It’s like being in nursery school. “Now, Doreen, if Bobby likes to pretend to be a tiger it’s unkind to tell him he’s not a tiger.”
Civil servants face being sanctioned if they fail to use the preferred name or gender of a transgender colleague, leaked Whitehall guidance has revealed.
The guidance, labelled “official sensitive” and created by the Cabinet Office, said calling a colleague by the incorrect pronouns could lead to them being disciplined.
Oh come on. In the Civil Service??? Isn’t it time to grow up now? The Civil Service is serious business, and adults pretending to be something they’re not and trying to force others to play along is not serious business. It’s utterly childish and it’s downright embarrassing to watch all these putative fellow adults trying to force others to play the silly game. You want grownups for grownup work!
The document outlines how fellow civil servants should treat transgender colleagues at work and includes warnings that “deliberate dead naming or misgendering to deny, mock or invalidate” a trans person would be investigated as potential misconduct.
But there is no “dead naming” or “misgendering” – there’s only pretending.
The leaked guidance said that it should be established whether a civil servant intentionally called someone by their pre-transition name or referred to them by the incorrect gender because of “a neurodivergent condition or memory issue”.
It doesn’t matter. Employers should not be mandating this kind of lying and games-playing. Everybody should grow up.
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