ACON: Trans lobby group advises removing ‘mum’, ‘dad’, from work policy to be more inclusive

A transgender lobby group supported by a raft of government departments, schools and universities, wants words such as ‘mum’ and ‘dad’ replaced in workplace policies.

Kit Kowalski, behind ACON Exposed, says sex-based rights and spaces are being eroded in the workplace.

Exclusive: The words ‘mother’ and ‘father’ should be replaced with ‘primary caregiver’ and ‘secondary caregiver’ in the workplace, according to a trans lobby group influencing a slew of Government departments and the ABC.

ACON – which stands for AIDS Council of NSW, but has diversified into national workplace policy – describes in a training video that the term ‘women becoming pregnant’ is a “traditional” view.

And, it warns HR staff to “be really careful” not to have any gendered language in their work policies.

“Often our parental leave policies have been written, using a traditional view where a woman will become pregnant, have a child, take six months off work to be the primary caregiver of a child. The male husband might also take a couple of weeks off work,” the video states.

“When we continue to use terms that buy into that, such as ‘maternity leave’, ‘paternity leave’, ‘mother’, ‘dads’, all of these terms, that’s reinforcing those gender norms.

“So using terms like ‘primary caregivers’, ‘secondary caregiver’, making sure we’re not referring to partners using gender terms like ‘mother’, like ‘dad’, is really important.”

ACON also suggests allowing staff to change their identity at work “without massive amounts of documentation”.

ACON’s policy recommendation.

IT specialist Kit Kowalski, who is behind the website ACON Exposed, says a significant part of the population are mothers and fathers.

“If we should be inclusive we should be allowing people to still use these terms,” Ms Kowalski said.

“There is this idea that if you are in the majority you are allowed to be undermined.

“A lot of the video is taken up with the claim that LGBTQ must be mentioned in policies over and over again, even when it is not really relevant.

“But that the terms that relate to the most marginalised 52 per cent of the population, which is women, be removed.”

Conservative author and commentator Dr Kevin Donnelly at Australian Catholic University in Melbourne. Picture: David Geraghty / The Australian

Conservative author and commentator Dr Kevin Donnelly said it was an “Orwellian move by the cultural left of “language control”.

“The left decided years ago it wanted to take control of our institutions, schools, universities, family and trade unions and this is part of their strategy to change society,” Dr Donnelly said.

ACON has based its training on the template used by a controversial UK equivalent lobby group called Stonewall.

Up to 60 government departments and agencies, including the Prime Minister’s Office and Cabinet, schools, universities and Police, the ABC, as well as private business has signed up as members to its schemes.

It receives $13 million of government funding a year and makes $4 million from organisations signing up as members and from its diversity courses.

It also runs a free and voluntary league table called the Australian Workplace Equality Index (AWEI), which lists the most “inclusive” organisations based on whether they follow its recommendations on workplace wording and policy.

In a statement on its site it said the “goal of Pride in Diversity has always been to work with employers to create more inclusive workplaces for LGBTQ workers and improve awareness among their colleagues.

“Pride in Diversity was established following requests from employers, seeking advice and support in this area to enable parity with their international offices and emerging best practice in diversity and inclusion.”

It said without “market demand” its Pride in Diversity scheme would not exist.

News Corp has requested comment from ACON.