One day a week on inclusivity programmes

Starmer’s new Cabinet Secretary made staff join non-binary book club

Seriously?

Dame Antonia Romeo told a civil servant to join a “gender non-conforming book club” as part of their performance review.

The new Cabinet Secretary set out plans for the former staff member to spend one day a week on inclusivity programmes when she was head of the Department for International Trade (DIT) from 2017 to 2021.

These included helping to raise “awareness and visibility of non-binary identities” and attending the book club, according to documents reviewed by The Telegraph.

The employee was told to spend up to 20 per cent of their time fulfilling inclusivity goals such as encouraging colleagues to display their preferred pronouns and “recruiting non-binary staff”.

Is she 15? 12?

It must be significance-envy. The older cohort got to campaign against racism and sexism and classism, so what’s left for the younger crowd? Magic gender. It’s that or nothing, so it has to be that.

Mind you, it’s not really nothing. It’s continuing to campaign against racism and sexism and classism, because oddly enough those battles haven’t been won yet. But the trouble is, that’s old news. Old news is stale news; Dame Antonia must want something more exciting.

As part of an annual review, she set the employee a target of joining the department’s “gender non-conforming book club”, where government workers supposedly read Middlesex, a 2002 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Jeffrey Eugenides about an intersex American, as well as books about people transitioning gender, the source said.

Other activities allegedly assigned directly by Dame Antonia included participating in “discussion of the non-binary corporate network” and “challenging dated and discriminatory societal gender norms of expression, presentation, behaviours, roles or expectations that reinforce the patriarchy”.

Uh oh uh oh – the patriarchy? That sounds dangerously close to tranzfobeea, What about people who identify as patriarchs? Eh? Go back 20 paces and do not collect $200.

In pursuit of a high Stonewall ranking, DIT, under Dame Antonia’s watch, had “tranquillity rooms/safe spaces, glitter jars, hugging pillows, and training classes about bisexuality awareness”, the former member of staff claimed.

In an all-staff email sent in 2020 and seen by The Telegraph, Dame Antonia shared the account of a non-binary member of staff to celebrate non-binary awareness week. The blog post encouraged colleagues to “support non-binary colleagues in the workplace” and included advice on how to be an ally.

Suggestions included putting preferred pronouns in email signatures and avoiding the phrase “ladies and gentleman” in favour of “more inclusive alternatives such as ‘everyone’”.

Other recommendations were to avoid gendered words to describe members of your family and instead use “‘parents’, ‘partner’, ‘siblings’”.

“If I am making notes in a meeting or referring to another person, I will politely say ‘can I just check which pronouns you prefer?’ – it’s as easy as that!” the blog post read.

Yes but the issue is not whether it’s easy or not, it’s whether it’s batshit crazy or not. It is in fact batshit crazy.