Enby they/them pronouns - what's the law on this?

Maybe it was written before more than one person. First paragraph:

"In 1973, this prestigious collection was donated to the people of Walsall by Kathleen Garman (1901—1979). Kathleen had grown up in Wednesbury, lived their adult life in London, but wanted to give something back to their home county,"

Second paragraph:

"Kathleen was the life partner of acclaimed 20th century British-American sculptor Jacob Epstein (1880—1959). They met when Kathleen, a talented pianist who ran away from their Black Country home to pursue a career in music..."

The intro in the gallery says something like "they died in 1979", so I was thinking, strange, that two people died in the same year...

Isn't 'they' in this example referring to Garman and Ryan as a pair? Garman is referred to as 'she'.

"'This work was very precious to Kathleen Garman. It was the only work in her collection that she retained at her house until after her death. This was perhaps because she was an accomplished pianist and music was very important to her.'"

For all those who think "they" is fine as a singular pronoun, try reading this. I have no idea why the gallery thinks a woman who died in 1979, after a life-long affair with a man which resulted in 3 children, should get they/them pronouns - which, incidentally, were used in the main intro to the gallery but not elsewhere. I had to read the intro a few times to understand what it was actually saying and who did what.

The gallery was, unsurprisingly, dotted with pride stickers and welcomed men into the women's toilets.

https://thenewartgallerywalsall.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/GRC50-a5-for-Issuu.pdf

You are correct that TRAs are nasty bullies however the reputational damage for a business comes from adhering to the demands of trans identifying employees not for adhering to the law these days.
As for getting a lawyer to take the case thats getting easier and easier with every single winning case and I know lots of people who would happily contribute to a crowd funder for this and ofcourse if you are a member of the free speech society they have their own lawyer who are specialists in this and have had lots of success in settling claims before crt and have yet to loose a case.
Nobody likes a bully and bullying is all the TRAs have

If a nb woman demands they/them pronouns then that woman is demanding that she is never referred to as she/her and if someone refers to her as she/her even when she's not present that person's job is at risk.
You may not like the analogy i used for you but its apt and accurate. Thr fact is a request of wrong pronouns is exactly what we are talking about here its just you don't like it when you are having your language compelled which should help you understand why gc people refuse a "simple" pronoun change.
Without being rude the fact that English isn't your 1st language explains why you don't understand why using they in the singular form as a pronoun is so jarring to most English 1st language speakers.
As for why is everyone including the op worrying about this before its happened its because every single nb we have ever interacted with goes mental when we refuse to use they/them pronouns and just their name. Look at the posts on this thread by people trying to bully, manipulate, threaten and misrepresent the law to get us to use the preferred pronouns of a woman who they've never met.
I personally have yet to meet a person who identifies as nb who isn't an attention seeking navel gazing narcissist whos permanently looking for offence.

NBs in the work place are a pain in the hole. Every single one I have worked with spends more time faffing around in staff network groups and bleating about their identity than actually doing their work. This is a feature of this group I believe, not a bug.

I am not sure the law on this has been fully clarified. I believe workplaces can set reasonable policies, as long as they dont run counter to the law.
So a workplace can say use of preferred pronouns is compulsory. If a GC staff member swerves this and uses names only and no pronouns, and the enbie lodges a complaint, I don't think this has been tested in a court of law. I suspect that this would be viewed as a reasonable approach to accommodate both views. I would love to see the outcome if the employer insisted on wrong sex pronouns and the GC employee insisted that she would only use correct sex pronouns. That would be quite a battle.

😂From the very first sentence I knew this was less about the issue and more about a creative path to Genital Inspector. Nicely played, OP. Nicely played.

Trans activists in “not mentioning genitals gratuitously for at least 10 minutes” challenge. Believe in yourself, you can do it!

"SHOW ME YOUR GENITALS."

....
Alright Cher let's think that through again shall we? There are probably things closer to harassment than being unsure on the sex alignment of your grammar.

Enbies aren't covered by the PC of gender reassignment so any demand for they/ them/xie/xey, etc, is on the same footing as rocking up to a new job & telling everyone you're of the Elven Folk & require High Elvish pronouns (in this case, sí for she & the suffix lya attached to the object in the genitive - good luck with that).

i guess they thought it would protect the ones who appeared to be transsexuals under the Act. Taylor would fall into this although as I’ve said, he fit the GR definition of having started a process to reassign his sex anyway.

That's very interesting but I wonder how the government thought that would work in practice? (If they really thought at all!)

Say you have two non-binary employees A and B

A is employed by employer C, and B is employed by employer D

Both A and B suffer identical "discrimination" from their respective employers because of their non-binary status.

The only difference between the two scenarios is that employer C knows that being non-binary is not a protected characteristic whereas employer D mistakenly believes that it is.

Does discrimination by perception mean that B has suffered unlawful discrimination because of D's mistaken belief, but A hasn't because C knew being non-binary is not protected?

In 2015/16 the Women and Equalities Committee held a “Trans Equality Inquiry” with such luminaries as Jess Bradley and Helen Belcher giving evidence. A report was duly produced and submitted to the government who basically batted most of it away. One of the findings the report made was that non binary gender identity had no legal status and needed to be brought under the EA PC, they also wanted that changed to “gender identity” rather than GR. The government acknowledged that non binary wasn’t covered but said they didn’t consider that was the best thing to do. They said that non binary people would often be covered under the discrimination by perception part of the law.

"... if a man who claims to be a woman is protected from discrimination on that basis how can it be right to deny that protection to a man who simply claims he is not a man?..."

I don't see the problem.

If the EA defines gender reassignment as reassigning someone's sex, then that protects a man claiming to be a woman. (And a woman claiming to be a man)

But it doesn't protect a man (or a woman for that matter) claiming to be neither a man nor a woman, because being neither a man nor a woman is not a sex

Therefore - if the law only recognises two sexes - the EA does not protect being non-binary.

It seems consistent and fair to me.

It also seems clear to me what the intention of the legislature was. I'd be very surprised if an ET made new law here rather than saying it was up to Parliament to clarify the law if they wanted to, and not up to an ET.

An Eddie Izzard/Philip Bunce scenario.

Taylor was covered under GR anyway as he was basically a part time cross dresser in the process of “reassigning” his sex. Not someone with they/them pronouns who claimed to be neither male nor female.

You may be correct regarding the legal position (I don’t know) but getting to the point where you can be proven to be correct is never going to be easy.

If Jane takes umbrage at being the only person referred to by name and having her chosen pronouns ignored then you have to hope that your boss or HR has the balls to defend you. Too many don’t. Pursuing redress through the courts requires hard work and good luck, plus the hope of someone taking on your claim. If you’re in a low paid job then recovery of loss of earnings at your salary level may not be seen as attractive enough to do so.

If you are the boss you need balls of steel to stand up to the demands and legal threats made by a disgruntled Jane.

Additionally, if Jane decides to go public with her perceived grievance then you need to be ready to stand up to slurs on social media. It could lead to a loss of revenue that may threaten the business, depending on how stable the finances are.

As I said, if you get on the wrong side of Jane’s demands as an employee you could find yourself out of work: ‘managed out’, dismissed or made to feel so uncomfortable you quit. If you’re the boss you could find your company the target of online harassment or malicious reviews.

How many times have we seen famous (and not-so-famous) people and companies issue public apologies and promises to educate themselves? They’re not doing that because it’s on their bucket list, they’re doing that because they’re afraid of the consequences of not doing so.

I think the OP is quite sensible to think ahead and try to get hold of some genuine legal clarification.

Gender in the workplace is an area where there is a lot of honest confusion, a lot of out of date documentation that hasn't been revised, and a lot of deliberate misinformation swilling around.

So if a situation does arise, doing a quick Google on the day and trusting the results you come up with, isn't likely to be an adequate response. And if it doesn't arise in this case, the information may be useful in the future.

I’m not demanding anything. What you are saying isn’t anything to do with what the OP has asked, I can’t see where anyone has been asked never to say that ever again especially when that person isn’t there. I have no aversion to sexed pronouns at all. It’s just my way of speaking. I work with people who speak different languages and my first language isn’t English also. I believe in sex not gender. I just don’t believe in creating an issue where there isn’t one. The new employee hasn’t demanded anything, neither have the current employees. Why make such an issue about something that’s pure conjecture in the OP’s mind?

Yep, it is rude in my presence and that is the point everyone is making. I’ve said before in my posts if I’m not there then I don’t care what people call me. We are on the same page!!

The law doesn't recognize a third sex in any way. The wider question for the courts to answer is really this: if a man who claims to be a woman is protected from discrimination on that basis how can it be right to deny that protection to a man who simply claims he is not a man?

Looked at fairly, that's a rather big hole in discrimination law. If there's a way to make the EA2010 cover that gap I wouldn't be surprised if an EAT tried to do so.

I agree that a higher court precedent would provide clarity as to whether Taylor or Lockwood is correct. Obviously I prefer Lockwood, but both were ab initio interpretations of the EA2010 and neither claimed to be following precedent. An appeal to the EAT would be the obvious place it would be settled.

When you say that the Judge was saying it is open to interpretation and not set in law, you might consider that until it is interpreted by a Judge, every statute is just a salad of words; it's Judges like this one whose interpretation sets the law.

@Everlil - " I’m not trans or nb, but I hate being called she. I also hate it when someone uses a nickname of my name. I use ‘they’ all the time in sentences and to talk about someone when they’re not there. Using they is perfectly acceptable..."

I'm sorry but I don't understand.

Why would you hate being referred to as "she" if you aren't present and people are legitimately talking about you in your absence? How would you even know?

But if you mean that people refer to you as "she" even in your presence, as if you weren't there, then I'd say that is wrong and is just plain rude

But if gender reassignment in the EA refers to reassignment of a person's sex, doesn't that completely rule out the inclusion of non-binary?

Does UK law recognise a third sex in addition to male and female?

(Perhaps I'm mistaken but I thought so called hermaphrodites and intersex cases were all still either male or female, but suffering from some sort DSD?)

Would you be happy to be told that you can never refer to a particular person as they even when that person isn't there, that you must always use correctly sexed pronouns for that person and that of you dont you'd be fired?
I ask this because its the exact opposite of what you are demanding that gc people must do. The fact that you choose to mangle the English language because of your aversion to sexed pronouns is a personal choice and shouldn't be foisted on others just as my choice to use correct sexed pronouns shouldn't be foisted on you.