Thursday 29 September 2022 04:38 PM Civil servants in Cabinet Office department are allowed to self-identify their ... trends now
Cabinet Office staff at the heart of Government are being allowed to self-identify their gender under a new system women's rights campaigners warn is 'rife for abuse'.
Records for employees at the Government Digital Service no longer require them to state whether they are male or female.
Instead staff can simply type in what gender identity they want for it to be added to their documents.
MailOnline can disclose the GDS - which is part of the Cabinet Office - quietly rolled out the new system over the past few months.
Women's rights campaigners have previously warned self-identification could be a pathway to abuse from predatory individuals.
And it appears completely at odds with some Ministers' views on the need for biological sex to be recorded accurately.
Just days ago Home Secretary Suella Braverman publicly castigated Sussex Police after it defended a legally-male trans paedophile when women called him a man.
Caroline Ffiske from Conservatives for Women told MailOnline: 'Sex does matter for the safety, dignity, privacy, as well as life-long opportunities, for women and girls.
Government Digital Service no longer gets staff to say if they are male or female (stock pic)
Caroline Ffiske, left, said the 'safety, dignity and privacy' of women would be eroded by system
The new system was quietly introduced by the Government Digital Service in recent months
The team - part of the Cabinet Office - says workers don't need to say what sex they are
'It sounds like under this new system, for data management purposes civil servants will not need to record their sex at all.
'Men will be able to 'self-identify' as women and women as men. Civil servants will be able to come up with any new 'self-identification' descriptions they like whether that be pansexual or wombat.'
The GDS's new system lets employers refuse to say what biological sex they are and write what gender they consider themselves to be.
It said it had introduced the new system after staff feedback and consulting its LGBT+ group, but it is not clear who signed off the new procedure.
One government source told MailOnline the department made decisions that were not necessarily in total chime with accepted policy.
In the GDS's new forms people are asked if they identity with the sex they were assigned at birth.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman publicly castigated Sussex Police after it defended a legally-male trans paedophile when women called him a man
The Cabinet Officer department said it implemented the system change after staff requests
