Scottish Government taken to employment tribunal in trans row

The Scottish Government said they were unable to comment but that they were strongly committed to "being a world-leading, diverse employer.”

Mr McBride says his goal is "to force the Scottish Government to end its hostility to gender critical workers, and to win compensation for the loss of my job."

In a post on the Wings Over Scotland blog, he said he took on a temporary job with Transport Scotland last June and subsequently enrolled in training sessions run by the internal LGBTI+ Network.

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He says at one event, civil servants were encouraged to read Trans Language Primer, which claims biological sex is a "falsehood" which was invented by the medical profession to "reinforce white supremacy and gender oppression."

The primer also states that women critical of gender stereotypes are part of a “trans hate group” and have an "unhealthy fascination with trans kids."

It also describes women who object to self-ID as FARTS - feminism appropriating ridiculous transphobes - and TERFS - trans exclusionary radical feminists.

Mr McBride, who was employed through a temp agency, complained and was told the Scottish Government accepted that the primer was not appropriate material and the link had been removed. 

However, he said the government should have gone further, telling those who received the primer to disregard it.

He then escalated his complaint to his temp agency “mentioning not only the incidents at the two training sessions but also the corporate urgings to add pronouns to our email signatures and other items on [Scottish Government intranet] Saltire that seemed to demand ‘inclusion’ at all costs, even if that meant excluding gender critical people.”

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In December last year, Mr McBride posted on the Scottish Government’s internal social network about a new new gender-critical affinity network for civil servants, Sex Equality and Equity Network  (SEEN). 

He said it was not open to workers in the devolved administrations and asked if anyone knew of something similar in Scotland

The post was criticised by other civil servants.

Mr McBride says he regarded several of the comments made “as harassment based on my gender critical beliefs, and I raised a complaint about these.”

He says he “also sent emails to some of those who had replied, asking them to clarify their positions.”

Later that afternoon, he was then called by his temp agency to say that his assignment had been terminated because of the “harassing” emails sent to colleagues. 

Mr McBride now plans to take the Scottish Government, Transport Scotland, and the temp agency to an employment tribunal. 

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“I am not just seeking compensation for the loss of my job, but more importantly, to force the Scottish Government to change its ways and provide a more honest, respectful and tolerant environment for those of us who believe in the reality of sex and who believe that sex matters.”

Mr McBride referenced Maya Forstater, a researcher who won her employment tribunal after losing her job at a thinktank for tweeting that transgender women could not change their biological sex.

She won her claim that she was unfairly discriminated against because of her gender-critical beliefs.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “We do not comment on live legal proceedings. The Scottish Government is strongly committed to equality and inclusion and to being a world leading, diverse employer.”