Top officer is accused of wasting time on pronouns

Senior officers were accused of “policing pronouns” after an online campaign led to calls for forces to spend more time catching criminals than on enforcing the evolution of language.

A Cheshire police officer released a video to mark International Pronouns Day, aimed at promoting people’s right to choose how they are referred to. In the video Julie Cooke, the deputy chief constable, says the day is “important to people who identify as transgender or gender nonconformist”.

She adds: “Being misgendered can have a huge impact on somebody and their personal wellbeing. It can also be a form of abuse.”

Twitter users criticised the video, which has had about 100,000 views, and drew attention to a recent 36 per cent rise in knife crime in Cheshire.

Julie Bindel, a feminist author and legal reform campaigner, wrote: “Why are you wasting time on this? Shouldn’t you be detecting crime and catching criminals?”

James Kirkup of the Social Market Foundation think tank wrote on the Spectator website: “Personal abuse is unpleasant and unkind . . . But is it a crime?”

Carl Foulkes, chief constable of North Wales said that Ms Cook was “making us all think about how we treat, address and value everybody”.

In May Ms Cooke, who speaks for the National Police Chiefs’ Council on LGBT+ rights, said she would review recruitment after a tribunal found that the force’s attempt at “positive action” had discriminated against Matthew Furlong, a straight white man aged 25.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/top-officer-is-accused-of-wasting-time-on-pronouns-jpcf6769k