The craziness of woke censorship seems to break new records every week, as their fight to control others’ speech grows. But I don’t think we’ve ever taken on a case this mad.

A member of the Free Speech Union reached out last week saying that they were worried about their job security after an incident at work when they were challenged for misgendering a patient… the peculiar thing about this case was that the client was already deceased.

While doing their work as a mortician, they referred to a client (who biologically was a certain sex) by that gender. The mortician was promptly told that while the individual had been living, they had identified as a different gender and that it was offensive and ‘harmful’ to not respect their wishes.

I went to meet with the HR department of the medical practice. They were taken aback that this mortician shockingly believed that gender is not a social construct and that employers couldn’t compel staff to refer to ‘clients’ (remember, we’re talking about a mortician!) by different pronouns. They struggled to explain exactly what ‘harm’ was being caused through this egregious offense.

Increasingly, we work on cases where employers don’t challenge the employee’s right to speak directly, but just talk about codes of conduct, competent care, cultural awareness etc. In the end though, it usually amounts to forcing an employee to take a particular stance on an issue.

We were glad to be able to support our member in this case. Would-be-censors often run at the first sight of any pushback. If you need us to support you in an employment dispute, contact us at [email protected].

By Free Speech Union