The Home Office’s policy of issuing dual security passes to nonbinary staff for flexible gender identity presentation has critics arguing it poses security risks and unnecessarily promotes gender ideology. The Telegraph has the story.
Nonbinary staff in the Home Office are given male and female security passes allowing them to change their gender identity day by day.
According to the Home Office’s gender reassignment and gender identity policy, nonbinary officials can “present in the gender which matches their identity on a given day”.
The guidance, issued in 2010, updated in 2021, and described as “current policy”, continues: “This includes practical considerations such as access to premises.
“The department has introduced dual passes for staff that wish to attend work as more than one gender.”
Miriam Cates, the Conservative MP, told the Telegraph the nonbinary pass policy poses “serious security and safeguarding risks”.
She said: “A policy that enables someone working in what should be a secure environment to have a different identity on different days of the week is clearly open to abuse and is unworkable.
“The obsession of some senior civil servants with pushing gender ideology in the workplace is very concerning.”
Helen Joyce, the Director of Advocacy at the gender-critical group Sex Matters, said: “These ‘diversity champion’ roles are clearly being used to push contested beliefs about ‘gender identity’ as something distinct from a person’s sex.
“That’s got no basis in either U.K. law or biological reality.
“When civil servants promote this by writing policies that embed gender ideology with concepts like ‘nonbinary identities’, or that promote the use of ‘preferred pronouns’ and suggest it’s bigoted to use phrases like ‘man up’, they’re failing in their statutory duty to be politically neutral and impartial.
“This isn’t just a waste of time and taxpayers’ money; it’s discriminatory towards the majority of perfectly sensible civil servants who don’t believe in this nonsense and just want to do their job.
“The Home Secretary needs to get a grip and tear these policies up.”
The gender reassignment policy promises for transitioning staff “a gender identity liaison officer (GILO) who will act as coordinator throughout an individual’s gender reassignment”.
In March this year, Steve Dann, Chief Operating Officer of Border Force, which is part of the Home Office, wrote a blog on the department’s intranet celebrating ‘Transgender Day of Visibility’, where he urged officials to use people’s “preferred pronouns”.
The mandarin said: “As an LGBT+ champion, Trans Day of Visibility is about recognising the contributions of our trans colleagues to the crucial work we do here in Border Force.”
Mr. Dann, who is paid around £150,000, committed Border Force to being a work environment that is “supportive, inclusive and respectful for all regardless of a colleague’s gender identity”.
He invited staff to “share their thoughts and personal stories” to a Border Force email address.
In the same blog, Jackie Armstrong, described as “Director of Operational Capabilities Command, Immigration Enforcement (IE)” claimed to be a “straight ally” and the “IE LGBT+ champion”.
David Kuenssberg, who earns around £150,000 as Director General of Corporate and Delivery, is another Home Office LGBT+ champion.
On June 26th he wrote a ‘Pride message’ to civil servants, in which he claimed Pride has in recent years “become more inclusive” and now celebrates “transgender and other sexualities and gender identities”. …
Paul Lincoln, who was promoted to the Ministry of Defence in April this year, was Director General of Border Force and the Home Office gender equality champion.
In May 2021, Mr. Lincoln introduced the Home Office Gender Equality Action Plan, which aimed to boost gender equality in the department.
He wrote: “I am clear that the issues facing people of all gender identities in the workplace are complicated and often conflicting.”
In November 2019, Mr. Lincoln published an intranet blog entitled ‘Men as allies’ in which he told officials to “mind your language”, claiming “gender-based language can have a negative impact, even if unintended”.
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