Is GI a protected characteristic?

What does 'protected' mean in this context? You cannot discriminate someone based on protected characteristics?

In which case gender identity is pretty useless to be protected, because say when you want to exclude transwomen on something, it isn't because of their identity, but because of their sex.

Following...this has come up in some ill-informed guidance we've been issued with (which fortunately also comes with a 'this is voluntary' caveat)

Yes I would have a strong suspicion that the information they provide will be biased. I would definitely try to get access to it before the lesson.

If they are teaching "diversity and acceptance", then maybe one angle would be that they should be teaching acceptance of those with GC viewpoints. After all, they can be discriminated against and are frequent victims of very abusive speech and even sometimes physical violence.

But anyway there is a legal duty on schools that they have to be politically neutral about many things:

https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2022/02/17/political-impartiality-guidance-for-schools-what-you-need-to-know/

So presumably you can just say you are worried that the material will not be impartial and ask to see it for that reason. If anything they teach looks like left-wing activism then you should be telling them that they are breaking the law.

I've skimmed the thread so apologies if this point has been made already - belief in gender ideology and therefore "gender identity" ARE protected under the Equality Act, as established by Forstater vs CDG - my understanding is that for EQ purposes belief and lack of belief are both protected symmetrically, IYSWIM. However, it is protected as "religion or belief", and so the clearest analogies are with e.g. Christianity - i.e. you cannot discriminate against someone by treating them differently from someone who does not believe the same thing, not that you cannot "discriminate" against someone by not providing them with everything they ask for on the basis of said belief. As people have said, "gender" and "gender identity" are not separate protected characteristics, the relevant PCs are "sex" and "gender reassignment".

DfE guidance should be very useful given that everything has to be evidence-based, factual and not reinforce gender stereotypes. Also worth looking up separate DfE guidance about political impartiality in schools, which is statutory. (Google should bring it up easily.)

Good luck!

@BlooDeBloop a lot of good advice but please be aware that Maya Forstater’s EAT established that Gender Critical Beliefs are protected under the Religion and Belief protected characteristic. It is very likely that the Gender Identity (theory) belief is similarly covered under the Religion and Belief pc. In the same way not everyone has a religion, not everyone has a gender identity, but you can discriminate against someone who does have a GI.

This is completely separate to Sex and Gender Reassignment protected characteristics.

Hi OP,

You've had lots of good advice already on this thread.

I think I would start by asking to see a copy of the lesson plan and the "accepted definitions" they are using.

You could say you've heard some concerning things about how this subject is being taught in other schools and you want to understand in advance what they are proposing to teach your son because you need to know whether it conflicts with what you have taught him at home about gender identity.

I wouldn't go in all guns blazing at first. Present it as wanting information and see what comes back. If they give you the information you're looking for and you find it problematic, you can cross that bridge when you come to it. If they won't give you that information then I would start making loud noises about safeguarding and mentioning the Cass Review, the many scandals involving Mermaids and the fact that Stonewall are known to have delivered legally and factually incorrect training to wide and varied audiences.

As above: this has been an intentional political capture by providing training giving the law as the TQ+ lobby wished it to be, with the aim that once they'd successfully got everyone doing what they wanted (by misleading them and unfairly biasing them against other people's equality) that the law would then have to 'catch up' by changing it to the practice they had established.

Which tells you really everything you need to know about the morality and ethics of the political group we are dealing with.

Apologies, I just read your update and see the school are also thoroughly captured and re-educated

Just so you are aware, in case it’s thrown in there, by the time the hate crime regulations were brought in, the government had been Stonewalled. Therefore in the hate crime regulations, “transgender identity” is the characteristic.

In my profession’s social media rules, which were undoubtedly also Stonewalled, some of the listed characteristics are from the EQ (though they wrongly list gender in place of sex) while for trans protection, they miss out “gender reassignment” and remind us of the hate crime legislation so that they can insert “transgender identity”.

I don’t want you to get bogged down, and of course “gender identity” and “transgender identity” are different, but just be aware they are as slippery as a slug trail and if you are dealing with an outside provider, rather than the school itself (who are likely to be more ignorant than you now are) there might be pushback.

Absolutely. Stonewall was accepted as the authority on this, and the information and training they were giving replaced the protected characteristic of sex with gender, and the PC of gender reassignment with gender identity. People now argue that gender identity is essential gender reassignment so it doesn’t make any difference. But the original Act intended reassignment to be a meaningful transition including getting a gender reassignment certificate. It wasn’t intended to mean that anyone who says “I’m a woman now” actually is one, and it was believed that GR would only apply to a small number of people. Hansard confirms this.

It’s quite easy to pull the list of PCs off the government website, it’s in the text of the actual statute so nobody can argue that it doesn’t say what it says. It says sex and gender reassignment. What happens though is that people will tell you that sex means gender and GR means GI.

One clue that an organisation has been provided with their policies etc by Stonewall, Mermaids and the like, is when they say “Equalities Act” instead of Equality Act. This mistake appears everywhere when people say that GI and gender are PCs - the words have been lifted uncritically from the propaganda where the original mistake was made, by people who have never bothered to read the actual statute.

You want to dispute using the term "gender identity" or the concept of gender identity? Like you deny anyone has a gender identity in the first place?

Personally I would just want to insist that they make sure to tell the pupils that it's controversial that gender identity (1) really makes someone equivalent to the opposite sex, or (2) that people can claim "rights" on such a basis. Obviously you can teach that such and such is the law at the moment.

So they should probably be explaining the GC perspective. They have a duty to be politically neutral.

They shouldn't be teaching anything like TWAW as if it's a fact that everyone should go along with.

You might like to look at Alex Byrne's What is Gender Identity?

Byrne is Professor of Philosophy at MIT. The above is an accessible but scholarly analysis of the concept of 'gender identity'; perhaps a little too measured for some tastes, but that may be useful for your purposes. Part of his conclusion you might like to quote:
"If there is some kind of “gender identity” that is universal in humans, and which causes dysphoria when mismatched with sex, it remains elusive. No one has yet found a way of detecting its presence, and verifying that it is causally responsible for dysphoria."

Byrne has a name mainly in other areas of philosophy but in this context he has published in more traditional journals too (and has a book about it on the way). Of course he has had the usual abuse from usual suspects. But this is fairly authoritative, and anyway will help you make the point that 'gender identity' is not simply accepted in the Stonewall sense in all academic milieux.

The Equality Act gives certain rights to certain groups in e.g. employment. It does not force anyone to otherwise act as if people's beliefs about themselves are actually true. So you can't sack someone for being a Catholic, but you don't have to pretend to agree with Catholic beliefs. Same for gender beliefs.

The school can probably legally teach gender ideology as fact if they want (just as Catholic schools are allowed to teach Catholic theology), but equally you'd be entirely entitled to dispute that.

I believe gender identity was a theory developed by Robert Stoller and obviously John Money had a big part to play in furthering the idea.

This is also from the Gov.website in regards to teaching 'gender' in PHSE lessons.
Note that it says they mustn't reinforce harmful stereotypes and that it must be age appropriate and EVIDENCE based.

We are aware that topics involving gender and biological sex can be complex and sensitive matters to navigate. You should not reinforce harmful stereotypes, for instance by suggesting that children might be a different gender based on their personality and interests or the clothes they prefer to wear. Resources used in teaching about this topic must always be age-appropriate and evidence based. Materials which suggest that non-conformity to gender stereotypes should be seen as synonymous with having a different gender identity should not be used and you should not work with external agencies or organisations that produce such material. While teachers should not suggest to a child that their non-compliance with gender stereotypes means that either their personality or their body is wrong and in need of changing, teachers should always seek to treat individual students with sympathy and support

NSPCC, along with many others, have been institutionally captured and 'trained' on gender bollocks by Stonewall.

Safe Schools Alliance has some excellent resources to help you talk to the school:

https://safeschoolsallianceuk.net/

You could start by requesting to see the materials they will be using.

Groups like Stonewall have done a lot to muddy the waters, by using GI instead of GR.

In the Equality Act, gender reassignment means proposing to undergo, undergoing or having undergone a process to reassign your sex.

To be protected from gender reassignment discrimination, you do not need to have undergone any medical treatment or surgery to change from your birth sex to your preferred gender.

• from the EHRC website

My understanding is that a person with the PC of gender reassignment cannot be treated less favourably than any other member of the population generally and any other member of their sex class when it comes to single sex spaces.

It does NOT mean that the PC of GR allows unfettered access to spaces reserved for the opposite sex.

But if an individual has a Gender Recognition Certificate, they should be treated as a member of their new (false) sex class, although can still be excluded in certain circumstances - changing rooms, toilets, hospital wards etc.

Gender Identity has no legal definition.
Actually I don't think Gender has, either, but I may be wrong there.

This is the digital equivalent of the statute book - legislation.gov.u (since government is now "digital by default")

And here is the relevant section from the beginning of the Equality Act 2010 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/4#text%3Dprotected%20characteristics

"The following characteristics are protected characteristics—

• age;
• disability;
• gender reassignment;
• marriage and civil partnership;
• pregnancy and maternity;
• race;
• religion or belief;
• sex;
• sexual orientation."

The nine protected characteristics are:

Age
Disability
Gender reassignment
Marriage and civil partnership
Pregnancy and maternity
Race
Religion or belief
Sex
Sexual orientation