Trans Rights Activists in Civil Service 'undermine' policies

[IcakethereforeIam]

The SEEN network being seen, apparently they've submitted a letter stretching to 30 pages

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/03/transgender-rights-activist-civil-service-gender-critical/

https://archive.ph/1dlX6 jump the paywall or step over it carefully

I hope they name names.

I can't read either link unfortunately ☹️

Right! <rolls sleeves up>

Possibly in no particular order

so a handful of nutters bully everyone else into silence? Where have we heard that before....?

39 pages in fact.

And the leaders of SEEN, plus DEFRA, are now respondents in a tribunal case for discrimination, merely for existing. Their existence is, allegedly, discrimination.

This is going to be huuuge.

sounds like another gig for Ben "shooting fish in a barrel" Cooper.

What is the tribunal? Are there further details in the public domain?

This is from the Telegraph article. "The letter claims that gender-critical civil servants have been compared with the Ku Klux Klan and anti-Semites in gender awareness training, which is optional and offered to all civil servants by a:gender, a network supporting transgender staff across the Government."
Not at all surprising.

Not aware of a tribunal?

I might join SEEN now, as the gender-woo member of our team has just left to go to another agency so I feel a bit safer!

The constant messaging to join a Teams call about something gender-woo related was face-clawingly infuriating but I didn't feel up to the task of calling it out.

Now is a good moment to reiterate the point that 'polite' pronouns 'out of respect' are a non existent concept.

It's a culture of fear. There is no politeness or respect. There is a hatred of women and systematic intimidation, harassment and bullying of women.

The group claims that Ministry of Justice staff have “boasted” to colleagues about “frustrating ministers’ intentions”.

They are alleged to have attempted to remove contributions to government consultations that relate to sex instead of gender, briefed external groups on how to get around ministerial guidance and divulged internal policy thinking to partisan organisations.

I wish I could say I was surprised shocked and horrified that this could have possibly happened. Unfortunately I read it and thought yeah that sounds about right.

If you are working in the civil service or an arm's length body and and have not yet joined SEEN but believe that sex matters, please do join up. Our colleagues have been so determined and brave to get this set up and progress is being made - but now is the time for us to step up and support them. The more of us that leave the networks based on gender identity and join SEEN the harder it is for management to ignore us or to brush us of as a small number of people with a niche view.

I read this and wondered about the schools consultation about gender questioning children and all the trans extremists in the DfE?
In the light of these revelations - unsurprising when you see the determination of civil servants in the MoJ to wedge men into women's prisons - think we need to be asking our MPs what measures they've put in place to ensure that the civil servants dealing with this do so with a politically neutral approach?

Positively SEEN seem to be describing a small number of activists with disproportionate power to bully and silence rather than a majority but, aided and abetted by clueless / weak leadership.

It is shocking but completely unsurprising, sadly.

Anything public you can say or link to about Defra? I’m on secondment outside the CS at the moment so haven’t seen anything (KIT being what it is, and anyway this is not an issue I’d feel comfortable asking about).

When I was there, the atmosphere was strongly pro self ID, pronouns in email footers etc, especially on Yammer, so I’m wondering what happened.

Boiledbeetle · Today 08:09

I wish I could say I was surprised shocked and horrified that this could have possibly happened. Unfortunately I read it and thought yeah that sounds about right.

Whilst I'm not surprised, I still find it shocking. They must be guilty of gross misconduct for undermining the department and more so for the bullying.

Can't find any mention of SEEN on any intranet sites - departmental or agency wide.

Shocker.

Ignore, finally found it on Google. Not through internal mention....

Interesting to read in that article that the Ministry of Defence is one of the worst departments in this respect. Am I right in thinking that is also the department in which women civil servants have had to complain about the particularly high level of sexual harassment?
If so, this makes me wonder about the fundamental unity of the gender-ideology based harassment of women and the good old-fashioned traditional workplace harassment of women. Both are about men not respecting women's boundaries, and viewing women simply as either obstacles to (bad) or facilitators of (good) men's sexual needs and feelings.

The forces generally have an appalling reputation for the sexual abuse of women. It's so ironic that civil servants have been pushing this toxic ideology at the men in uniforms at the top who have embraced it with a predictable enthusiasm.
Apologies for the Guardian link but it's a good article:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/dec/24/it-was-a-hunting-ground-women-and-sexual-assault-in-the-uk-armed-forces

The email about the tribunal didn't say we couldn't mention it (or I wouldn't have done), but it didn't say any more than the two leaders of SEEN were co-respondents to a claim against Defra, for discrimination. It says the claim says that the words on the SEEN website were an act of discrimination (I think). It did ask us not to worry and recognised that people may do.

The email with the letter attached which came a few days before was very clear that it could not be shared outside the CS. But I've managed to recruit three new members on the back of it!

Re the tribunal, they don't get into the public domain really until closer to the date. The press probably won't be interested for quite a while yet. So you're unlikely to see anything online unless SEEN release something, which I suppose they may do on the back of the summary of the letter being published, I assume they liaised and it wasn't a leak!

I have followed the SEEN network on (what used to be) Yammer. Do I have to actually sign up somewhere to be an actual member?

I’m new to the civil service and feeling my way.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-staff-networks/seen-network

"Trans Rights Activists in Civil Service 'undermine' policies"......I would say they undermine everything in every sector of society, not just in the CS. Cultivating a fascist culture of silence, bullying, homophobia and misogyny.

To sign up there should be a link to a form from the staff networks page on your intranet, depending on your dept.

Thanks everyone. I found a link in @Copelia ‘s post and have now joined.

It is becoming increasingly the case that being a believer in this activism is incompatible with employment in any public service or public responsibility role. The position is merely a point to stand on while furthering the ambitions of an extremist, partisan agenda, quite intentionally and purposefully against values of equality, impartiality, access and the rights of others. The position is for the benefit of activism, not the public as a whole, and the activism requires and demands extreme partiality and prejudice against others who are not part of their view point.

Prevent is going to end up involved. I was interested in a job reference I was asked to write recently, which asked me if I was aware of the referee holding any activist views or involvement in activist activities.