Louise Chivers is a 52-year-old mother of two from Northamptonshire in the United Kingdom. She is also a lesbian and says that she has “been on the gay scene since I was 18. I’ve been socially active with transgender people for decades. If people have got gender dysmorphia, I’m hugely sympathetic, but I don’t believe in gender identity — I believe there are two sexes and that’s it.”
It is that sentiment that has gotten Chivers in some serious trouble.
Despite having a quarter century of experience in social work, Chivers found herself under investigation after being reported by a manager at Leicestershire County Council for being someone who was at risk for “misgendering” someone. During a recent training, Chivers had noted that Dylan Mulvaney was not a woman but a “skinny gay man with no t*ts” and that his shtick was being a “misogynist who mocks women.”
Those comments got her referred to Social Work England, a regulatory body overseeing social workers. Chivers works in adult social care but has now been told by her company that she cannot apply for any more work because of her Mulvaney comments. It must be highlighted here that Chivers is being disciplined because she dared to speak out about what made her feel safe. Describing the conversation that triggered the investigation, Chivers stated, “On this particular occasion, we had been discussing gender-neutral toilets and I said I wasn’t comfortable using them because statistics show women are eight times more likely to be raped in one.”
What Chivers apparently failed to understand is that her feeling unsafe is trumped by a man claiming that he feels like a woman. To trans activists, only one of those two has feelings that are valid – and the woman loses, even if she would have previously described herself as a member of the gay scene. It’s a different scene now, as many older gay rights activists are discovering.
The conversation then moved into the climate protests and whether it was hypocritical for protesters to be wearing clothes made of plastic and other environmentally unfriendly materials. I said I would struggle to buy Nike clothes any more because I didn’t agree with Dylan Mulvaney advertising sports bras because I thought it made a mockery of women. Afterwards, I was contacted by my managers who demanded to know what I had said. I was then told by the recruitment agencies that I use to apply for jobs that they would not find me work until conclusion of the investigation.
I feel like I’ve been blacklisted. The inference that because I am gender critical, I must be transphobic. I’ve got two children and a mortgage to pay and now I’m worried I won’t be able to find another job simply because the powers that be appear to have been brainwashed on this issue. I do have to bite my tongue in a lot of these training sessions. I once attended an ‘Alphabet Soup’ session run by Cambridgeshire County Council when a member of staff expressed concerns about people misgendering dogs. It is getting ridiculous. None of this improves the social work we do. Like a lot of people, I’m fed up with this obsession about gender ideology and just want to get on with my job.
