Sex not gender in the workplace

Interesting question which is now coming to the fore. I suspect many employers probably have not thought about it. Predict as thinking evolves we will start to gather both sex and gender.

Gender pay gap is defined by Equality Act and it is gender (ie self-ID) that you use when calculating the gap. However, it is sex (not gender) is a protected characteristic. Not sure why it was set up this way - possibly so we didn't have to say "Sex pay gap"!

I am planning to mention the pay gap, (we have a 16.9% pay gap) as this is based on self id.

Having the statistics on sex may shed light on whether there is a systematic bias related to issues such as pregnancy and maternity leave etc.

As sex and 'gender reassignment' are the legally protected characteristics, really the question should be 'cases where we need to know gender as opposed to sex'.

how to we ensure that discrimination against women isn't skewed by men identifying as women, because they won't suffer the same levels of discrimination as women.

It maybe easier to put that as how do they identify discrimination against trans people. If only gender is recorded they have no idea if the protected characteristic of gender reassignment is being discriminated against. (Easier assuming your workplace is woke)

If they are monitoring characteristics to be compliant with the Equality Act, sex is a protected characteristic, gender is not.

They need to be able to show it if someone goes to employment tribunal on sex discrimination issues ie finding a comparator if say it's pay between one male and one female employee.
A transgender employee would, arguably, have the choice of more grounds than just male v female to argue their case and it would in any case depend on circs of what the issue was about iyswim

If you have 100 people
50 are male, gender as male
20 are female gender as female
30 are trans women gender as female

You have 50 males and 50 females looking at gender

(Think that's right)

Maternity discrimination, equal pay gap, sickness leave (link to gynaecological issues, miscarriage management, menopause). Percentage of senior leadership positions held by females.

Then you have areas which affect both sexes, but disproportionately affect women - part time workers and opportunities for progression, staff attrition at key life stages/caring responsibilities, dependents leave policy (mainly used by women as low earners?).

Depending on the industry other areas could include staff uniform policy, access to toilets/showers/changing rooms, appropriately fitting PPE (small male DOES NOT mean fits a female properly!).

Don't they have a legal obligation on sex?