- Conference
- 2021 Police and Justice Conference
- Date
- 15 June 2021
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes that sex-specific uniform enforces unhelpful gender stereotypes by limiting personal and gender expression in the workplace. It also reinforces gendered expectations of behaviour within the workplace, such as who should take on the role of carer as opposed to leader. In a traditionally male dominated workplace, the effect is limiting for all workers.
In a survey run for non-binary people by the Scottish Trans Alliance it was found that only 4% of respondents felt comfortable sharing their identity at work. In the 2018 Stonewall lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender plus (LGBT+) Work Report found that over a third of non-binary people are not out at work. Despite non-binary people achieving proportionately higher educational attainment, over 32% of non-binary workers avoided employment opportunities such as promotion. The reasons were fear of being harassed, belittled, or not being taken seriously.
In recent years the police and justice sectors have been seen as equality trailblazers, especially in regard to LGBT+ representation.
Conference welcomes the way in which the police and justice sector has embraced diversity. Nevertheless, it must be recognised that for some areas of the sector there is still room for improvement.
Almost a third of non-binary people don’t feel able to wear work attire that represents their gender expression. Yet the impact of being able to do just that has wider implications both at work and in people’s personal lives. Non-binary people who can express themselves at work speak of experiencing affirmation and increasing their confidence, and well-being. This is important to employers too. Workplace wellbeing strongly influences a worker’s productivity. Stonewall found that workers are at least 32% more productive when they’re able to be out at work, partly because the emotional labour it takes to self-police and ‘edit’ is wasted energy.
Conference recognises the importance of ensuring that all police and justice employers have policies and procedures that protect the rights of all LGBT+ workers.
Conference believes that the next step should be the introduction of uniform that enables all members, particularly non-binary workers, to fully express themselves at work. This could be as simple as allowing all police and justice workers the option to choose items of uniform that they would be comfortable wearing. It is of course, essential that there is a culture that enables that choice.
Conference further recognises, that pronouns are important, particularly for non-binary people. Encouraging the correct use of pronouns within the police and justice sector is essential for everyone, but particularly for non-binary people.
Conference therefore calls on the Police and Justice Service Group Executive, in liaison with the National LGBT+ Committee and other parts of the union as appropriate, to:
1)Seek to ensure that the introduction of non-binary neutral uniforms is on the bargaining agenda with all police and justice employers;
2)Gather and publicise examples from branches organising in the service group of good practice in use of gender-neutral or non-binary friendly uniform choice;
3)Promote UNISON’s National LGBT+ Committee factsheets on gender identity – non-binary inclusion and pronouns to all police and justice branches;
4)Make contact with the College of Policing to discuss if policy or procedure could be produced as advice for all police forces around non binary issues including how forces should approach this matter and instruction to assist others working with non-binary colleagues.