Scared I'm going to be outed at work

[Scarystuffhelp]

Argh I'm so scared. We got sent an anonymous survey to fill out at work. It was full of gender woo and where possible I made some (very measured and reasonable) comments about only recording gender identity and not sex, and not wanting to have to use the label cisgender. The survey made clear it was entirely anonymous and would not be linked to individuals.

One of the people who must have carried out the survey is discussing the results on our intranet. He has copy and pasted some of my comments and basically tried to tear them to shreds in the comments (using absolutely nonsense arguments of course like if you haven't had your chromosomes tested you don't know your sex). Loads of people have piled on agreeing with him and saying how awful and bigoted it is and that's it's disgusting etc.

I'm now really scared that I'm going to be outed at work and being made a hate target. They're all saying "poor trans people" etc but I didn't say anything at all about trans people, just that the survey should record sex not gender identity and that I didn't want to have to label myself as cisgender. But the vitriol is so scary.

I'm pretty sure that the responses are anonymous and unless the IT team went to great lengths to search for my IP address (which I'm sure they can't) it can't be traced back to me. But I'm still sitting here shaking and so scared.

I'm thinking of emailing HR to complain that it's unethical to pick apart an anonymous survey response publicly and encourage hateful comments but then it would point the finger in my direction.

Argh why are these people SO full of hatred (and stupidity)?

I never believe in the anonymity. Our staff survey starts by asking ethnic origin, age group, sex, job type, grade, department. As the only white British grade 8 female P&S member of my department, I would clearly not be anonymous. I had a chat with the one black male academic about it, and we both refused to do the survey.

We should have spoken to HR, but it was redundancy time and we didn't want to rock the boat too hard. They wouldn't have liked our feedback anyway.....

If you didn't have to answer those questions, I doubt they'd go to IP addresses. Or at least I'd hope not but you never know.

I'm really sorry, OP, that sounds awful.
I suppose it's cold comfort to you that you are right, and they are wrong.
It looks like there are more of them, and a degree of nastiness seems to go with their territory.
There may well be other people there who haven't joined in the online tearing-to-shreds, and are like you keeping their heads down.

I doubt if they can trace back an anonymous survey, so I wouldn't worry too much about that.
But the knowledge that you are surrounded by such stupid, ill-informed and bigoted people must make your work life a very unpleasant place to be.

Just sit tight, grit your teeth and get through it as best as you can.

You can always come back on here for a 'refill' of support when needed

The annoying loophole is that if you were named and he shredded the comments it would be bullying, but as it's anonymous, he gets away with it, but that doesn't stop you feeling bullied but with no avenue for redress. It sucks.

The thing here is your belief are protected.

This if they say this, they are effectively acting in a way to intimidate and silence. So in a work environment it's technically breeching employment law. This also then means your employer has certain obligations under duty of care towards you.

If you raise it with HR, you might put yourself but you also have a legally decent position.

The problem is in practical terms of whether your employer are dipshits or not. Are they likely to back you or decide to gamble on whether you'd take them to court?

So I guess it comes down to whether you want to push the issue. Either way this guy is trying to silence you.

Keep in mind it's quite possible he's already silenced other people who won't post in support of view as a result of this comments now. Thus making the exercise useless because no one wants to engage honestly for fear of being outed.

Tbh that's what you should raise - that the tone has made you feel unwilling to participate in any future surveys for fear of the strength of comment it could draw and regardless of the topic you feel damaged the process. Particularly on contentious subjects which many groups may be very sensitive for all manner of different reasons.

I always put 'prefer not to say' for as many of those as possible for that very reason.

We didn't have that option as they wanted to collate data on specific staff groups.

Otherwise I definitely would have done that.

Same as a pp never answer in honesty for these surveys or better still if you can get away with it don't answer them at all.

Needless to say, it was organised by Crapita.

Thanks all. It didn't ask for much personal info, just gender identity and age group so I'm not identifiable from that. It was on a Google form and I just checked with chat gpt and it said that it would have been anonymous and untraceable so I hope it's correct.

I really want to complain to HR but pretty sure they are captured. I'm sure there are lots of GC people but we all keep our heads down as the TRAs are so full of hate.

I did wonder about emailing HR to say that it seems unethical to post am anonymous survey response and will put people off responding in future but if I'm the only person that does that I'm worried they'll know it was me.

I try to fight the good fight where I can but only where I can keep it anonymous. This has been really scary and yet it's nothing like people like Sandie or Maya have had to go through. I feel a bit ashamed that I'm not willing to be identified. The bad guys win when the good guys do nothing - or whatever that quote is.

Thanks for the support everyone. Still think I won't sleep tonight!

By the way reading the comments, while horrible and scary, also made me realise how STUPID these people are. They're saying that no one knows their chromosomes or sex for sure, and that chromosomes and genitals are on a spectrum!! And that everyone has a gender identity. And that cisgender is not offensive.

A bit late to respond, and can understand why you would feel really exposed. But good that you checked.

But also it is totally unacceptable, unprofessional, against the purose of a survey for anyone to do what the unpleasant idiot has done.

Not sure what sort of work place you are in, but is there anyone you can raise this with. Not to identify you but to point out comments being published like this could undermine future surveys as clearly they are not being handled in an appropriate way.

Ideally if there are any work colleagues you get on with, again not to out you, but to just raise in a chatty way what they think about doing something like that. And if they agree it is wrong raise it with them.

Sad to see that yet again an IT department is living up to the reputation that all techies are immature males, who might no actually be incels, but clearly have no concept of appropriate behaviour.

If it was me I might resort too old fashioned annoymous note to a senior staff member saying the IT department should be investigated for underming the organisation's attempt to find out what employees think, and no one will trust them in the future.

Hope you feel less insecure tomorrow, and as you say they are talking crap.

Honestly, does your company not have actual work to get done? It's bad enough for any employee to lose sleep over work worries. But over this? What a world.

Screen shot and save somewhere not on company devices. (Take a photo on your phone?) Might be able to.use to prove a hostile environment for your protected beliefs.

I agree that a complaint to HR that he's public anonymous data and been nasty about it is the way to proceed. Presumably, the answers are confidential and he is likely to have breached GDPR, risking legal action against the company.

If you are ignored, forward it to the Information Commissioner and see if they agree.

He's not in IT, I think he's in marketing or something. But I was wondering if he could get a mate in IT to find out who wrote the survey response. But I don't think he can. Chat GPT says nothing identifying is recorded and I've done some other research which says the same thing.

I was thinking of bringing it up casually in conversation at work but think I might give myself away by blushing or my voice quivering or similar. I'm a terrible actor and can't lie or pretend!

I'm just shocked that people can get away with being so hateful when being GC is a protected characteristic. They seem to be so convinced they are right even when spouting nonsense like genitals are on a spectrum.

He's published... not public...

I've got screenshots on my phone. Really horrible to have colleagues calling me bigoted and disgusting even though they don't know it's me they're talking about.

I also don't understand why they are responding so violently to a measured and calm comment asking for biological sex to be recorded and to have an option to tick that isn't cisgender. They are talking about me wanting to erase trans people. In many ways it's just completely bizarre to witness.

If he gets his mate to trace and identify you, then they will both be in a world of shit. For now, I'd keep my head down and say nothing, unless it comes up and you think that the person is a realist.

Appalling behaviour from this marketing person. Keep your head down, if anyone says anything to you in person, say you never fill in surveys.

If he traces it back to you he can't do anything without outing himself for breaking privacy policy. He cannot get you sacked he's in marketing, he can't tar and feather you, that would be bullying, you have a protected belief. He has no ammo except a big mouth he'll shoot off and he will do that one too many times.

The survey was private, anyone who complies with the pressure he puts on them to out you will be in as much trouble as he will be.

They can't put you in jail, you will have recourse if anything unfair happens to you. Bone up on your employment and EA rights just in case he tries this crap, you will feel in a much stronger position when you know how much sewage he will be swimming in.

I’ve administered such surveys, as both a HR/IT person. You cannot be identified at the point of survey. What I think could have occurred is a report is being produced from the results of the survey by the marketing department, and this person has perhaps seen only selected text responses. It is a breach of confidence for him to be discussing these responses and I’d hope his supervisor gets wind of it.

I would not raise a complaint though - unless you know who his supervisor is and are confident they will keep your complaint private.

I happen to disagree with your views but I think people can simply disagree without starting a pile on. This sort of behaviour by your colleagues is simply another sort of prejudice and persecution. The majority view is not always a good one either - at one stage people thought slavery was perfectly fine. I think you should just sit tight and ride it out. When I have seen comments from these sorts of surveys, I have seen the comments but you can't tell who made them.

I don’t have anything helpful to add, but I too have used anonymous surveys like this at work for the same reason as you. The only way I can currently challenge certain things at work. Your colleagues’ behaviour is appalling and as a PP said breaching confidence that his role expects.

What’s the point of asking staff for their opinions in an anonymous survey if you’re then going to ridicule them for their comments? It means no one is going to be honest again. These people are beyond stupid.

Bottom line is: you are on the side of the law, whether they like it or not. If I were you I would sit tight and wait for it to pass while taking regular screenshots. I'd also ring acas for advice. Normally I'd say union but lots of them are captured.