written by: Anonymous

NOTE: This is one of many testimonies regarding institutional capture, given to me by employees, students and service users in various sectors across the UK. See this page for more examples.

A colleague, biologically male, transitioned over lockdown although they’ve not had any surgeries. I’m worried that once we are made to work in the office again they’ll try to use the female toilets.

I work for a council in England that are Stonewall Diversity Champions. All staff have recently been asked to add their pronouns to their email signature, I haven’t done this as it feels unnecessary. I should not be forced to add anything personal to my work emails and neither should anyone else for that matter.

I then had a complaint made against me for mis gendering a colleague by calling them ‘she’. Now I must state that I checked and their profile does show ‘woman’, I’m not sure what else I would possibly call them? I didn’t think calling someone she would result in my boss forcing me to apologise to this person even though I didn’t want to. I was too worried I’d face disciplinary action if I didn’t do as I was told.

A colleague, biologically male, transitioned over lockdown although they’ve not had any surgeries. I’m worried that once we are made to work in the office again they’ll try to use the female toilets. I feel I cannot speak up on the issue as I could lose my job and be labelled a bigot and a transphobe for simply exercising my sex based rights. I’m aware that some of my colleagues feel the same as me but also are too afraid to speak out, especially whilst Stonewall has anything to do with it.