Trans Woman V Northern Railway In Misgender Row

[NoOnesFool]

A trans woman has spoke out against Northern Railway, after alleging she was mis-gendered at Manchester Piccadilly railway station. Eden Vickerman, 25 travelled from Chorley to Manchester last week. However, her ticket was to Manchester Victoria and not Piccadilly. A Revenue Protection Officer noticed the error and took her to the ticket desk. Eden claims he kept referring to her as a male and when she tried to correct him, he said "what is the world coming to?". Eden complained to Northern, who have apologised and launched an investigation in to the incident.

My thoughts on the article are that I don't believe Northern would apologise without there being substancial evidence that wrongdoing took place, although it is not officially confirmed yet. I think it could have been a simple mistake on the Revenue Protection Officer's part initially, but it sounds as though he was bang out of order when he was allegedly corrected. What do you all think of the case? Does the industry have a problem with LGBT diversity and awareness? *Please keep comments respectful and in line with forum rules.

Trans woman 'repeatedly misgendered' by Northern Rail worker at Piccadilly

Northern Rail has since apologised to Eden Vickerman and has launched an investigation

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk

A trans woman says she was subjected to transphobic abuse after being misgendered by railway staff at Manchester Piccadilly Station.

Eden Vickerman, 25, had bought a ticket from Chorley to Manchester Victoria to attend a dental appointment last Friday (June 11)

Despite her Split Save ticket being checked twice on the train without any issues, she says she was faced problems when arriving at the station after it was scanned by an officer....

“One of the workers said I should have got on a certain train, which I didn’t realise, but as I tried to explain, he started misgendering me.

“He said to me: ‘Yes, sir, you have to board that specific train'.

“I was literally standing in front of him with a ponytail, acrylic nails and a bra on - all the signs were there.”

Eden, who lives in Chorley, says she politely tried to correct the Northern Rail revenue officer but claims he continued to misgender her.

She explains: “I think he was training the other worker because everything I was saying, he was relaying it back and explaining all while calling me ‘he’ and ‘sir’.

“I kept correcting him by saying it’s ‘miss’ or ‘she’ but by the fifth time, it really started to annoy me. I shouted ‘oh my god, it’s she’.

“He just looked me up and down and tutted and looked at his colleagues as if he couldn’t understand the point I was trying to make.

“He said something along the lines of ‘man, woman, whatever! God, what’s the world coming to, eh?’....

 

[PupCuff]

Unfortunately there are corners of the railway which struggle with diversity and inclusion, to the extent that it can feel very, very uncomfortable even as a staff member at times. I'd like to think that it's being rooted out, albeit slowly, with a lot of the work that's going into equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives, but from my experience the ones who take that seriously are the ones with the positive attitude to their job anyway and the ones who can't be bothered often just pay it lip service. I hope the lass in question recognises that we can't all be tarred with the same brush, and we really are trying to get folk who have vitriolic opinions to keep them at home or in their locker rather than bringing them onto the job with them.

 

[Northern_guard]

"Alleged"

 

[Scotrail314209]

I do think staff need to be more observant of pronouns and things.

Wasn't there an incident a few weeks ago in which a passenger was offended when an LNER guard used "Ladies and Gentleman"?

 

[godfreycomplex]

Revenue protection causing more problems than they solve yet again I see

Unfortunately there are corners of the railway which struggle with diversity and inclusion, to the extent that it can feel very, very uncomfortable even as a staff member at times. I'd like to think that it's being rooted out, albeit slowly, with a lot of the work that's going into equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives, but from my experience the ones who take that seriously are the ones with the positive attitude to their job anyway and the ones who can't be bothered often just pay it lip service. I hope the lass in question recognises that we can't all be tarred with the same brush, and we really are trying to get folk who have vitriolic opinions to keep them at home or in their locker rather than bringing them onto the job with them.

Agreed.
Sometimes it can feel less like corners and more like the whole ****ing square

 

[NoOnesFool]

I do think staff need to be more observant of pronouns and things.

Wasn't there an incident a few weeks ago in which a passenger was offended when an LNER guard used "Ladies and Gentleman"

What was then EastMidlands Trains said on Twitter 2/3 years ago they were working to abolish "ladies and gentlemen" from announcements. However it is still used by some Train Managers (with no malice I'm sure).

Aren't Northern RPOs contract staff from Carlyle Security? If so, it seems unfair that Northern alone should be referred to in the article. Do you think specific training should be given on transgender and non binary people to avoid incidents like this?