London Bridge railway station political gender flags - how to complain

[fromorbit]

There is a lot of concern on twitter over a set of flag illustrations on a pillar at London Bridge Station.

https://www.networkrail.co.uk/stories/london-bridge-station-celebrates-lgbt-history-month/

Sex Matters have now issued a formal complaint to the authorities about it see letter below.

We have written to Andrew Haines @networkrail and @LordPeterHendy about the intimidating political display at London Bridge station

You can make a complaint here https://communications-crm.custhelp.com/app/ask?var=complaint

This has resulted in the discovery that Shane Andrews, Network rail’s LGBT+ lead, who is also a scout leader (and a trustee of the Scouts), an independent police custody inspector, a school governor - used abusive sexist/homophobe slang all over his social media. He went on a huge deleting spree, but copies of his tweets are being shared widely.
https://twitter.com/obsolete__units/status/1751554910577930591

https://twitter.com/Sptme1/status/1751606559434514831

Can you please explain what is the common thread linking letters in that acronym?

Lesbian - woman sexually attracted only to women
Gay - man sexually attracted only to men
Bisexual - people sexually attracted to both sexes

Thus far, we can all see what those groups have in common. Sexual orientation. All over the world and all through history people in all three groups have at times faced prejudice, been discriminated against and experienced violence for their sexual orientation. They banded together decades ago to try to change social attitudes and laws, with great success, fortunately. If Network Rail wanted to put up a poster or something to say LGB people are welcome to use the rail network or work in it and shouldn't face homophobia, that would be fine. I'd hope they'd then move on to other minority or disadvantages groups in due course.

Then we move on to T for trans, Q for queer or questioning, and I for intersex. Intersex is an outdated term for people with various medical conditions which those affected have asked to be referred to as disorders of sexual development (DSDs) instead. Q seems often to indicate people who are heterosexual or sometimes bisexual. Trans is to do with gender identity, not sexual orientation. So what brings them all together? What's the + for? Why does someone who doesn't want to be monogamous or someone who prefers not to have sex with strangers included in this group at all?

Hahahaha of course there won’t be! No brownie points whatsoever in showing support for women & I guarantee whatever thing they do for IWD will include TW ie men somewhere prominent

The wonderful Mole on twitter has produced this:

https://twitter.com/moleatthedoor/status/1751946330933485845

Who goes there they're always on strike! Maybe a few KJK stickers would help. Camping with lil boys, surreptitious pics of men, what's going on

Insult to fecking injury!

It's probably not worth putting on a train for us - there seems to be so few of us about these days . . .

This is brilliant

This tickled me!

Or the people employing them are just as bad.

Yup.

😂😂😂

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13021085/Diversity-champion-Network-Rails-Pride-pillar-misogyny-offensive-social-media-posts.html

Bit of an odd response from network rail

A Network Rail spokesperson said: 'We have become aware of Shane's posts on X and are looking into the issue with him.'

sounds like a cosy chat rather than an investigation into misogyny and creep posting.

Suzanne Moore has an amazing column on this. Glad Andrews is facing repercussions.

Congrats to everyone who wrote in so far.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2024/01/30/london-bridge-pride-column-trains-virtue-signalling/

However, at the same time it just boggles the imagination that worse stuff than this blasted pillar is still going by without enough coverage.

Why don't some girls in schools have any toilets?
Why are there men in women's jails?
And so on.

That's a fairly standard response - they can't prejudge the outcome, though I agree the "with him" bit reads oddly. I'll be surprised if he still has a job at the end of it, but perhaps I'm being over optimistic.

If anybody wants to do some stickering:

Yeah it was the 'with him' that struck me as odd.

I predict a period of leave for mental health then back to the job, though maybe without the diversity and inclusion gig. I have zero faith in organisations tackling misogynistic men.

Does anybody what qualifications he actually has?

He has a Level 7 Sparkly Unicorn Rainbow Badge.

Ability to come up with ways to appease Stonewall and garner points for the WEI?

Not off the point at all. It is interesting that he didn't even lock down his profile over the weekend and posted as normal, retweeting other men's tweets praising him and his rubbish flags, and posting his own messages saying what a great day he was having.
The deactivation will have come from a Monday morning call from HR.
He must be incredibly stupid and think he's above the law to write (and not delete) incredibly homophobic, misogynistic, anti-Semitic slurs.
Maybe he thought his rainbow cloak would grant him immunity but I very much doubt he has a shining career ahead of him now.

He's got an A+ in covert photography, apparently.

Where is a stickering flash mob when you need one?

Looking closely at the pic in the latest DM article - is that a sticker on the 'progress' flag? Too small to read.

Which flag is the one that has pie on it? 🤢