Should gender reassignment remain a protected characteristic?

Comparing a fundamental life transition to a face tattoo isn't a legal argument

This fundamental life transition could be a man changing his preferred pronouns.

You’ve effectively admitted that your goal isn't legal clarity, but a deliberate desire to leave a specific group of people with zero protection against being fired or denied a job for who they are. Comparing a fundamental life transition to a face tattoo isn't a legal argument, it's just a way to trivialise people you don't like, and I'm done debating someone who values their own prejudice over basic employment rights

The condition has to be severely impacting your functioning to be covered under the equality act.

Well, severe gender dysphoria would qualify. I've argued this upthread and am not going over it again. Anything else is just a lifestyle choice imho, and not deserving of any more protection than someone coming to work with a face tattoo or blue hair or piercings or a belief in alien abductions.

Why should someone 'trans' who is not under medical care (PC of disability) have more protection than someone with, say, face tattoos?

This point is worth thinking about.

I’m not moving the goalposts, just pointing out that the equality act is wider than just employment protections. Plenty of people are under medical care and don’t qualify for disability protection. The condition has to be severely impacting your functioning to be covered under the equality act.

Protection for unfair dismissal only kicks in after 2 years continuous employment (6 months from next year). Someone transition would have no protection during that time without the protected characteristic. It also wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine a company saying someone isn’t a cultural fit anymore after they transition, and they could be fired as long as a process is followed (meetings, notice pay, right to appeal)

https://www.acas.org.uk/dismissals/unfair-dismissal

Right, so firstly a goalpost move from dismissal to hiring.
Why should someone 'trans' who is not under medical care (PC of disability) have more protection than someone with, say, face tattoos?

Then:
A company could easily fire someone for transitioning as long as they follow a fair process.
That wouldn't be a fair process.

If it’s not a protected characteristic it can be used to decide not to hire someone. A company could easily fire someone for transitioning as long as they follow a fair process.

Without the PC, transitioners wouldn’t
have protection for the first 2 years (6 months from next year)

Not so. Everyone has employment protections.

I did not suggest that it would. What I said was that the current system is unfair by including aredundant PC of GR that creates unnecessarily privilege
You’re going to have to explain how having a PC for transition is unnecessary privilege. It doesn’t give someone the rights of the opposite sex now that has been clarified. All it does is protect some transitioning from being discriminated against. If the PC is removed it will allow discrimination on the basis of transitioning because that won’t be converted by another PC. An employer could say they don’t want to continue employing someone who wants to present as the opposite sex and this would be legal.

it's the act of moving from living as one sex to another.

But that's bollocks, isn't it? The law is built on sand.

OneDarkDeer, can't you see how bonkers this all sounds?

A man can not only decide that he wants to live as a woman but he gets to decide what that means and the state protects this?

MH issues are a thought in someone's head. That's why I think GR should come under disability. If someone wants the protection then they need to engage with medical care, which I think is a good thing (at least it would be if gender dysphoria clinicians did their job properly).

it's the act of moving from living as one sex to another.

But a man with the PC of GR cannot use women's single sex spaces under the EqA.

And what does living as one sex even mean. No one has ever explained this without reference to skirts and make up, neither of which, as a woman, I am wearing today.

The law doesn't group people because they are identical, it groups them because they face the same specific type of discrimination.

I have already explained in several posts that, as far as the PC of GR is concerned, that I do not believe this to be the case, ie. they do not "face the same specific type of discrimination".

Removing the category doesn't help your hypothetical pregnant lesbian

I did not suggest that it would. What I said was that the current system is unfair by including a redundant PC of GR that creates unnecessarily privilege.

it just ensures that when a trans person is targeted for being trans, the law is forced to pretend it didn't happen.

"Trans" is a culturally bound, unstable social construct, unlike Age, Sex, Pregnancy, Sexuality, etc. It is therefore debatable whether "transness" should be legally recognised in the same way as other characteristics that attract protection from discrimination. That does not mean that people who claim a trans identity should not be protected from discrimination.

Hypothetically, if the PC of GR did not exist then a person claiming a trans identity and alleging unfair discrimination would know, depending on the nature of the discrimination, which of the remaining PCs applied.

The law would not be "forced to pretend it didn't happen".

Application of the law would instead clarify the basis for discrimination in terms of characteristics shared with others and this could be reflected in statistical analysis.

For example, annual statistics for successful discrimination cases could state the number and percentage of males claiming a trans identity vs females claiming a trans identity who were unfairly discriminated against on the basis of:

1. Sex Discrimination by Perception
2. Sexual Orientation
3. Disability Discrimination
4. Belief Discrimination

The first of those is already much more likely to be alleged by someone who claims a trans identity and very unlikely to be claimed by anyone else.

How can 'gender reassignment' be clear when it includes everything from a thought in someone's head?

'Gender Reassignment' is also clear: it's the act of moving from living as one sex to another

This will include autogynaephiles. I don't want the law to treat them as a protected group.

You say 'Age' is clear because it's a number, but 'Gender Reassignment' is also clear: it's the act of moving from living as one sex to another. It’s no more circular than 'Religion' (which protects people who practice a religion) or 'Disability' (which protects people who have a disability). The law doesn't need a biological 'essence' to protect people. It just needs to recognise that a specific group of people is being targeted for a specific reason. If someone is fired for transitioning, the motive of the employer is perfectly clear, and that's exactly what the law is there to stop

The over 65s are a group of people that have age in common.
Asian British Chinese are a group of people that have ethnicity in common.
Trans is a group of people that have 'saying they are trans' in common. It's circular.
Age has a clear definition. Ethnicity less so, but we generally know what people are getting at when they mention ethnicity. 'Trans' means whatever the person using it wants it to mean.

@POWNewcastleEastWallsend Secondly, "trans", and therefore the PC of GR, covers a completely heterogenous mixture of characteristics and people.

This is my concern. 'Trans' seems to be a mental health issue for some, a lifestyle choice for others and a fetish for a third group. I appreciate that some people truly suffer from gender dysphoria, and that, for some, it can ultimately lead them to reject their sex characteristics and even have surgery. What I struggle with is the desire to go beyond removing or reducing those characteristics, to trying to adopt the characteristics of the opposite sex. It feels like dysphoria may morph into something else at that point.
I think PC of disability covers that which we understand as a mental health issue. GR seems to try to cover all sorts of things, some of which, such as fetishes, I do not think we should be covering.

You are arguing that the law shouldn't have a Gender Reassignment category because trans people are too different from one another. But by that logic, we would have to remove 'Age' and 'Race' too, because a teenager doesn't have the same life experience as a pensioner. The law doesn't group people because they are identical, it groups them because they face the same specific type of discrimination. Removing the category doesn't help your hypothetical pregnant lesbian, it just ensures that when a trans person is targeted for being trans, the law is forced to pretend it didn't happen

What is it about gender reassignment being a PC that you think takes away from other people?

Well, there is a huge list if you want to go down that route but mainly due to misinterpretation of the meaning of "sex" in the Equalities Act.

Women's Sport has already been mentioned. Then there are all the grants, awards, prizes, employment and political opportunities designated for women in order to encourage participation of women in male-dominated areas.

Men who call themselves women taking away the dignity, privacy and safety of women who need same-sex accommodation or care.

However, what we were actually discussing was that a "catch all" PC of GR unnecessarily privileges someone with the PC of GR who is actually being only discriminated against on the basis of, for example, Sexuality (homophobia).

Compare with a pregnant lesbian with a disability who might rightfully need to claim, and prove separately, unfair discrimination on the basis of:

1. Sex
2. Sexuality
3. Disability
4. Pregnancy

There is a presumption of intersectionality inherent in the PC of GR that in practice might be totally irrelevant, ie. the "distinct vector for discrimination" that you posited earlier.

Meanwhile, actual intersectionality, which was intended to address the dual discrimination affecting Black women in the USA, is not addressed for anyone covered by the other Protected Characteristics.

The PC of GR treats some people as a special sort of human unlike any other.

Firstly, no, they are not.

Secondly, "trans", and therefore the PC of GR, covers a completely heterogenous mixture of characteristics and people.

There is no commonality between, for example, a pre-teen girl distressed by the onset of puberty and wishing she was a boy and, for example, a middle-aged to elderly man who has decided to "transition" from being a weekend transvestite in fetish clubs to "bringing his whole self to work" as an occasional to full-time cross-dresser.

That is is where the "shoehorning" comes in, ie. in the creation of the PC of GR.

Nor would an employer or service provider necessarily be aware if someone has or has not undergone any process (and nor can they ask, given this is private medical information) so would not know if the protected characteristic applies or not - presumably they'd just have to wait and see if they get sued.

Someone who has a disability has to inform their employer that they have a disability in order to benefit from the employer's legal obligation to provide "reasonable adjustments".

That is definitely "private medical information" that they are required to share.

People with invisible disabilities need to "out" themselves in order to benefit from protection under the Equalities Act.

A person with an invisible disability would have no claim for unfair discrimination under the PC of Disability if they withheld information from the employer that they had a disability.

By contrast, there is no requirement for someone to have any contact with medical services in order to qualify for protection under the PC of Gender Reassignment. In which case there would be no "private medical information" to disclose.

Should the employee want to have paid time off to attend medical appointments at a Gender Clinic, or was taking sick leave to do the same, then obviously they would need to disclose their medical status in order to obtain those benefits.

It is their choice: if they do not want to disclose their "medical information" in order to obtain protection under the PC of GR then they obviously forgo that protection.

Humans can't change sex.
This whole ideology has cost so much time and so much tax payers' money, caused our children so much damage.