Gender-fluid employees should be given multiple identity cards with different names at their place of work for inclusivity, the UK’s leading human resources (HR) body has said.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) also suggests “installing curtain rails in communal changing rooms” as an alternative to single-sex facilities.
The guidance (pdf), made available to CIPD’s 160,000 members this week, has been described as “highly concerning” and “bending over backwards to accommodate an ideology.”
James Esses, co-founder of Thoughtful Therapists, also criticised the report for “misrepresenting” the law after the guide stated it was unlawful to “deliberately misgender” someone.
CIPD—the main professional body that governs HR professionals in the UK—said the guidance is based on several stages of research and included “the views and input from a broad range of stakeholders.”
Those included trans activists and groups, including Gendered Intelligence and the Rainbow Trust.
The 32-page document goes on to state that there is a “broad consensus within literature reviewed” that gender “is a person’s sense of self as a man, woman or non-binary person.”
It also refers to the term “cisgender” as being “used by cisgender allies who recognise that trans and non-binary people exist and matter.”
The “evidence-based guide” also includes a list of “key terminology” including “deadnaming,” which it states is “calling someone by their birth name after they have changed their name.”
Gender Signals
In one piece of evidence referenced in the book, an unnamed line manager described how it was an agreed workplace practice that a gender-fluid employee could present as male to the public, and female to work colleagues.“We also agreed she would have two different email addresses ... and certain people [with her agreement] were told about certain signals that would help them navigate which presentation she would use in different contexts,” it said.
“There is a need to tailor the approach to each individual and also understand that some people don’t want to undergo a ‘full’ binary transition either at all or in one go.”
CIPD says workplaces should have at least one gender-neutral toilet, though if resources weren’t available employers could install “curtain rails in communal changing rooms to offer users privacy”.
In its “action plan prompts”, the HR organisation suggests “flexibility” surrounding gender-fluid employees “such as providing multiple ID cards with different names.”
It also states workplaces should have at least one gender-neutral toilet or changing area,
In terms of employees who hold gender-critical beliefs, the guide states they may have the right to hold protected beliefs but “this does not give anyone the right to manifest these beliefs in a discriminatory fashion at work”.
Stating that this could apply to “a wide range of protected religious and philosophical beliefs” it adds: ‘However, it would be unlawful to deliberately misgender someone, refuse to use the correct name/pronouns or reveal personal information, regardless of their beliefs.”
Detrimental
Speaking to The Epoch Times, Mr. Esses said CIPD’s guidance misrepresents the law.“It says categorically, if you deliberately misgender somebody that is unlawful, and that’s not true,” he said.
“There is no precedent for that whatsoever. The case that they’re referring to in question makes no comment about the specific circumstances, every case has to turn on its own facts.
“So by them putting that into the guidance, that will then filter down into internal organisational policies and it puts the fear of God into people that if they want to stand up for biological reality, if they don’t want to be told to recognise somebody as a different sex to the one that you know that they are, that you’re going to end up in court.
“It’s really quite worrying.”
The Thoughtful Therapists co-founder also said the influential body’s guidance is to “the detriment of other people’s rights.”
“There’s no doubt that this guidance is going to be sent to HR professionals, up and down the length of the United Kingdom. That’s concerning because this policy essentially goes out of its way to kind of bend over backwards and accommodate an ideology and it shows real bias in the way that it’s been compiled,” he said.
“That’s to the detriment of biological reality, it’s to the detriment of the impact that it has on other people’s rights, for example, women’s rights to same-sex spaces, and in many ways it’s to the detriment of the organisations themselves.”
In a statement to The Epoch Times via email on Thursday, a CIPD spokesperson said its guide had been created alongside employment lawyers involved at “every stage” of its creation.
“We believe that all staff deserve to be treated with dignity and respect at work. This guide is one of many resources to help employers make that a reality,” the spokesperson said.
“Our guide states that it would be unlawful to ‘deliberately’ misgender someone. Deliberate misgendering, by which we mean knowingly and intentionally referring to someone as the wrong gender, creates a hostile and degrading environment, potentially for that person and for others.”
“It’s hard to conceive of a way someone could be deliberately misgendered without it very likely causing offence and therefore this is our guidance to employers in order to avoid legal risk. ”
CIPD said it considered cases like Mackereth v Department of Work and Pensions (2022), where the unsuccessful claimant said that he would deliberately misgender people and “this was a key part of the employer’s reasoning behind dismissing him.”
