Does your Local Authority Equality Policy exclude sex as a protected characteristic?

[bananaistheanswer]

Inspired by Jean Hatchet's posts on twitter, I checked mine and colour me shocked, it's been excluded.

Attached below is the list from the EA2010 with my LA's interpretation alongside - note the wording We believe our responsibility for equality is wider than those areas covered by the Equality Act 2010

So removing sex from the list of protected characteristics widens the scope of the EA2010?

So what's your LA equality policy like?

mine has gone for sex/gender fudge and lists gender reassignment/identity higher up the list. muppets

WPUK tweet
twitter.com/Womans_Place_UK/status/1005005753332195329

Sex/gender here too. I’ll be writing to them.

Between us, I reckon we could cover most authorities, local and county. If they get multiple letters, even better.

I like the phrase 'misrepresenting the law' as mentioned in the WPUK tweet.

On the WPUK thread, people are @ ing the LA and getting responses.

Bassetlaw conflates sex and transgender in to 'gender issues'.

www.bassetlaw.gov.uk/everything-else/community-living/equality-diversity/what-is-equality-diversity.aspx#singleequality

I guess what I'm really asking is, does it make a material difference whether a council uses sex or gender as a protected characteristic?

What has been proposed by Stonewall and others is to replace 'gender reassignment' with 'gender identity'. If you also replace 'sex' with 'gender', you end up with two protected characteristics which look the same: 'gender' and 'gender identity'. It would then be a simple move to do away with one of them, and there is no longer any sex-based protection for women.

It's worse in Canada. They protect 'gender presentation'.

OldCrone

I mentioned in another thread that although some of this could be innocent mistakes when groups like stonewall are involved or advising then it's deliberate. Its muddying the waters so that people don't know what is and what isn't a protected characteristic

Oh even worse : 'language that was quite deliberately chosen' says Sarah Brown.

I think we have been too generous excusing these just as mistakes or organisations being squeamish about using the word sex.

Mine has sex, but calls Gender reassignment this instead:

'Transsexuality - A transsexual person has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. A transsexual person does not have to be under medical supervision but must live or intend to live permenantly in the gender opposite to that assigned at birth. A woman making the transition to being a man and a man making the transition to being a woman both share the characteristic of gender reassignment. So does a person who has just started the process of changing his or her sex and a person who has completed the process. They can also share the characteristics of the gender they are transitioning to.'

Ah, so I'm protected if I'm a trans woman, but not if i'm a woman?

I guess it's men making the rules again.

On closer inspection, my LA has only six of the nine listed, omitting
• gender reassignment;
• marriage and civil partnership;
• pregnancy and maternity;

but has included a few others such as criminal record and ethnic origin

So it's been useful to point that out too. I sent it via my newly elected councillor so he's now in the loop as well. Hopefully that way, it won't just get lost in the system.

Would you please post screenshots to show Sarah Brown and Stonewall making this a deliberate act?

Has Lord Brian Piddock made a statement on this latest issue? I know he resigned from LD LGBT because he didn't want to be associated.

@HerFemaleness

That Bassetlaw wording is very vague, isn't it? Sloppy or intentional, I wonder?

Please alert AWPUK, that www.warwickshire.gov.uk/equalitypolicies got it right. I understand though that WCC use Allsorts for safeguarding not Transgender trend.

I joined Twitter, tweeted AWPUK and WCC, someone must have seen and reported me, a few minutes later I was locked out of the Twitter account even after confirming I wasn't a robot. I am not giving Twitter my phone number, I don't trust them.

Gloucestershire

Gloucester County has age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex (gender) and sexual orientation.

South Glos included Sex, Glos City does, but my local district authority will be getting a letter as the have Gender and Gender Reassignment!

HerFemaleness: There are some posts on @dockstockk (Kathleen Stock's twitter account), and also the WPUK thread, and I'm probably confusing the two threads. I'm sure saw a post from someone to the effect that they were compiling a list. I can't easily locate it now, so apologies for any confusion.

Will check on my County Council later, along with the local District Council.

@Floeer I'm also in Essex and have emailed the head of ECC and already had a response from his assistant. She said that she has been asked to thank me for my email and that the issue I have raised is being looked into. Response within 10 working days, etc.

TanquerayTickles ah brilliant! Hopefully with head of ECC and the Cllrs there might be some movement. Perhaps email your MP too? I've contacted mine (would probably give too much info if I declared too that was though)

@Flooer Yes, I'll email my MP too, she's used to hearing from me