Citizens Advice

Cognitive Capture: Trans Ideology

Citizens Advice (formerly Citizens Advice Bureau) have been in the news for promulgating trans ideology, to the staff and potential clients, so, decided to have a look at their organisation. This is the article that made me curious, sadly, most of it is behind a paywall. 👇

CAB and Pronoun Badges

This is the headline:

The Daily Mail followed up with their own piece:

CAB and Pronoun Badges

Apparently the newspapers have got hold of the guidance, circulated to staff but it doesn’t appear to be available publicly. If but an interested reader has copies, they could share with me, discretion is guaranteed. I always prefer to link to the primary source,

People are facing a cost of living crisis with spiralling inflation, affecting staple food items, and fuel costs; do people seeking help from the CAB want the “luxury beliefs” of their, £170,000 a year, CEO rammed down their throats? Some staff think not 👇.

Meet The Trustees

You can find details of the Charity Trustees, via the Charity Commission so, this is where I started.

Trustees

Most have Linkedin profiles many with pronouns in their biographies. Warren Buckley (He/Him) is the Chair of trustees and holds a senior post with Thames Water. This twitter user made a goeagle eyed, twitter user spotted, presumably because they were in dispute with Thames Water. Something I mention because it does illustrate the problem of a professionalised, charity sector which is cosy with the corporate sector. All of them have higher education, many from Oxford, or other elite, Universities.

As an aside Thames Water is still participating in Stonewall accreditation schemes and is in the top100 of Employers, as of 2022. Incidentally, the last record I could find of CAB and Stonewall was in 2011 whwn they made it to the top 21.

Steve Hughes also has pronouns in his bio and proclaims himself to be interested in Equality and Diversity Champion.

Steve Hughes’s also has a twitter account where he can be found admiring #DragRace by promoting trans issues, he particularly commends them for promoting “trans men”. I don’t know if that has any wider, personal, significance for Hughes.

Hughes also praises linkedin for adding a pronouns field.

Jabber Sardar has a HR background and is employed by a BBC offshoot company. Finola McDonnell is employed by the Financial Times. Lucinda Bell is a graduate of Oxford University and holds Company Director roles of an impressive array of companies. Jonathan Mogford has held a number of senior, appointments in the civil service:

Currently Mogford is in charge of the Corporate Conflicts of interest policy!

There is not much information, that I could find on Ann-Marie Hawkin but Will Cavendish also has an extensive background in the Civil Service.

Under the previous CEO, the Citizens Advice Bureau came under fire for some of their materials about hard to reach members of the BAME community. The idea that this list could have applied across Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Communities is not just racist. it is ludicrous set of sweeping generalisations. Just like lumping LGB with the T it obscures differences /conflicts of interest within these groups. Just to give one example the experiences, cultural differences and challenges facing Black British families, of Nigerian extraction, can be vastly different to those of Afro-Caribbean descent. We can’t even generalise within the B! It seems to me the use of these extended acronyms does not attack racial stereotypes it embeds them, leaving structural inequality, based on race unaddressed.

I mention this because this experience will, I am sure, have played a role in making CAB reflect on their organisation’s inherent biases and may have predisposed them to embrace, uncritically, the neo-pronouns agenda, I am told they have also embraced new guiding on “race” which staff find divisive; this is only from one, anecdotal, source so, I won’t give this too much weight until I see the materials. I will, however, say it fits a predictable pattern. The charitable view would be that this is an over-correction with laudable motivation. The less charitable is they are pink-washing.

Whatever their motivations they did appoint a new CEO in March 2021 and they selected another ex member of the Civil Service, also an Oxford graduate, Clare Moriarty.

Her CV as posted to Linkedin.

Clare Moriarty has long links to the Trans-activists embedded in the Civil Service. Here she is in 2016: 

Both Alison Pritchard and Jacqui Gavin appear in my series on Trans Activists behind the scenes. Both worked in the Civil Service. Pritchard worked at senior level at the Government Equality Office and now works at the Office for National Statistics. Jacqui was at the Cabinet Office.

“Trans”: Working behind the scenes

Here Moriarty is talking about discussing “trans” issues alongside a:Gender which an internal trans-lobby group, embedded within the Civil Service. 

Moriarty also has a more personal motive. She is the mother of a trans-identified female. Here she is announcing her Gender Recognition Certificate after a five year wait. This was in 2021 so it appears she has ben dealing with a daughter, who began to identify as male, atbleast as far backs as 2015/16.

After this background post I will start to have a look at what further impact this has had on their policy beyond the mandating of pronouns. In particular what advice are they giving about the Law?

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