A Whitehall analyst informed a civil servant that it was improper to claim that there are two sides to the trans argument.
Several comments made during a debate on transgender issues, including the remark, “I think it’s important to learn both sides of the subject,” were criticized by an official in the Department for Work and Pensions.
“What transgender is and some of the problems faced?” was the topic of an International Women’s Day event held virtually by civil servants in the DWP on March 11, 2021.
The event featured a trans woman civil servant talking about the problems faced by transgender people in the UK. Officers were encouraged to post pre-submitted questions in an online chat.
Following an investigation, one civil servant was found guilty of violating the department’s harassment policies and rules by commenting on the phone.
Offensive remarks relating to transgender people
One of the comments made by the civil servant, which a DWP investigator labeled as “inappropriate comments relating to trans women,” included the following: “I find the term cis very offensive,” “Sport is segregated because there are differences,” and “What if you don’t believe in gender. I don’t.”
A DWP analyst asserted that the “event did not appear to be a website designed to generate controversy on both sides of the theme” and that it was “inappropriate” or made in the wrong context in relation to the remark, “It’s important to learn both sides of a subject.”
An official warning was issued against the civil servant as a result of the department’s investigation.
Staff is reprimanded for a thought crime
The Civil Service was once known for its objectivity and dignity, according to Kate Harris, co-founder of the gay rights organization LGB Alliance, in response to the investigation. The DWP then thinks that punishing an employee for a thought crime makes sense.
She criticized the assertion that a man may be gay. She continued by saying that there are various perspectives on sex and gender and that, heaven forbid, both factors may be taken into consideration. Both of these are theology in the Civil Service of today.
Does [Cabinet Secretary] Simon Case really want his departments to allow anti-democratic/anti-scientific attitudes to run riot through Whitehall? It’s way past time for him to take this seriously.
Some civil servants argued in favor of separate activities for men and women after a debate over whether people who identify as trans women should be permitted to participate in women’s sports, while others asserted that it was “false” that they have various bone density and muscle mass.
In response to those who argued for transgender people to take part in women’s athletics, the civil servant who was under investigation by the DWP said, “Drink the Kool Aid.”
Probable to offend
According to the investigation, the phrase was inappropriate and likely to offend because its source is connected to a mass suicide.
Although the term was first used in reference to a mass death that claimed the lives of over 900 persons in Jonestown, Guyana, in 1978, it is now frequently used to describe people who obey cults or causes.
The civil servant was found to be harassing coworkers on the phone by using the phrase, according to the DWP.
It was determined that the civil servant’s remark that “I think IWD should center on women really” was inappropriate because it “excluded trans women from the relevance of International Women’s Day.”
The civil servant responded by saying, “STOP BEING INSULTING” when the caller was accused by other participants of acting in a “TERF [Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist]” manner.
According to the investigation, the latter remark is “not the appropriate manner in which to raise concerns about others’ behavior or language, as writing in all Caps letters is interpreted as aggressive and shouting when read out.”
“We don’t comment on specific staffing issues,” according to a DWP spokesman.
