Is this massively inappropriate or should I just accept that this is where I work...?

[RoadSidePicnic]

This morning I have opened up my company Teams platform to a message wishing all staff a happy Trans Visibility Day. And a photo of three beer cans from a trans owned business.

There will be some sort of social tonight for people to enjoy a trans beer.

They always do this. We already have a progress flag flying in the office and one of my colleagues with a "non binary" partner (who is constantly pushing this nonsense I should add) wears his Protect the Dolls t-shirt constantly. It's tiresome.

Does anyone else have to put up with this shit at work?

Maybe I shouldn't get too specific but we are a company that serves the technology sector (tech sector is expansive, so shouldn't be too outing). We're private sector.

Oh, and the other week they posted a thing about supporting Gendered Intelligence, a sister charity to Mermaids! I looked them up, they are dodgy as fuck (and you should see the group photo of the team, my god....).

Anyone else?

i mean: a trans day of invisibility might be welcome in some places...

Slight digression but I'm very wary of "anonymous" staff surveys, (unless old fashioned pen and paper). I'm worried that there is an identifier code on the form or that they can otherwise tell where a response came from.

Consequently, I tend to complete these with "bland" answers rather than the more robust comments I'd like to make. I imagine many, many other people are the same, not just my organisation but everywhere. This has obvious problems in that, essentially employers are being told what they want to hear and at best, things are tweaked round the edges.

ETA: Maybe I'm being paranoid but I'm not remotely "techie" and have no idea if employers can "track" where survey responses come from.

Umm, autistic people obsessed the actual what? You'll find autists on either side of the debate, and whilst many trans identifying people are autistic (well above population norms), you'll notice that the vast majority of autistic people are not trans identifying (or necessarily supporting).

Sympathies, it sounds crap. They should celebrate everyone or no one, and this sounds like a load of performative bollocks. So often the companies that are shouting about ‘inclusivity’, meaning trans, are not supportive to their employees of different ethnic backgrounds, or their disabled employees, or female employees. It’s very much one characteristic that gets the attention.

How about celebrating World Continence Week? It usually comes up in June, and represents a challenge that a great many of us will face at sometime in our lives, so would have relevance to a great many organisations' members. Yet you very rarely see this being centred in the workplace.

Just a suggestion - I'm sure you can come up with many more!

If you don’t want to out yourself too much then go down the route of promoting alcohol at work. Lots of organisations take a dim view on that.

Agree. It's a bit like forcing everyone to sing hymns or take part in morning prayers. It's inflicting one world view on everyone.

Of course you might not want the aggro of confronting them about it - who would, really?

thabk you, this really made my day!
it really doesn’t bother me at all, I’m not into those who want to identify as a flower/pixie/dustbin etc., but I’ve no issues with inclusivity of gay / non-binary / trans people (unless they’re clearly just doing it for nefarious reasons of course .. but that’s a completely different type of person altogether!)

Yes! Lean into this and approach it enthusiatically as 'its great your doing Trans day....could we add in celebrations some other important days?' Then overload with your suggestions. Serious ones esp less glamorous ones (as above).

I've been listening to such an interesting podcast about all this shite. It's called "This isn't working" and it's a gender critical view from HR. I'm linking to one episode but they are all really thought provoking and interesting.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6z69mqVdsOxvgxvLZbNTEA?si=0d3dce48b435458a

Lager that identifies as Ale.

All that is needed is to foster a culture of kindness to all. There really is no need for anything else. All the rest is window dressing.

Unfortunately, though, there is very little kindness shown to those who disagree with them.

You are very much NAL yep as this is like saying that someone eating a ham sandwich in the office is being antisemitic.

No one is forcing you to perform anything, chant anything, you can ask to politely abstain from any celebration and that's your recourse. What is protected is to hold a belief, but no private establishment has to tolerate you expressing them in a way that it affects another person, so I would not recommend making a big fuss out of it, as that's how jobs get lost.

Sorry to bring some reality of how that works into the online transphobia that could get someone fired.

Promoting beer in the workplace is a bit 90s Ladz Bantz isn't it? And as Ramadan changes from year to year they might want to check the timings of food/alcohol imagery. If they were genuinely interested in actual EDI they would know this.

How about an office Day of Ham, Pork and Bacon Visibility? Everyone is invited to join in the office-wide celebrations of pig flesh on this one special day to remind us all how good it is to eat slaughtered pig throughout the year.

Of course Jews and vegetarians are entitled to their privately-held views, nobody would deny them that right.

Are they promoting all other protected characteristics equally? If not, that's the angle I'd be pushing with HR and my manager to ensure that everyone is represented fairly and equitably in order to foster a sense of equality, safety and dignity (plus any other buzz word I could think of). Then I'd push for a timetable of events and comms (I'd happily lead them and work with the other groups) to ensure that the dolls are relegated to their rightful place in the wider toybox and everyone gets their own drink of choice.

I’d have raised a grievance long before now about the protect the dolls t shirt. Entirely inappropriate in a workplace.

Does this not equally apply to the man with his protect the dolls T shirt? If not, then presumably OP could wear a T-shirt with a sex realist slogan without consequence?

Then the culture of kindness has failed and needs beefing up.

@AidaP
"What is protected is to hold a belief, but no private establishment has to tolerate you expressing them in a way that it affects another person"

Ironically that's exactly what a lot of these organisations ARE doing: promoting one particular belief, making it clear no dissent will be tolerated, allowing/indulging extreme or inappropriate manifestations of it by believers (sexualised talks, fetish-adjacent work clothing, using wrong-sex facilities...) and imposing expressions of belief even on non-believers, such as Pride lanyards, mandatory events or "preferred pronouns", not to mention forcing women to put up with men in their toilets/showers/changing rooms.

All this DOES clearly affect other people, and is exactly why numerous successful discrimination claims have been brought, and likely more will follow. Women have a right to object, and to expect our own beliefs (and facts!) to be treated equally and fairly at work.

A person eating a ham sandwich in the office is not comparable to a company using its professional Teams platform to contact all staff to wish them a happy Trans Visibility Day. Do you genuinely believe them to be the same? I would genuinely like to hear the answer to that, and your rationale if it's 'yes'.

You are lacking basic understanding, gender/sex transition is not a "belief", it's a fact protected by EqA 2010, 2006 and established in GRA 2004.

But of course you conflate it with belief, which then leads you to ridiculous conclusions that do not make sense. That's not because it makes no sense, or is inconstant, but because the information you operate from is wrong.

Sorry to burst that little bubble.

I will say this for transactivists: they are consistently wrong about everything, all the time. You haven't understood the law at all - and yet are confidently misrepresenting it. It's not just that you're not a lawyer, you're an anti-lawyer.

There will be some sort of social tonight for people to enjoy a trans beer.

Is trans beer actually cider ?

<sorry, couldn't resist>

But seriously, this sort of thing shows how people have forgotten that the word "diversity" means encouraging difference, not everyone thinking or being the same.