PCS Proud National Committee Response to the Christian Institute attack on LGBT+ Civil Servants

The Proud National Committee (PNC), as the independent representatives of the LGBT+ members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), unequivocally condemns the recent actions and statements by the Christian Institute (CI) and their representatives.In offering “no comment” when approached by the BBC, the PCS union leadership has openly signalled to LGBT+ civil servants and the employer that the union cannot be relied upon to defend our hard-gained rights within the workplace. PCS has a very clear policy to support the reality of trans and non-binary lives, to oppose all forms of biological essentialism, and to proactively oppose all groups and individuals who would seek to remove or diminish LGBT+ rights.

Yet again, the PCS union leadership has failed to offer unreserved support to its LGBT+ members. In offering no comment, our union leadership has shown cowardice in the face of litigation against the civil service. They are either wilfully complicit in the attacks on our community or are standing by ignorantly doing nothing to defend our rights and freedoms.

To reduce the lives of trans and non-binary people to an ideology leads to the view that trans and non-binary people are less deserving of basic human rights that everyone else has: the right to medical care, the right to privacy, the right to a family life, the right to feel safe and to be accepted in public spaces - these are just a few of the rights currently under threat in the UK. This threat comes from far-right political groupings, and conservative religious forces, all of whom disguise their politics as “traditional” values and claim to speak for the “silent majority”.

Many Christians will be horrified to read that CI is claiming that they are representative of the Christian faith. What they represent is a particularly reactionary, right-wing, conservative religious viewpoint that aligns them with the Christian right movement in the United States, who were responsible for the US Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade. We understand many Christians do not recognise it as part of their own faith, including those within the PNC.

The CI repeat the deplorable allegation that to support trans and non-binary rights is tantamount to supporting “gender ideology” which it characterises as a political position. Trans and non-binary people are not an ideology - we have existed throughout human history and across the entire world. We are a natural, if tiny, part of humanity. Because all nine protected characteristics are covered under the same framework of the Equality Act 2010, it means no one protected group has greater licence to discriminate against another.

Civil servants may wear items of clothing which identify them as belonging to a particular faith and LGBT+ civil servants should be able to wear items of clothing which they identify with. Of course, they may wear both, and this is the society that we are fighting for.

The PNC calls on the PCS Senior officers to stand by our policies, specifically A317 which was carried overwhelmingly at ADC 2024 which states the union will actively oppose any organisation or individuals who seek to dehumanise others in words, deeds, or terminology, thereby potentially bringing hate or harm to the union's minority members. Being visible as a LGBT+ Civil Servant in the workplace or at Pride no more suggests an inability to serve the public without bias, than does holding a protected philosophical or religious belief.

If you are not already a member of PCS Proud, you can join PCS Proud by updating your equality information to include that you wish to join.

PCS Proud holds monthly meetings with Proud members on every last Tuesday of the month between 6 and 8pm.