Mick Hartley

Earlier in the week we heard about Stonewall's scheme to allow employees to have different e-mails for their different gender identities. Here's another great idea:

Stonewall has been scoring employers on whether they pay for their staff to have gender reassignment treatments.

Hundreds of organisations — including banks, universities, government departments, NHS bodies and police forces — are scrutinised by the LGBT charity every year as they contend to be featured on its “top 100 employers” league table.

To secure a spot on Stonewall’s Workplace Equality Index (WEI), employers must complete a 32-page form, answering questions about inclusivity which are marked by the charity and used to generate a ranking score.

One question on the form for the 2023 index — seen by The Times — asks employers whether their private healthcare insurance includes “transition-related treatments”.

Guidance accompanying the question says Stonewall is “looking for . . . provision beyond mental health treatment”, which can include hormone treatment and surgical procedures.

It also asks whether the insurance covers “LGBTQ-inclusive mental health treatments” as well as healthcare for “spouses/partners and children” regardless of whether they have transitioned.

Those with health plans that include one or more of these provisions are awarded marks by the charity. HSBC confirmed last week that it would pay for staff and their dependents to undergo gender reassignment treatments from the start of next year.

The bank, which ranks at 32 on the WEI, said employees’ partners and children, if over 18, could also have their treatment funded as part of its new “gender dysphoria benefit”, which is designed to help people “be their true authentic self”.

If their authentic self is a mutilated body which no longer functions properly, then yes.

NatWest, which sits 49th on the index, announced that it would pay for staff to receive hormone treatment, gender identity support and counselling. This came into effect in September.

Stonewall considers the WEI to be the “definitive benchmarking tool” for an employer’s progress on lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans inclusion.

What they mean, of course, is trans inclusion. The lesbian, gay, bisexual part is the fig-leaf they use to smuggle in the trans stuff – and now, like the cuckoo in the nest, the others have been kicked out and trans is all that's left.

Again the question arises: why on earth do these organisations buy this nonsense? I guess once the "progressive" label is attached – this is the next step in the great gay lib pride movement – then all else follows.