Consultation of Equality Act enforcement open : Womens' and Equality Committee

[theOtherPamAyres]

"We've heard that enforcement of the Equality Act isn't working. Today we're launching an inquiry to find out why not and what needs to change. If you have information that can help us answer these questions, you can find out more and submit evidence here:

www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/women-and-equalities-committee/news-parliament-2017/enforcing-the-equality-act-launch-17-19/

Sounds like the City of London and other councils need to examine their policies of gender identity's primacy.

Hoorah

They don't say from whom they have heard enforcement of the Equality Act isn't working. I would watch the trans equality bit. I hope this isn't an attempt to further weaken protection for the sex protected characteristic at the expense of any others.

I don't go for the cynical conspiracy theorist angle unless it's the only one left.

Is be astounded if this is not a fishing exercise to gather enough complaints to review the exceptions for sex, and not in a good way.

Stonewall and trans organisations want this to happen and after the government have said they won't be changing it they need to find a way of doing a U turn on what they said.

Agree we should complete and keep an eye on this one.

I wish there was a delete function at didn't mean at the expense of the others. I was just worried as better set out by Macareaux

If MM was the driver then the focus will not be on helping women.

Unfortunately I agree with PP about this not being about protecting women as a sex class at all.

Gobsmacked this doesn't mention the myriad of problems that are starting to really show with implementing the sex exemptions:

However, the Committee’s work in a range of areas has shown that individuals have difficulties enforcing their rights under the Act and has questioned the effectiveness of the EHRC: inquiries on pregnancy and maternity discrimination, transgender equality, disability and the built environment, workplace dress codes, older people and employment and sexual harassment in the workplace all identified widespread problems with enforcement.

Will be a great chance to raise them though.

It's another opportunity to explain the myriad problems. It will NOT protect us. It doesn't protect us now.

Gobsmacked this doesn't mention the myriad of problems that are starting to really show with implementing the sex exemptions

What problems? Do you have any court cases or any documented examples that you could link to?

Sad this thread has already become about trans people. And it is not about supporting trans women but changing the law to discriminate against them.

All women suffer from sex discrimination. If the government make the EA easier to enforce and increase the fines, this will help women bringing claims for sex discrimination. This should be applauded.

If you are genuinely concerned SarahAr get in touch with some of the organisations like WPUK or FPFW who are looking at these with currently no support or funding from govt or public bodies.

I don't believe from your posts you are concerned though, any more than trans lobby orgs like Stonewall, Gendered Intelligence etc who have actively been campaigning to remove and weaken women and girls legal rights for some time now. These lobby orgs have been trying and in many ways succeeding in changing the law to discriminate against women. We noticed, it's not going to work anymore. We are defending them and reasserting them, whatever names you want to call us for it.

the Equality Act placed a "public sector equality duty" on my local council around the nine protected characteristic.

To further those aims it has

• replaced sex with the word 'gender' for no reason.

The only time it mentions sex is when referring to pregnancy and parental leave.

• set up consultative groups to represent the characteristics

but only BAME, LBG&Trans, and a Disabled People' Group, no-one else

• monitors and reports on various things as they affect the three groups above, but none of the other groups are mentioned

• does not state how the council will consult and adjudicate on cases where concessions to one group take away the legal rights of another group.

How can it be said that my council is complying with the Equality Act when it only recognises the protected characteristics of gender, race and disability? How does it enforce unlawful discrimination against females when it doesn't gather any information about women or talk to women?

Will you write, Pam?

Another good example would be the AWS. Having to crowdfund a legal challenge is clear evidence of the difficulties with enforcement and the lack of accessibility.

However, the guidance says - You should be careful not to comment on matters currently before a court of law, or matters in respect of which court proceedings are imminent. If you anticipate such issues arising, you should discuss with the clerk of the committee how this might affect your submission.

So I don't know whether we can talk about this. It would be daft if we couldn't at least point to the public crowdfunder. I don't even know if court action is imminent any more, has anybody heard anything?

In terms of whether the commission is using its powers well, it might be worth exploring how far their statutory codes and technical guidance have moved from the EA itself and what exactly that is based on (case law? 'guidance' from lobby groups?)

For example there's nothing in the Act itself that says the exceptions must be used on a case by case basis.

For example there's nothing in the Act itself that says the exceptions must be used on a case by case basis

Nor that 'the bar must be set high' for refusal of access to opposite sex spaces, as the government's Head of LGBT Equalities has promised transpeople.

No and I have just watched some of the oral evidence given to the select committee for the MM Trans Inquiry. It seems there was much more of s tentative approach about trans access to women's spaces then. None of this "we've been accessing them since 2010 so you can't stop us so fuck you" rhetoric even from Miller and Helen Belcher.

The change seems to happen by the time of the report and the subsequent government response. The report called for the exemptions in the case of GRC to be got rid of and changes to the EA to change gender reassignment to gender identity and include non binary (which Miller seems bizarrely fixated on). The government response says "no, we are not persuaded that we need to change the EA at this time, as it is already sufficient because basically they felt it was almost impossible to use the exemptions for a "high street" service. They said that non binary, genderfluid etc were protected under discrimination by perception, either that they were perceived as undergoing gender reassignment or they were perceived as a man or woman.

In addition they felt their new guidance to both employers and service providers written by Gendered Intelligence would help with informing them of their responsibilities to trans people frightening them into putting trans needs before women's

Nor that 'the bar must be set high' for refusal of access to opposite sex spaces, as the government's Head of LGBT Equalities has promised transpeople.

I don't see why. If women's feelings and rights were properly respected, third spaces would be the norm and an expectation that males would not access female spaces. Public perception could change this.

The case by case basis is perhaps something we can raise in this consultation. It seems unnecessary. Some services should be able to keep out males even with GRC. I don't see in that case why a case by case basis would be needed and indeed the idea of making a rape counselling service post eligible for females only, suggests that it would not be on a case by case basis.

The change will have happened because of the private 'meetings in back rooms' that TRAs boast about. None of this happens in the public view - and when they decide to do something in the public gaze we end up the much ridiculed "consultations" that Penny Mordaunt heads with such 'neutrality' or the deluded version from the City of London.

Surely this isite directly connected to the jess freeman thing? They are trying to backtrack without looking like they are to blame. They are panicking big time no?

Pencils, where does the 'case by case' basis come from if it is not in the EA?

Wasn’t it a month ago or so there was a public discussion held regarding changes to the EA along the lines of including the impoverished and homeless?

YY. The one lots of MNers went to and asked questions about trans issues.

Pencils, where does the 'case by case' basis come from if it is not in the EA?

1. EHRC statutory guidance
2. Croft v Royal Mail