Oh go appropriate yourself

No you’re inappropriate.

A civil servant was told by a Whitehall investigator that it was inappropriate to say there are two sides to the trans debate.

On March 11 2021, civil servants in the Department for Work and Pensions met online for an International Women’s Day event entitled “What trans is and some of the issues faced”. The call, in which officials were encouraged to submit written questions in an online chat, featured a transgender woman civil servant discussing issues faced by trans people in the UK.

In other words the civil service summoned a man to talk about himself for an International Women’s Day event. As if that’s not insulting enough by itself, what he talked about was his fantasy of being a woman.

One civil servant was subsequently investigated and found guilty of breaching the department’s behaviour policy and rules on harassment for their comments on the call.

Among the remarks made by the civil servant, and branded as “inappropriate comments relating to trans women” by a DWP investigator, were the comments: “One of the things I struggle to understand as a lesbian myself is, how can trans women be lesbian as lesbian is same sex attracted, not gender?”, “I find the term cis very offensive”, “Sport is segregated because there is a difference” and “What if you don’t believe in gender? I don’t”.

So the conversation was about men pretending to be women, and a lesbian was punished for saying what she thought. Happy International Women’s Day!

The civil servant’s comment that “I think IWD should centre [on] women really” was found “to exclude trans women from the relevance of International Women’s Day” and was therefore inappropriate.

Hey! You know what’s inappropriate? Talking about men who cosplay as women on International Women’s Day!

When the civil servant was accused on the call by fellow officials of displaying “Terf [Trans exclusionary radical feminists] behaviour”, the civil servant responded by saying: “STOP BEING INSULTING”.

The investigation found the latter comment to be “not the appropriate manner in which to raise concerns about others behaviour/language as writing in all Caps letters is interpreted as aggressive and shouting when read out”.

Jeezus. I hope she sought and found a much better job with much better people.

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