The London North East Railway has been forced to issue an apology statement while promising to carry out an in-depth investigation that deals with a conductor wishing passengers a cheery greeting, causing offense to an LGBT passenger.
According to reports, the conductor happily said “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, boys, and girls” which caused an uproar with the rail’s union representative. And that’s because he felt that the greeting certainly did not apply to any one of them, as they were ‘non-binary’.
The worker was reportedly traveling aboard that train when all of a sudden the manager began greeting everyone with that phrase, which left plenty of the non-binary individuals feeling left out.point 280 |
Moreover, one spokesperson for the LNER also went on to explain how the staff shouldn’t be using terms or language of this sort, in the first place.point 128 | 1
Surprisingly, the entire exchange sparked major debate online relating to whether or not that particular term should be banned.
For now, the train’s operator is under fire for the act. The non-binary individual was identified as Laurence who prefers to be known by pronouns like ‘they’ and ‘them.’ He explained how he also represented the trade unions belonging to the Rail, Transport, and Maritime.
Laurence reportedly stated, “Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. And for any non-binary person, this announcement just does not apply to me and hence, I won’t listen.”
The company has issued several apologies about the act and how the words were totally wrong.point 366 |
“No one should be using language like this in the first place, and I would also like to express my appreciation to you for bringing all of this to my attention,” the train company’s representative mentioned in the apology statement.point 211 | 1
In the English language, certain words have certain meanings. ‘He’ is for males and ‘she’ is for females but when it comes to those that identify as neither gender, it’s hard to select which pronoun to use.