School Equalities policy: "gender" instead of "sex"

Probably that. My DS is very into Transformers. Maybe they're checking whether I identify as Optimus Prime?

Thanks. I put prefer not to say for both and kept waiting for the question on sex but it never came.

I was also struck by the language, the question was literally

'Are you Trans?
Yes, no, prefer not to say'

Not even the full word Transgender. Is that what has happened to language now?

I dont the legal position but "good practice" is that you dont ask for personal information that is not relevant.

So for instance why do they need to know? As some companies (not sure about public sector body) are asked to show whether men and women (under the protected characteristic sex) are equally employed they should be collecting it.

So do they care about equal opportunities for women?

You could raise this as someone concerned that they would want to be sure of meeting public sector standards.

This is about Public Sector Duty from the ACAS archive but it does refer to the EA 2010 which is still in place archive.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=5990

Is it just schools this applies to? I work for a very large public sector body and have just filled out the annual workforce survey where it asked for my gender identity and if I was Trans as well as the usual disabled and religion etc. No mention of sex whatsoever. I'm not sure how to respond or if I should try to point this out to anyone?

There have been a few threads about queer politics but a recent one was www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4003841-The-enduring-roots-of-queer-theory-the-post-modern-origins-of-the-politics-of-sexual-transgression which has links to articles / videos.

Thanks for the info re 2006 Equality Act. This was about creating an overarching Equality Commission and Act I had assumed that because it meant incorporating the Sex Descrimination Act they would use the correct terminology.

We can only be grateful to whoever spotted this linguistic error and corrected it in the 2010 update to the Act.

Can you imagaine if we were having to rely on a 2010 Act that actually still said Gender instead of Sex.

.
Just on an historical note the gradual misuse of the word gender was part of the gradual infiltration of the queer takeover in universities that were part of the back lash against Women's Liberation. They managed to stop women's studies and made it gender studies. Students from the period then went on to have jobs in places of influence and gradually the long term project of erasing women as a biological reality began. (As much to dismantle the radical feminist analysis of feminism that it is men as a sex class that oppress women as a sex class. If there is no sex then how can men be opressors!) So for instance the NUJ promoted that in writing stories you would refer to someone's gender when it should have said sex. If you look at older newspapers you can see this was the normal practice. Another example is to stop using the word prostitute and instead talk about sex workers. And much more. So what we are doing now is trying to turn back the tide of over 30 years of a particular strand of politics eating away at women's rights.

My DS's school has 'sex (gender)' when listing the characteristics, then only 'gender' throughout.

I've used one of the templates listed above and have emailed them this afternoon. Let's wait and see!

I am a parent governor so will check when our equality one next comes up for review in case we need to change ours.

I also think that whilst users of MN seem incredibly clear that gender and sex are very different things - i have met very few people that dont use the words interchangeabley
^^ This.
You are unlikely to find either a member of staff or a governor who either knows or cares that there is a difference. OP you will probably be the only parent who has read the school policies, let alone disputes the wording. I'm not disagreeing with you (I was that parent 20 years ago though not on the same subject). Just that you should know how unusual it is.

As a former school governor I remember we were often told we had to have a policy on xyz. There were dozens of them often on very dull topics. We would be given the choice of a) drafting our own policy or b)using a template. I can never remember anyone volunteering to draft a policy from scratch! Often the template would be suggested by the secretary who was from the LEA.

This explains how inaccuracies are perpetuated.

It's not really surprising if someone who is not a legal specialist is confused about the distinction between sex and gender in legislation. Apart from 'gender' in the EA2006 becoming 'sex' in the EA2010, we have clauses like this in the GRA.

Where a full gender recognition certificate is issued to a person, the person’s gender becomes for all purposes the acquired gender (so that, if the acquired gender is the male gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a man and, if it is the female gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a woman).

This is an example of the info pushed to schools from trusted sources. It would be good to see a follow up by schoolsweek covering the topic again.

schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-urged-to-ignore-dangerous-gender-guidance/

I also think that whilst users of MN seem incredibly clear that gender and sex are very different things - i have met very few people that dont use the words interchangeabley - in fact many think gender is just more polite (like some say pardon instead of what) so they arent willfully on an agenda to erase sex, they just think they are polite

(In addition to my previous point) or realise there’s a difference

Just in defence of schools ....its not that long ago that a legal team at the LA would write policies which you just used with tiny adjustments. Then LAs wound back their support to remaining LA schools. I cant get any help or guidance on what a policy should cover. Schools have lots of statutory policies that are actually well outside the area of expertise of the people writing them.
This means people borrow other school's policies - there is one particular resource 'The Key' which a lot of schools will use to get template policies from. It may be that the policies suggestions on 'The Key' have gender listed. I will check and approach 'The Key' if thats the case.

I also think that whilst users of MN seem incredibly clear that gender and sex are very different things - i have met very few people that dont use the words interchangeabley - in fact many think gender is just more polite (like some say pardon instead of what) so they arent willfully on an agenda to erase sex, they just think they are polite.

I couldn’t see anything to suggest it has to be your MP - though other MPs don’t have the same responsibility to you. But if there was one that was interested...

My MP has not responded to me.

Does anyone fancy writing to the DWP?

They have replaces gender with sex and have closed my 'case' which was they should comply with the law.

Stonewall actively campaign for the removal of the protected characteristic of sex. Why is a lobby group writing policy in this area. Is it a surprise that they misrepresent the Equalities Act?

ChattyLion it is very much not helped by the fact that the EHRC have been putting out unlawful guidance on this matter.

Thanks Aesop I still find the legal basis confusing but I had a look at the EHRC technical guidance for schools, and you are quite right it says that children are covered by EqA. But what that actually means in practice is not easy to decipher though (for me anyway!)
www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/technical_guidance_for_schools_england.pdf

The EA 2006 was updated in 2010 and the protected characteristic didn't change

There was a change from 'gender' in the 2006 act to 'sex' in the 2010 act. From the link I posted earlier:

(2)In this Part “group” means a group or class of persons who share a common attribute in respect of any of the following matters—
(a)age,
(b)disability,
(c)gender,
[F2(d)gender reassignment (within the meaning of section 7 of the Equality Act 2010),]
(e)race,
(f)religion or belief, and
(g)sexual orientation.

But as someone posted up thread because so many schools seem to have the same wrong information as their policy it would seem someone (DoE??) has sent out an inaccurate briefing.

Since they only list 7 protected characteristics, and one of them actually mentions the 2006 act, it might just be that they haven't updated them properly since 2010.