Byline: Graham Grant Home Affairs Editor

TAXPAYERS are to fund special lessons for Scots civil servants on their 'moral responsibility' to respect transsexuals' rights.

Ministers have vowed to ensure all Scottish Executive staff - about 7,500 people - are aware of their duty to work to the SNP's equality agenda.

Employees are to be coached on a new 'gender reassignment' policy, which sets out rules on dealing with 'transitioning' staff - the jargon term for having a sex-change. Yet it is estimated that only one in 10,000 people is a transsexual who has undergone 'medically supervised gender reassignment'.

This means there are only about 400 in Scotland - and, statistically, none at the Executive. Last night, the transgender rights drive was condemned as a waste of cash and effort at a time when civil servants should be focusing on fighting the recession. Laura Midgley, of the Campaign Against Political Correctness, said: 'This prescriptive, PC brain-washing is utterly disproportionate given the tiny minority of transsexuals - and the likelihood that none actually works at the Executive.

'It is deeply sinister to be lecturing people about what their "moral" attitude should be to a colleague. Surely that's a matter of private opinion and nothing to do with your employer?' A 'gender equality report' published by the Executive yesterday laid bare the extent of its growing crusade to boost rights for transgender workers and job applicants.

Officials hope they can lead by example, encouraging other public sector bodies and private firms to adopt the same 'inclusive' approach to transsexuals.

The Executive funds an organisation called the Scottish Transgender Alliance (STA), whose estimates suggest that there are only 420 transsexual adults in Scotland.

The STA claims one in 1,000 people 'may be within the umbrella term transgender people' - mostly transvestites - although this would still equate to just seven people at the Executive.

In the report, ministers trumpet their links with the STA and point out that Stonewall, the gay rights group, has ranked the Executive in first place for its promotion of 'equality' in a Scottish workplace audit. …