Mick Hartley

I used to justify using Amazon (no, nothing to do with them being cheaper!) by thinking of all those bookstores (yes you, Waterstones) where gender-critical books were unavailable or hidden away by staff.

Well, think again. From the Free Speech Union:

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….

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.