Response to my complaint about the London Bridge Pride Pillar

[AlphariusOmegron]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts about the Pride Pillar at London Bridge, a temporary installation to mark the start of LGBT+ History Month this February.

We are a diverse and inclusive organisation and the Pride Pillar was designed by our station colleagues as a creative and colourful way to show that everyone who works in and uses the station is welcome. Being more representative of the communities we serve is a priority for us, and we never intended for anyone to feel excluded by this display. Women and those of other genders and identities are welcome at all our stations and were involved in planning the Pride Pillar design.

There’s no doubt the display has generated a lot of discussion. We’ve carefully considered the feedback we’ve received over the last week, as well as taking on board the views of our colleagues. Having done so, and as we said when we launched the Pillar, it will remain in place at the station for the duration of February and will be removed as planned at the end of the month.

We acknowledge that this decision may cause some further upset. However, it’s in that spirt of recognising differing viewpoints that we’ve chosen to keep the artwork in place and reaffirm our commitment to diversity and inclusion, and we will, of course, reflect on all the feedback we’ve received when planning future initiatives in stations. We’ve also heard some very serious language misattributing various meanings to some of the community flags displayed, which we don’t consider justified.

We’re committed to becoming more diverse, inclusive and genuinely progressive. In Southern region, we're proud of our workforce who work tirelessly to run a safe and reliable railway for everyone, whatever their background – and doing so will remain our top priority. Indeed, we have ongoing recruitment campaigns to address gender inequality in frontline roles (like female signallers) and active employee networks to support colleagues from diverse backgrounds.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to contact us. So that we can continue providing timely responses to all our customers, this reply sets out our final position, and we won’t engage further on this subject.

Yours sincerely,
Community relations – Southern region

All my points were ignored, no mention of the political nature of the posters, no mention of I love JK Rowling" being taken down, no mention of the over sexualisation and pushing of queer ideology, no mention of the fact there is the swinging flag on there. Nothing.

Remember - they don't care about the actual causes they only care about looking like they care.

Bla bla bla go away not gonna take onboard any dissenting voices.

How much did this cost for a month?

Oh no mention of Shane Andrews either, cowards.

I got the same response, I've forwarded it on to Sex Matters.

They must have had a lot of complaints to come back with such a generic response.

Worth escalating?

https://www.railombudsman.org/

I don't know, what would you say to the ombudsman

Blah blah conflation of sex and gender, more blah and conflation of sex and gender. 'Women and those of other genders'?! What kind of bloody word salad is that.
So I can be a woman (but is a TW also a woman?! I'm sure they think so, in which case everything they say is meaningless twaddle) but that is only a 'gender', not a sex, and there are lots of other 'genders' but no mention of one (or more 😂) other sex.
Well I'm going to start calling my car a table. I'm going to get in the table later to pick up DD. Then I'll get home and lay the car for dinner.
Because words mean exactly what I say they mean.

Include your original complaint and their response, explain why you think the response is inadequate and say what outcome you'd like (proper acknowledgement of the points you made and a genuine apology?)

I wonder what 'We’ve also heard some very serious language misattributing various meanings to some of the community flags displayed, which we don’t consider justified' actually alludes to?

What is 'serious language'? It's an odd phrase. And those 'misattributions' - I'm wondering if Southern Region trains, or whoever they are, have any idea of the reality behind some of these flags or do they think they're just pretty 'artwork'? Not that many of them are pretty. Or artwork, either.

Yep, I got identical reply today.

Same evasiveness: no reply to my point about double standards re JK Rowling poster, or their creepy employee and his repellent tweets.

This isn't the worst response to this type of complaint I've seen. It does acknowledge that they have recieved a fair bit of negative feedback and people differ.

I think though it shows that the underlying problem isn't just the "queer" elements, it's the whole structure and thinking of the DEI framework. Within that, it makes perfect sense that they need to visibly acknowledge whatever "diverse" communities are politically prominent.

We’ve also heard some very serious language misattributing various meanings to some of the community flags displayed, which we don’t consider justified.

What about this bit?

They must mean the pi symbol.

Blah de blah delusionalclownfishburble

We will continue with our inclusively excluding of actual homosexuals and people with other belief systems and not being diversive while identifying as being diversive.

In a totally batshit and politically captured way.

Fuck off with this with tax payer money and your bullshit, many of us who object ARE fucking LGB.

It’s all such self-indulgent tribalistic bollocks - & frankly including the swingers’ flag & then doubling down seems like an invitation to unseemly practices on the station concourse. The number of people desperate to identify as oppressed is an absolute embarrassment.

Obviously I’m astonished that this is the group the DEI group chose. Nobody in central London ever sees a pride flag. And there’s been research to show women & disabled people are most likely to be assaulted on public transport, so obviously this makes perfect… oh, yes, well… it makes perfect sense in the world where research found that then a report was commissioned a report into LGBTQ safety on the tube (that served to further highlight the vulnerability of women & disabled people) because something something most vulnerable something.

Anyone know how much money was wasted on this fiasco? Showing the pie symbol no less.....

I think you’re right@FinallyFinalGirl the pi symbol is the reference, and I was very concerned about it when I saw it.

For me its Indeed, we have ongoing recruitment campaigns to address gender inequality in frontline roles (like female signallers)
And what happens if a few more signallers are transwomen? Will that be boxed ticked for women in the role or are they counting them separately? More clarify required.

Can I ask what the pi symbol is you are all referring to? I'm assuming it's not the one which means 3.14159....

No, but you could do an FOI request.

The pi is apparently polyamory, but quite why that needs publicity on a railway station platform is another matter. I suppose they could show stills from Brief Encounter instead?

Why is February history month when we already have LGBT month in June?

It would serve them right if some swingers decided to ... swing near the flag.

Those poor poor polyamorous people being discriminated against on the rail network... thank goodness they have the pride pillar to make them feel welcome!

The problem is that NOT that it stands for the pedophile information exchange but because the idiot that came up with this for the whateverthehellitis-itis decided to use it despite PIE being relatively well known, or very easily researched. It’s been pointed out /mistaken for many times but not changed.

I suspect they think they are being funny. Like the ‘treasure maps’ (MAP geddit, tee hee) included in the drawings for the kids book ‘GrandPa’s Big Pride’ or whatever it was called.