Since its creation in 2020, the FSU has handled over 2,500 individual cases and queries relating to free speech. Of our free speech cases, 46% are in some way associated with the workplace and, among these, approximately one fifth concern EDI (Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) training (approximately 230). In practice, this means that our members are asking whether they’ll get into trouble if they refuse to do the training, or seeking our help because they’ve already got into trouble for challenging it.
We recently carried out a representative nationwide poll on EDI and climate training, and found that 62% of British workers have had to conceal what they really think about the issues covered in their training, including 22% who have been compelled to say things they don’t believe.
In some cases, EDI training extends to telling employees and professionals how they should behave outside the workplace, such as the insistence that employees should use the preferred pronouns of trans people in their private life. For instance, in 2021 the FSU wrote to Somerville College, Oxford, which was insisting that all students undertake unconscious bias training and achieve a 100% score in the end-of-course assessment. After our intervention, the insistence that the course-takers score 100% in the assessment was dropped.
We’ve also recently uncovered an example of EDI training at Amazon in which employees are not allowed to challenge the trainers’ ideological biases. The full Amazon case study has just been added to our recent research briefing, the EDI Tax, but here’s a brief summary.
Our source is an Amazon employee and FSU member who provided us with a copy of the training material produced by ‘Glamazon’, the company’s internal LGBT+ affinity group, which has been rolled out to employees in the UK with supervisory responsibilities. The managers concerned are referred to as – wait for it – ‘Glamzonians’.
It is not clear how or whether the material is adapted for different Amazon locations across the globe or whether it is UK-specific. The course contains many of the familiar LGBT+ topics but, as highlighted by our member who said that employees feel “silenced and scared to admit their own beliefs”, it slides into authoritarianism when discussing “preferred gender pronouns”. The following is taken directly from the Glamazon UK training material:
The #PushforPronouns initiative is aimed at normalizing the sharing of pronouns to ensure all people have the opportunity to define and be referred to by the pronouns they personally identify with. While it’s not an exhaustive list, here are some examples of pronouns people may identify with: they/them/theirs, she/her/hers, zie/zim/zirs, he/him/his, ey/em/eirs.
This is followed by three “quick and easy” suggestions for how Amazon employees can navigate this field, such as adding your preferred pronouns to the ‘Phone Tool’ (an internal Amazon tool) and email signatures. But the training material makes a third recommendation:
Start introducing yourself with your pronouns. Whenever you’re introduced to somebody new, it’s easy to state your pronouns alongside your name. This helps others understand how to refer to you in the future, and encourages them to also share their pronouns.
The training says that employees should:
Do this at work and in your personal life to help establish pronoun sharing as a standard practice with your team, your business org, and your community.
The Glamazon training course goes on:
Ignoring what others identify themselves as can be alienating, and at times traumatising, to others [sic].
Intentionally using the wrong pronouns or misgendering an individual is a form of harassment. If you make a mistake, apologize and correct yourself. Never intentionally use the wrong pronouns for a person who has identified their preferred pronouns.
If this is a reference to ‘harassment’ as defined in the Equality Act 2010, then it’s misleading. Gender critical beliefs are not mentioned in the Glamazon course material, begging the question of whether Amazon is aware that in the UK those beliefs are protected by the Equality Act. Although the law remains unclear on ‘misgendering’, it is likely that an employee with gender critical beliefs could not be lawfully penalised for refusing to use the preferred pronouns of a trans colleague, particularly if the employee did not intend to demean or offend their colleague. Amazon’s demand that its employees should introduce themselves using their own preferred pronouns outside the workplace is an example of overreach.
Under the ‘Protect’ section of the Glamazon training, we find the following:
Ensure gender neutral language is used in documents and meetings, making sure employees are aware that we have zero tolerance of homo/bi/transphobia and educating employees on the LGBTQIA+ community.
