"You Want Change?"

Suncorp offers staff gender affirmation leave

Changing gender is now easier than getting change at Suncorp bank.

The bank, which has been closing branches around Australia, has just announced it will provide staff with six weeks paid leave for “gender affirmation”.

How denying that your genitals, chromosomes and hormones have any bearing on your sex is an ‘affirmation of gender, I have no idea. Then again, I stopped trying to understand the world a while back. You simply cannot reason with a madman.

The bank, which boasts of having 54 per cent of women in leadership roles, has decided to boost female numbers by paying male employees to um, jump to the other side of the teller’s desk.

Or maybe it will go the other way. It’s a very fluid situation, you see.

Next time I’m at Suncorp I must remember to ask my local branch manager what a woman is. Oh wait, they just closed my local branch. There’s just no money for serving customers when you’re busy paying for staff to work out their pronouns.

Suncorp says it’s too early to know how many workers will avail themselves of the leave but, according to The Australian, one of 13,000 employees has welcomed the change!

Wait. Have shareholders paid for a man to become a woman, or for a woman to become a man? Will company directors advise us at the next AGM?

The six weeks paid leave allows staff so inclined to have time to “tell their families and friends about a change in gender identity, adopt the style of dress or presentation that better aligns with their gender identity and change their pronouns or name”.

You need six weeks for that?

Suncorp could pay a male staffer for six years and he’d still never be a woman. Gender is not an ATM that allows you to just withdraw as you see fit.

Anyway, it’s all the rage now, with ANZ also offering staff paid leave for dress ups.

Just on that last sentence, you’re not allowed to ridicule or mock trans people these days which is fair enough. But honestly, the idea that if a man dons a skirt he transforms into a woman is beyond contemptible. Meek with the erring, but violent with the error.

I was going to mention that the ABC and SBS also offer paid leave for gender changes. But even if you didn’t know that, you already knew that didn’t you.

If I was a Suncorp employee I would absolutely be seeking paid “gender affirmation” leave.

I’d take six weeks off to watch football, eat meat pies, scratch my butt and sit around at the pub swapping silly stories with mates. Yep, I’m a bloke. Gender affirmed!