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?

TanquerayTickles haha brilliant! I've only emailed my MP once before. Let me know what the response is!

Tower Hamlets completely wrong

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

@OneHourTwentyFourMinutes - I don't have Stonewall, but this is Sarah Brown's tweet:

Kensington and Chelsea off the wall wrong

This person is very pleased with themselves and the work they have undertaken to dismantle the Human rights of half the population. What evil there must be in some people, I pity them.

This person is very pleased with themselves and the work they have undertaken to dismantle the Human rights of half the population. What evil there must be in some people, I pity them True. Bemoaning the exclusion of trans individuals and setting out to delete 'sex' and so any female protections!

I'm working my way round the neighbouring LAs now....

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

RE stonewall, there is a link upthread to their involvement with LAs and I know they have helped develop equality training for various organisations. Stonewall are a very successful lobbying group who understand the law and how to get it changed. They know these laws inside out. So if any training or policy they have advised on misrepresents the law, then there are questions to be asked about why.

I'm glad this is being exposed. Very valuable work.

Kent says:

KCC must follow the Equality Act by law. It says people should not be treated differently or unfairly because of:

age
disability
sex changes
marriage
having a baby
race
religion
being a man or a woman
being lesbian gay or bisexual.

which I suppose gets round the icky 'sex' word. My LA doesn't appear to have an equality policy at all

What can tax payers do? If what you say is correct, public funds have been misused to provide misleading and illegal public policy and guidance.

Don't councillors get an allowance from tax payers too?

Who has approved tax payers money to fund private enterprise training of public servants and who is responsible for checking that they are trained with factually correct information?

Kent is wrong.

Just checked Camden, it's correct.

I found a correct lost from Glos but CuriousaboutSamphire has obviously found a different one with (gender). Bah.

IMO these bodies shouldn’t be rewriting the EA. Quote the nine characteristics. Don’t roll sex and sexual orientation in together, they’re not the same thing. Bulleted list, semi-colons, or Oxford comma (alphabetic comma list without gives you ‘sex and sexual orientation’ at the end which seems to confuse people). Sure, add stuff - socio-economic status is one which springs to mind. But don’t rewrite the EA and stop bloody bowdlerising the word SEX.

DontCallMeBaby

Yes. All they have to do is cut and paste the law. That's why I'm so about how so many are getting it wrong.

Looks like Bristol City Council have changed to gender from sex in their Equality Policy but then name women as a discriminated against group in the same document:

• We recognise and accept that particular individuals or groups (black and minority ethnic members of the community, lesbians and gay men, disabled people, young people, older people, women or transgender people) are denied equality through intentional and unintentional discrimination.

Don't It ook some searching

www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/equalities-and-our-duties-under-the-equality-act-2010/equality-legislation/

... sex (gender)

But I'm in FoD which is part of a Joint council, Cotswolds and West Oxford, and their policy has not included sex for at least 2 versions of the policy, that I can find! We developed our first Single Equality Scheme in December 2010, which combined each of our individual race, disability and gender equality schemes

Prachet - is that not a misguided attempt to rewrite in 'plain English'? There's a link to the EA too

Orchids - with regard to Kent they have 'being a man or a woman' on the front page, 'sex' in their Equality and Diversity report but then keep referring to 'gender' in their Equality & Human Rights policy (Easy Read Version) - I think they're trying to cover all options and still getting it wrong!

Can we collate the results? It seems like we could be more productive if we had a list of all authorities - that way we are not duplicating work.

Also, we could make sure that each council was contacted? Maybe
someone already suggested this I haven't read the whole thread.

We should co-operate with the mumsnet #Hivemind

Mine doesn't seem to have one either.

I've found the recruitment policy (which refers to "gender and gender reassignment" not sex) but all I can find is a wishy-washy page on the website with a link to how to report a hate crime.

Aha - thank you FishFinger. I have to admit I didn't read on - as is probably quite clear! I'm on it :)

Lippy it would be good if we could collate. Not sure how we can do that on here tho

Lancashire have it wrong, Anna Lee fan girl politicians.