Enforcing the Equality Act - the law and the role of the EHRC inquiry

[jellyfrizz]

Submissions have been published:

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

I haven't had a chance to read through fully yet but looks like lots of submissions asking for definition and clarification of 'sex' and 'gender'.

Derby County Council STILL confusing sex and gender when talking about protected characteristics:

Point 6 of their written submission:

There still seems to be a general lack of equality monitoring. Often organisations see race and gender as the main strands of equality and forget disability, religion and belief, sexual orientation, age and gender identity. All of these are important.

Derby County Council STILL confusing sex and gender when talking about protected characteristics:

To be strictly fair, the EHRC didn't correct their guidance until October 5 - and that was the deadline date.

I should point out that I don't think Derby CC should have this confusion - I'm just anticipating the cover story.

Great point Catherine Griffiths!

Clearly, humans cannot change their biological sex – but it is left somewhat unclear therefore what they actually are changing, in the absence of a clear and agreed definition of Gender.

I've just had a very quick scan, and there seem to be some positive submissions. Fingers crossed this leads to at least some of the confused mess being clarified properly.

Yes possibly arran and my post should have said Derby City Council, not County Council.

Interesting submission by University of Birmingham re. paternity leave. Worth a read.

I hugely admire the intellect and work of those who have input into the Women's Budget Group - as ever, I'm finding it hard to get past:

Our vision is of a gender equal society.

Our mission is to promote greater gender equality in policy making and raise awareness of feminist approaches to economics.

We do this by producing well-respected, academically robust analysis of the gender impact of economic policy in order to influence policy discussions and promote gender-equal policy outcomes

Yet, to provide evidence for some of their arguments, WBG refers to sex:

According to the Government’s own impact assessment, women are disproportionately hit by cuts to (civil) legal aid as they were more likely to use it (62.2% in 2010).

data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/women-and-equalities-committee/enforcing-the-equality-act-the-law-and-the-role-of-the-equality-and-human-rights-commission/written/90848.html

OFSTED:

39. A major difficulty, as will become clear through the Committee’s parallel inquiry into reforming the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA 2004), concerns the definitions of basic legal terms. The terms sex, gender identity, gender reassignment status, male and female and so on are capable of varying degrees of interpretation. We hope that the result of this parallel inquiry will aid public authorities and providers in properly interpreting the EA 2010 and GRA 2004. This will support the safeguarding of all individuals’ rights and aid the enforcement of the EA 2010.

Stonewalls written submission is dated November 2018 at the end of their document. But closing date for submissions was 5th October 2018.

Anyone have a clue why their late submission was accepted - or if other late submissions were / would be accepted?

Equality Network wanting to keep the conflation between sex and gender. Also introducing a confusing new term 'self-identified sex' which is apparently also know as gender identity:

It is important to understand that ‘sex’ is not defined as referring exclusively to biology in the Equality Act, as this would undermine the foundational principle of granting rights to protection from discrimination for transgender people. Trans people want to be treated in line with their self-identified sex (also known as their gender identity). There is currently no distinction in UK law between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’. If attempts are made to interpret the law as distinguishing between ‘sex’ as biological, and ‘gender’ as social, a position is reached where trans people are afforded rights not to face discrimination due to being trans, but no rights to be treated in-line with their identity. This is clearly not the current intention of the law, which stipulates that for the purpose of single- and separate sex services, the default should be to treat trans people ‘according to the gender role in which they present’[6] (emphasis added). Therefore, how you treat a person’s ‘gender’ and how you treat a person’s ‘sex’ are not intended to be different in the Equality Act 2010, or indeed in any other aspect of UK law.

Good to see that Ofsted are on the ball. I keep wondering what they are making (or even if they are aware) of all the undermining of safeguarding in schools that trans groups are doing? And of course the EHRC are writing guidelines for schools . Wonder what horrors they will come up with given their track record.

Just popped in to see if there was a thread on this.

It was a tough time with the gra submission being due at a similar time.

Gutted by stonewall's submission.
Not shocked but it's still dismal to see an organization purportedly for lesbians being so awful about rights for lesbians

It looks as though they are using Scotland as some kind of testing ground for 'no conflict between gender rights and single sex services '

That's all well and good as long as you either subscribe to gender ideology or you don't care. Or don't understand it.

Finding myself agreeing with some of Gendered Intelligence's submission .

re. Equality Act working as a mechanism for achieving widescale change:

Because of the lack of clarity due to a lack of case law, it’s difficult to know which of the exceptions are likely to hold if ever taken to a court. Even those who are highly knowledgeable about the Act have widely different interpretations of is, as it was written in an intentionally vague way to appease as many people as possible.

re. means of achieving widespread compliance with the Equality Act 2010:

In terms of achieving more widespread compliance therefore we should consider the wider issues of protection of workers in precarious work – abolition of zero hour contracts and protections for agency workers in particular – as well as giving all workers access to advocacy from an reinvigorated EHRC or similar, and Legal Aid.

Interesting submission by University of Birmingham re. paternity leave. Worth a read.

Also mentioned in Derby City Council's submission with regard to women couples.

Meanwhile, the leading gay rights charity Stonewall only talks about trans people in its submission.

I've had a quick skim of the anonymous submissions. The vast majority point out the conflicts between sex and gender reassignment, the difficulty in asserting sex based rights, failure to even list sex as a protected characteristic etc.

They sound like Mumsnetters!

There is currently no distinction in UK law between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’. If attempts are made to interpret the law as distinguishing between ‘sex’ as biological, and ‘gender’ as social, a position is reached where trans people are afforded rights not to face discrimination due to being trans, but no rights to be treated in-line with their identity.

This is astroturfing bullshit meant to imply that "gender reassignment" in and of itself legally means the same as "sex". When only the 3kish MTFs with GRC have "female" legal status.

There are some good quality, evidenced submissions in defence of women's sex-based rights as well as strong arguments for strengthening women's rights under the Equality Act.

Anne Sinnott's description of Cambrige City Council's breaches of the Equality Act are particularly powerful. Transgender Trend and Helen Saxby are both strong on the erasure of girls' rights. They name Stonewall, Gendered Intelligence, Mermaids et al and there is a call to remove 'toolkits' and trans resources from schools to prevent further harm. The Lesbian Rights Alliance submission is an eye-opening education for those people who may be unaware of their plight.

One writer provides an overview of the links between heterosexual straight men and transvestic disorders, and argues that women and girls should not be legally co-erced into participating in fetishes. There are foot-notes and sources to back up her submssion on that point.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission is criticised for swallowing the transgender agenda and contributing to the erosion of women's rights through misleading advice on the law.

From what I've read so far, all the bases have been covered by some very clued-up contributors. Well done and thank you.