I complained about their post-hospital stay questionnaire for children, which asked for my DC's gender. It did not ask for their sex.
I cited EA 2010 terminolgoy, the ONS case and the fact the census did not ask for children's gender and general chat about gender referring to unhelpful/harmful stereotypes.
This is what CQC have said:
The terms Gender and Sex are often used interchangeably. For example, we have the Gender Pay Gap not the Sex Pay Gap.
The Equality Act 2010 uses different descriptors to describe a protected characteristic. For example, for Race we can use ethnicity or culture etc. There is nothing in Act that says that we need to use a specific word to describe a protected characteristic.
What is most important is what actions we are taking to protect people and how we are demonstrating our public sector equality duty towards any of the protected characteristics:
- Eliminating unlawful Discrimination
- Advancing equality of opportunity
- Promoting good relations
When we use gender as a descriptor of one of the protected characteristics (as we do in the equality monitoring form), there is no evidence to show that we are excluding anyone because everyone that is covered under the term ‘Sex’ is included in the term ‘Gender’, (whereas some people may feel excluded by the use of the term Sex).
Therefore, the use of Gender is a more inclusive term and at CQC we are comfortable that we are complying with the Equality Act 2010.
I am pretty fuming about this. I'd appreciate your help in unpicking their reply and formulating a response.
How can they say people feel excluded by 'Sex'? Everyone has a sex, not everyone has a gender. FFS!