The Bank of England has declared that people with any gender identity can be pregnant.
According to The Times:
Andrew Bailey’s under-pressure central bank, which is battling to bring inflation under control, also offers to help staff to pay for gender reassignment treatment using private medical insurance.
The Bank of England’s views and actions were included in its 2022 submission to be included in the list of the 100 top employers published by Stonewall, the LGBT lobby group, a copy of which has been obtained by The Times.
The Bank came 57th in Stonewall’s annual list last year after submitting a 103-page application.
This revealed that in June 2021 the Bank had introduced a “family leave” policy that included the phrase “birthing parent” to mean mother.
The Bank’s parental bereavement leave policy “talks about parents without specifying gender”, its application said.
It emphasised that the term meant “the parent who is/was pregnant with the child but includes persons of any and all gender identities”.
It also detailed the Bank’s commitment to gender-neutral lavatories, stating that it planned to “upgrade” its facilities.
That included a commitment to ensure that the seventh floor of its headquarters in London offered only unisex lavatories.
Each Bank employee, of whom there are 4,000 in the UK, was expected to have a diversity and inclusion objective for each calendar year and all would be assessed on it, the submission stated.
Staff at the bank, which has faced criticism for raising interest rates while failing to tame inflation, are encouraged to “include their pronouns in email signatures”, the application said.
Meanwhile, senior staff encourage others to be “allies” to the LGBT community by wearing a rainbow lanyard and displaying the same symbol at their workstation.
The Bank’s private medical insurance covers treatments for pelvic surgery “needed to treat gender dysphoria” or the mismatch a person feels between their biological sex and their gender identity.
The healthcare, provided by Axa Health, could also cover phalloplasty, vaginoplasty and clitoroplasty, the application said.
In April 2021, the Bank’s LGBT network emailed all bank governors and executive directors to “encourage support of LGBT+ inclusion”, it said.
Five governors and executive directors attended a meeting of the “LGBT+ and allies” steering group and eight signed up for reverse mentoring.
The Bank is to introduce a recruitment system that will include “broader gender definitions” and wants to create “quantitative targets” in respect of LGBT employees.
Stonewall suggested a focus on categories such as parents, LGBT staff aged under 26 or over 50, those at board level and people of faith. It added: “Stonewall can support with developing this area through creating bespoke workshops.”
The Bank of England said: “The Bank is committed to being an inclusive place to work for all of its colleagues who are all dedicated to delivering monetary and financial stability.”
Robbie de Santos, director of external affairs at Stonewall, said: “It’s great to see the Bank of England adopting these inclusive workplace practices, which are becoming the norm among leading employers who are striving to unpick the barriers that prevent lesbian, gay, bi and trans people from having the same opportunity to thrive at work as anybody else.”
