7000+ staff

Yesterday the Sex Equality & Equity Network (SEEN) aka Gender Critical group was stood up and made their first post on the internal social media type forum. This group will sit under the banner of the civil service SEEN group.

There was quite a lot of comments on the first blog post that set out FAQs and Aims etc. Many thinly veiled accusations of transphobia were posted and general TRA hostilities. e.g asking would they happy for transmen to be forced into the Female changing rooms if they "got their way" and single sex changing rooms were brought in etc.

Later in the day there were charitable donations being publicly announced on this forum by Non binary and Trans folk (to Mermaids of all charities) that match in £ the number of likes this SEEN blog post got

Has anybody else experienced this kind of thing in their workplace in regards to Gender Critical views? Will it ever get better or every time there is a discussion will it always be this hostile?

Sounds awful, though unfortunately fairly typical. There are some properly fanatical transactivists out there and they love to speak over women to try to drown out their voices.

I’ll still be joining soon.

Yes, it is pretty similar at my work place. Makes it all the more essential to stand with those brave enough to run SEEN and be visible.

It's awful. The comments about SEEN are vile. If they made similar comments about any other protected characteristic group, for example race or religion, they would be disciplined and on a warning.

The civil service is very strongly captured, which is terrifying given that they actually write all the policies. The ministers have a hell of a job trying to change CS culture.

I understand it's dawning on SCS that SEEN members are being bullied and that this is unacceptable. It's hard work!

I'm just surprised you have such a group in your workplace tbh and think you are lucky to have a voice there.

Yes I was surprised it got the green light. Apparently it took 4 years of arguing for.

It falls under the Belief network, being a protected belief etc

Sounds like bullying and discrimination to me. I'd raise it with HR.

https://www.acas.org.uk/discrimination-and-bullying

https://www.acas.org.uk/acas-guide-to-religion-or-belief-discrimination

'All protected beliefs are equal – whether religious or philosophical – so one protected belief cannot override another. And an employee can be protected because they do not hold a particular philosophical belief, regardless of any other religious or philosophical belief they may or may not hold.'
...

It's also harassment:

'Harassment is defined as ‘unwanted conduct’ and must be related to a relevant protected characteristic – in this case, religion or belief. The harassment must have the purpose or effect of violating a person’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for that individual.* *
This can include bullying, nicknames, threats, intrusive or inappropriate questions, excluding someone (ignoring, not inviting someone to meetings or events etc) or insults. It can be verbal, written or physical. Also, unwanted jokes and/or gossip which the employee finds offensive can be harassment. To say the behaviour was not meant to be harassment or that the comments were ‘banter’ is no defence.
In practice in cases of harassment, the impact of unwanted conduct as perceived by the victim is more important than the perception of the harasser and their intent. Whether it is reasonable for the victim to feel the way they do is also taken into account.
It is possible for an employee to make a complaint of harassment where they are not on the receiving end of the conduct, but witness it and it has a negative impact on their dignity at work or working environment. The employee making a complaint of harassment in this situation would not need to share the same religion or belief as the colleague being harassed or have any religion or belief.'

Taken from the ACAS guidance above.

'Will it ever get better or every time there is a discussion will it always be this hostile?'

If it's raised as bullying, discrimination and harassment, and more people speak up, it will get easier.

Any employee can raise those issues, you don't need to have gc views or be a member of SEEN.

Unfortunately, Arthur, when you report the vile comments to HR, you get a reply from someone with pronouns in their email signature who says there is no problem. SEEN have a massive uphill battle.

SEEN believes sex is binary and immutable, and some people comment that this is factually and provably wrong because the 1.1 million (!) intersex people in the UK prove that sex isn't binary (!) So even when it's pointed out that DSDs are sex-specific, it's ignored. I despair.

That's absolutely appalling, Tallisker, and I sympathise.

The next logical thing to do, I suppose, would be to escalate to EHRC.

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/guidance/dealing-discrimination-employer

And/or an ET.

Actually, reading through that, employees would need to contact EAS:

https://www.equalityadvisoryservice.com/

It's a huge achievement that you have made this happen after four years, congratulations. It will be like a beacon to those struggling with the issue.

Would it be worthwhile setting up a private Whatsapp group for mutual support around this?

I agree with pp that external resources could be very useful. Bullying and harrassment should never be acceptable .

Could you whistleblow on HR not doing anything about bullying and harassment? That would also give you some legal protection.

Agree. Well done to everyone on this network and yes, report, report, report. Then escalate. As PP said, if you were any other protected group HR would be up in arms. GC women, not so much. Good luck

I think I work in the same organisation as you and if I do I didn’t see any comments like the ones you are talking about on the post.
I saw some that were supportive of trans people but nothing about how trans men in female changing rooms would be reacted to or donations to Mermaids.
all of the comments have been removed now so no way to prove if they happened or not.

I'm not sure what you expected? Of course there will be opposition, just like there are gender critical groups.

Hang on - what specifically are you objecting to? That people disagree with you and post that disagreement?

I think some folk on here probably need to explore what bullying and harassment in the workplace is. Arguing against a policy proposition for (for example) workplace toilets etc is not bullying and harassment.

Hopefully screenshots will have been taken, and the issues will be pursued through the appropriate channels.

I see there's a lot of whining about this in TheCivilService forum on Reddit:

https://reddit.com/r/TheCivilService/comments/185zojn/seen_network

https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/TheCivilService/comments/185zojn/seen_network

I may have laughed incredulously at one of the first comments on the first Reddit link, namely -

'Unfortunately the Forstater case set the legal precedent that this belief is protected under the Equality Act, which is stressed about 50 times in their group description. What they seem to forget in many cases is that like any other religion or belief, it doesn't give you the right to force that belief onto others or discriminate against others who don't fit into that belief.'

It is astounding how hypocritical gender ideologists are.

Replies are still published do I don't think it's the same organisation

Yes indeed.

I like this passage from Helen Joyce's book, Trans.

"The other belief systems accommodated in modern democracies are, by and large, held privately. You can subscribe to the doctrine of reincarnation or resurrection alongside fellow believers, or on your own. Gender self-identification, however, is a demand for validation by others. The label is a misnomer. It is actually about requiring others to identify you as a member of the sex you proclaim. Since evolution has equipped humans with the ability to recognise other people’s sex, almost instantaneously and with exquisite accuracy, very few trans people ‘pass’ as their desired sex. And so to see them as that sex, everyone else must discount what their senses are telling them."

Self-censorship by GC staff may well have allowed TRAs to seem reasonable (nothing for them to push back against).

Now these new comments make any such commentators look unhinged, and provide more evidence that such a network is needed (although of course any group has the right to have a staff network and there shouldn't be a high barrier to "proving" its right to register!)