ONS female employees could face disciplinary action if they object to trans colleagues using their lavatories

Women working for the Office for National Statistics could face disciplinary action if they object to male-born colleagues using single-sex lavatories and changing rooms, documents leaked to The Sunday Telegraph reveal.

A cache of HR policies, internal communications and posts from the ONS intranet show that the statistics body has been subject to “institutional capture” by trans activists, gender-critical campaigners have alleged.

It follows criticism of the ONS amid claims that it may have overestimated the number of trans people in the census because of a poorly worded question.

A set of ONS resources on “Gender Identity and Transitioning at Work” includes a manager’s checklist for supporting a transitioning employee with a section headed “use of single-sex facilities”.

It says: “Have you agreed when the employee will start to use single-sex facilities, such as toilets and changing rooms, appropriate to their acquired gender? This will usually be on the first day of transition.”

The document says that “if colleagues object to sharing facilities with employees going through transition, the situation should be dealt with through communication, discussion and education.

“If colleagues persist with unreasonable objections you may need to manage the situation via grievance or disciplinary procedures.”

Transitioning employees decide

The ONS’s policy on gender identity, which was introduced in 2018, says that it is up to transitioning employees to decide when they want to use single-sex facilities in their acquired gender.

It says: “As part of their transition process, the employee will have considered the most appropriate time for them to use facilities such as toilets and changing rooms that are appropriate to their gender. ONS recognises that it is up to the employee to decide when they feel comfortable using these facilities.”

It adds that “a trans employee should not be expected or asked to use the disabled facilities; to expect this may impede the individual’s transition, be embarrassing or offensive and may constitute harassment”.

Sex Matters, a gender-critical campaign group that has reviewed the ONS documents, said the policies showed the organisation had “complete disregard for all other employees”.

The ONS policy on single-sex lavatories also seems to go considerably beyond trans guidance currently being drawn up for the Civil Service.

A draft update to the Cabinet Office’s trans guidance which was leaked last year stated that while an employee with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) would be “legally entitled” to access single-sex lavatories in their acquired gender, transitioning civil servants without a GRC could be asked to use alternative gender-neutral facilities, such as disabled toilets.

Another section of the ONS policy says that after an employee transitions, the organisation should carry out the “destruction of all information regarding a person’s previous gender”.

“Place any paper documents that cannot be destroyed in a sealed envelope and attach it to a new employee file, clearly marked as confidential, to be opened only if required,” it says.

Trans activists’ demands ‘prioritised’

Sex Matters said the “extreme” policy would mean that a new line manager “might not be aware of an employee’s past performance, absence, sickness or disciplinary records”.

Sex Matters claimed various other areas of the document showed how “trans activist demands have been centred and prioritised, seemingly with no consideration of the consequences”.

The policy states that “all trans people should be treated according to the gender in which they identify, irrespective of their legal gender status under the Gender Recognition Act 2004” and that “although not covered by the Gender Recognition Act (2004), ONS accepts that it is good practice to treat a transgender person who does not hold a GRC in the same way as a person who does”.

Sex Matters said both points “go far beyond the law, disregarding the impact on other employees”.

It also said that leaked posts from the ONS intranet showed “an organisation that has put transgender identities and feelings before everything – including accuracy”.

For example, a post on LGBT history and healthcare from last month claims that James Barry – an 18th-century surgeon who disguised her female sex in order to practise medicine – was a “transgender man”.

‘Institutional capture’

Last year, academics queried findings from the ONS that suggested there were 262,000 people who identified as trans in England in the 2021 census – 0.5 per cent of the population over 16.

The figure for those whose main language was not English was 2.2 per cent, leading the academics to suspect that the question, which was being used for the first time, may have been confusing.

Census respondents were asked: “Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?”

Fiona McAnena, Sex Matters’ director of campaigns, said: “The ONS staff documents that have been leaked are inaccurate, ideologically driven and inflammatory. This is what institutional capture looks like.”

She added: “These documents would be a cause for concern in any public sector body. That they come from within the national statistics body helps explain why the ONS made such a mess of the census questions on sex and ‘gender identity’.”

The ONS said: “We value all of our colleagues and operate an inclusive working environment, focussed on delivering statistics for the public good. We have had no formal complaints about the relevant policies.”