Transgender policies inclusive, or intrusive and exclusionary?
Workplace public post removed for causing "distress", "harm", and threatening the "safety" of that most sacred transgender caste. And yet, membership is but an invocation away.
My deleted post:
Is it right or lawful for [workplace] to force us into an ideological framework wherein gender identity (an internal, subjective feeling knowable only through a declaration) is substituted for the material, observable reality of sex in the name of "inclusivity"?
After all, if no women claim to have a gender identity in addition to a sex (female) no man would be able to claim to be a woman by dint of his gender identity. It seems this is an ideology wherein our participation, whether compassionately granted or coerced, is required.
Gender identity appears to be a self-image contingent on other people learning and then reflecting your idiosyncratic self-perception back at you, regardless of their own perceptions. If validation is required to maintain this self-image, does that mean compelled speech for the non-believers?
If I see a man* in the work gym changeroom do I tell myself, "He thinks he's a woman so he is free to be here"? Do I ask if he has changed his observed-at-birth-or-earlier sex to his gender identity in legal documentation to create a legal fiction through merely "a supporting statement fromĀ an adult that has known you for at least 12 months"? (Really. https://justiceconnect.org.au/resources/how-to-update-your-gender-on-formal-documents-vic/) Or is his on-the-spot gender feelings declaration sufficient to grant him the right to be there?
If I'm working late with a male co-worker and he says "Just us ladies here" is my complicit silence sufficient or is my affirmation (compelled speech) required? The policy should be clear enough that it would cover all such hypothetical scenarios. I'd like to know, for you to all know as a matter of public record.
You are free to believe "people are whatever they say they are", the question is, should non-believers have a right not to subscribe to gender identity ideology, its set of ideas and ideals? (Whilst you retain your freedom of belief, of course.)
[Workplace]'s policies are presently vague. If people understood the exact shape of the boot treads or could see the invisible bars before they accidentally brush against them and drew the ire of someone who thinks there exist neither male nor female human beings, we could begin an actual discussion.
This isn't merely about not discriminating against gender nonconforming people by treating them equally, a given. (Equal to their sex, in the limited but important circumstances where sex matters, not equal to the sex they'd like to be, naturally.)
So-called "inclusivity" (such a pretty, virtuous word) policies are exclusionary and intrusive for some employees (n=1, publicly).
If anyone else feels the same, perhaps it's time you too started speaking up about it before we're all wearing pronoun pins and there's only one "gender neutral" i.e. mixed-sex bathroom in the office (and changeroom in the gym).
*Once again, this is about your opinion of the appropriateness of [workplace] policies on principle, and not whether you, as an individual, believe women should mind their own business and keep quiet while using the changerooms or whether you, as an individual, believe the sexes are indistinguishable despite the evidence regarding facial recognition alone: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6396056/
TL;DR I believe [workplace] should neither encourage nor discourage its employees to indicate adherence to gender identity ideology through providing preferred pronouns in their email signature and should commit to not making this compulsory.
[Workplace] should, as a compromise, collect uncorrupted data on sex (which everyone has) as well as gender identity feelings (which not everyone subscribes to, so include a "not applicable" option) separately.
[Workplace] should not require compelled speech to affirm male colleagues as women or female colleagues as men; an acknowledgement of their possessing a "woman" or "man" or "non-binary" or "transmasc demigirl boyflux" etc. gender identity (dictionary definition: "an individual's personal sense of having a particular gender") ought to suffice, indicating no misgendering has occurred, merely correct sexing.
Such are my humble suggestions.
I wonder, if it had not garnered any public support, would it still be up? If it was nothing but replies full of tut-tutting, tautologies, unsubstantiated claims about the offending rate of men with special identities or the ānon-binaryā nature of sex, and non sequiturs about climate change and Black Lives Matter, what would have happened then?
Oh, and if youāre offended that rape victims are traumatised by being forced to humour their rapists as women (a sometimes post hoc declaration), youāre a real piece of solipsistic work.
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Thank you for explaining the subject so succinctly :)
Thanks for reading and commenting. It's strange to be boxed into a framework one doesn't believe in and has no scientific basis, particularly when we are told it grants us the freedom to identity how we like but only as an internal feeling or a subset of our sex.