Gender vs Sex in a legal document - arguments to refute

[spongedog]

I am a Trustee for an organisation and have recently reviewed a legal document that describes protected characteristics including age, ethnicity and then gender. I have argued to the Chair that the wording needs to be changed to sex. He is asking me to provide arguments to justify the change. I am not a lawyer and I dont think it is particularly appropriate for me to go in arguing the law as if I am. My organisation is independent but falls under an umbrella org. The legal document has come from the umbrella organisation and I think this is part of the reason he doesnt want to dispute.

Any ideas on how i can more eloquently than I have so far managed persuade him that this is important. TIA.

Yes, quote the equality act protected cbaracteristics.

Characteristics

Here you go. This is the law. Can't argue with that.

"The Equality Act covers the same groups that were protected by existing equality legislation – age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership and pregnancy and maternity. These are now called `protected characteristics´."

The Equality Act 2010 defines the protected characteristics x
Section 11

Sex
In relation to the protected characteristic of sex—
(a)
a reference to a person who has a particular protected characteristic is a reference to a man or to a woman;
(b)
a reference to persons who share a protected characteristic is a reference to persons of the same sex.

This is your justification - it's the law xx

The Equality Act 2010 clearly states sex as the Protected Characteristic, not gender.

In order for this "legal document" to be legally accurate, it must state the PCs as they are under the law. You can't make up laws as you go along. If you use ambiguous terms (which gender is), instead of the legally correct term, then you don't have legal clarity.

This document would be very poorly drafted if it couldn't even correctly name the protected characteristics!

Maybe ask them if by stating "gender", the intention was to reference the PC of "gender reassignment" or "sex", or both. Because using gender ends up leaving neither group protected.

You may also want to mention the county councils who changed everything in their policies to 'gender' and then had to change it all back again when caught, as it was not in line with the law.

The actual law: www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents

Chapter 1 - lists the protected characteristics. You can click on the hyper link taking you into each section which gives the legal definition of each characteristic.

If he doesn't include the word sex then he is leaving out a group that are entitled to the protection of the equality act and could potentially leave himself open to claims of sex discrimination.

spongedog
Just to add to the good replies you have received already. It is good practice to ask both about sex and gender identity. Here is the guidance on the Office for National Statistics style on sex and gender. Could have been written by a team of mumsnetters :
style.ons.gov.uk/house-style/gender-and-sex/

Then you could ask if people identify with sex they were born into. The ONS hasn’t finalised a question yet but here is something from the EHRC:
[[https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/publication-download/research-report-75-monitoring-equality-developing-gender-identity.
The idea behind using ONS questions is what they call ‘harmonisation’ so you can compare any information about your organisation with the population.

Sorry spongedog - here is clicky link to EHRC report
www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/publication-download/research-report-75-monitoring-equality-developing-gender-identity-question

It really is not good practice to start improvising new protected characteristics that don't exist in the law. That's terrible practice and is why we are in this mess. Good practice is to stick with the law and not use made up protected characteristics like gender identity.

WilL have to disagree there Bubonicpanic gender recognition is protected but the ONS has identified it needs more work on this. www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/classificationsandstandards/measuringequality/genderidentity As the thread about the Nottingham centre showed, you will have problems if you ask about sex alone

The op is talking about protected characteristics. The office of national characteristics has no responsibility for protected characteristica. You are talking rubbish.

Gender reassignment is protected.

What the fuck is gender recognition?

Stop making up rubbish.

Office of national statistics.

Jeez, this word misuse is catching.

Yes, until the law is changed good idea to stick to the current one.

And don't forget that Maria Miller did attempt to change the protected characteristic of gender reassignment to gender identity in 2016 by using a private members bill and it was REJECTED.

Ethnicity is also not a protected characteristic.

Just say that gender and ethnicity are not protected characteristics, list the correct words (race, sex and gender reassignment) and refer to the legislation by section number. If they don’t change the wording then that is weird and you can legitimately ask why. There might then be an argument to be had, but you are not at that stage yet. On the face of it the organisation is merely misinformed (presumably the document was not drafted by a lawyer), so easily corrected.

And don't forget that Maria Miller did attempt to change the protected characteristic of gender reassignment to gender identity in 2016 by using a private members bill and it was REJECTED

TBF, almost all Private Members Bills are rejected, even if they have merit (they tend to get incorporated into normal legislation instead).