EXCLUSIVE: FBI LGBT Guidance Quietly Scrubbed After Employee Backlash, Whistleblower Says

 The FBI cancelled a mandatory sexual orientation and gender identity course in 2021 after agents protested being tested on their knowledge of “transgender descriptors,” a suspended FBI agent told the Daily Caller.

The test, sponsored by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI), intended to boost agents’ awareness of the LGBT community and show how to be “an ally for LGBT+ colleagues,” documents provided to the Daily Caller show.

The 56-page test showed guidance on the definitions of gender identities and sexual orientations, how to write or talk about a transgender person, how to use the word “queer,” what one can ask an LGBT person and how to use pronouns.

The FBI originally mandated the test for all employees, but it was removed after backlash in the online comment section, suspended FBI agent Kyle Seraphin told the Caller.

“The comment section was so negative, and the reviews were so negative of this training, that the [FBI] just removed it and didn’t tell anybody,” Seraphin said.

Established under the Obama administration in 2013, the ODI was mostly dormant under the Trump administration and then reactivated under President Joe Biden, Seraphin told the Caller.

“ODI was established in 2013 to develop and execute strategies that support our diverse workforce and foster a culture that integrates diversity, equity, and inclusion,” the FBI’s website states.

As of August of 2022, 2.2% of the FBI identified as LGBT+, according to the website.

In the course, one appropriate greeting listed for agents is “I’m Special agent Jones, I use he/him pronouns. Thanks for talking to me today! First, what name and pronouns should I use to refer to you?” Pronouns in the test include they/them/their and ze/hir/hir.

The test also states that agents should treat transgender agents undergoing transition “like a pregnancy” and to use the pronouns agents insist on. 

“When the person tells you their new name/pronoun, use it and insist others do the same,” the guidance states.

Seraphin, who was suspended from the FBI after refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine, said the pronoun training is a “type of compelled speech.”

“I believe that this type of compelled speech, which is essentially what the training involves, is sort of the next iteration of the FBI’s habit of infringing on First Amendment protected arenas,” Seraphin said.

“This type of compelled speech is the next step. First is censoring or monitoring protected speech, and now you have this sort of enforcement of their own preferred speech,” he added.

The test also encourages agents to be “allies,” and to “go the extra mile.”

“Participate in regional Pride events and support field office LGBT+ events,” the test states, above a picture of FBI agents walking in a pride parade carrying a flag saying “#UnexpectedAgent.”