Can you help me word an email to company 'gender' equality committee?

[NoraEphronsneck]

As the title says, my company have recently set up a gender equality committee, committed to equality for all, recognising diversity etc, etc.

I would like some help with an email to them to ask them to clarify whether they mean 'gender' which is often a gateway to allowing trans women to use female toilets (and vice-versa) or whether they actually mean 'sex'.

I also want to outline the problems with self-ID and gender neutral toilets.

Most of you on here are a lot more knowledgeable about the issues than me so I was hoping you could come up with a concise argument for me to send onto them.

We’ve had gender neutral toilets in my workplace for years and it’s never been an issue so no advice.

If you’re concerned about this committee why not volunteer to be on it? That way your worries can be openly debated.

Definitely volunteer.

By email, I would suggest to them that they change the group title to Equality of the Sexes Committee pointing out that the Equalities Act is based on the protected characteristic of sex. Point out nicely that using the word gender to avoid the word sex could create problems for them because sex is biological and is covered by the EA, gender is the term often used to describe stereotypical male/female behaviours, which inevitably leads to many people taking offence around "gender issues". I'd wrap it up with welcoming their focus on equality for women in the work place and volunteer to be on the committee.

Assume the best, i.e. that they are actually wanting to make your workplace a better place for women, find sex to be too rude a word, used gender instead without realising that could result in offence and confusion. Don't go in all accusatory or you'll be written off as a loon.

Unfortunately the committee seems to have been decided already. I'm going back through my emails to see if it was publicised/asked for volunteers but I don't think it was.

Thanks Towel, I'll take into account those points, you're right about not sounding accusatory.

Piggybacking slightly here, but I've just got back from school where I was handed a questionnaire about my child's play habits by our local uni. The first question is what is your gender, with no question regarding sex. I was considering sending a quick email to the university asking if this was standard form to ask for gender rather than sex, but a little bit nervous that some admin jobsworth might flag it/out me elsewhere online. Would a breech like that be a sack-able offence?

The questionnaire itself is anonymous so I'll be making my feeling clear about that question on the form.

There's no good reason not to use 'sex', or to replace it with 'gender'. We are talking about biological sex, not the act of sex.

If anyone wants to query it, it cannot rightfully be used against them because you are talking about a characteristic that is protected in law.

I don't know if this www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/our-work/news/our-statement-sex-and-gender-reassignment-legal-protections-and-language from the EHRC is useful? There's quite a lot of stuff about why the words sex and gender should not be conflated, as well as why the categories of sex and gender reassignment should not be conflated either.

I would ask them for their terms of reference.

Thanks Themostbeautiful that's really helpful. I'm going to use most of that!

Thanks this is useful advice for other emails too

I'd ask hr when nominations for the committee will be opened as you'd like to get involved.

I volunteered for our new womens network at work.
I didn't get "accepted" (really odd email! ) and the first thing they did was change the name to gender equality saying it was all genders, advertise it as being about equality for all, and hold a session with a lovely woman who really shared her story and then in the questions bit everyone started asking questions of the MD who happened to be there and he went and stood at the front to answer them, in front of her!

The questions were about whether things have gone too far and now white men are are discriminated against. (! v white middle class male industry). He said he used to think that but changed his mind when he had a daughter.

All in all it was a tremendous shit-show.

I would say that sex is a protected characteristic (PC), not gender. Say that is because the Equality Act 2010 (which contains the PCs) originated from all the various bits of sex discrimination law that women had fought long and hard for over decades which recognised that women are discriminated against on the grounds of their SEX. Also that 'gender' is a very confusing word as it means different things to so many people, and so is extremely unhelpful. I would suggest that it focuses on sex discrimination, and the reasons why women (the female sex) are disadvantaged in the workplace. I agree, I would offer to volunteer and ask them how to sign up

I agree with taking it on face value as a (British?) attempt to avoid saying the S word, rather than anything more.

And don't bring up unisex / gender neutral toilets unless you have reasonable grounds to believe that this is something that the committee will be looking at soon, to avoid anyone using that as a reason to ignore your main point