Gender-swap staff need two email options, says Stonewall

Charity’s suggestion to employers in the name of workplace equality branded ‘absurd’ by MPs

STONEWALL is urging employers to let staff have two email addresses to swap gender identities on different days, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

The contentious LGBT charity has drawn up new guidance for organisations vying for spots on its “workplace equality index” (WEI), one of the UK’s largest benchmarking schemes.

This newspaper has obtained the form employers must submit for Stonewall’s 2023 index. Each question is marked in order for the organisation to qualify for its “top 100 employers” league or a bronze, silver or gold award.

But MPs have branded it “absurd” and “extremely concerning”.

Last year’s top 100 Stonewall WEI included six government departments, NHS England, six regional NHS bodies, four police forces, three fire services and 10 universities.

One question on the 2023 form asks how employers “enable non-binary employees to have their identities recognised on all employee-facing workplace systems”.

In its guidance, Stonewall says: “You will receive more marks if at least one example is specific to gender-fluid people, for example the ability to have multiple passcards with different forms of gender expression or linked email accounts/intranet accounts with different names and photos.”

Employers could also “consider removing gender markers and titles from your systems altogether” or allow Mx gender-neutral titles, the form adds.

Submissions for the WEI closed in September and results will be announced next February.

The prospect of a single employee having two email accounts, which has never featured on WEI forms before, attracted ridicule last night.

Sir John Hayes, chairman of the Common Sense Group of 60 Tory MPs, told The Sunday Telegraph: “Stonewall over recent times has unfortunately become captured by militant elements and its index and awards devalued accordingly.

“It is undesirable for NHS trusts and police forces to be associated with this kind of extremism. I will certainly be writing to the Cabinet Office to ask them to recommend that public bodies, if they go down this road, spend their own money – not public money.”

Miriam Cates, a Tory MP and member of the Commons education committee, added: “This guidance is frankly absurd and it is extremely concerning that major employers are seeking to adhere to it.

“This has nothing to do with equality and everything to do with trying to deny the biological and social reality that sex is binary and men and women are different.”

Other questions on the 40-page form ask employers whether they “do not award the contract” or “require improvements as a condition of contract” to potential suppliers that “do not meet LGBTQ+ inclusion scrutiny”.

The document also asks whether bodies have a “formal commitment to introduce gender-neutral facilities in all buildings” and “support all cis employees (including lesbian gay and bi

‘This is absurd. It has nothing to do with equality and everything to do with trying to deny reality’

employees) to become trans allies”.

Several major organisations including Ofsted, the BBC and the Cabinet Office quit Stonewall’s separate diversity champions scheme last year, citing fears that it erodes the concept of biological sex with gender spectrums.

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington, part of a growing bloc of gender-critical parliamentarians, told The Telegraph the new form “takes this agenda to a different level” and is “out of touch with normal people and working practices”.

Debbie Hayton, a transgender teacher and campaigner, described Stonewall’s two-email advice as “madness”, suggesting that employees could simply have one email account and passcard marked by initials, “without drawing attention to their sex”.

“It doesn’t help trans people to separate us out as something different or special,” she said.

A Stonewall spokesman said the charity was “incredibly proud” of its inclusion schemes, adding: “Our guidance does not impose or demand any one way of doing things, but instead suggests examples that might be helpful.

“Our workplaces are increasingly diverse and there is nothing extreme in making modest improvements to create a more welcoming environment so that everyone feels comfortable.”