Legal Gender

[Iamanaubergine]

Is there such a thing as legal gender? I work in education and more and more this phrase is being bandied around. Is there any guidance about this? I want to challenge this language as it doesn’t seem to be correct but can’t find anything to rebuff it with. I’ve also heard people state that it isn’t legal to ask someone what their sex is unless it’s for medical reasons - which again sounds like made up nonsense!

The protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 are:
Sex
And gender reassignment

Legal gender is bollocks.

Sorry should clarify that they’re not just talking about people with a GRC but are substituting gender for sex.

fairplayforwomen.com/equality-act-2010_womens-rights/

Good resources here

I think it's important that we pull this back!

twitter.com/JoanMcAlpine/status/1101251118611525633

Great twitter thread too about the importance of sex (as a characteristic and something to be protected) by a Scottish SMP. There's a thread currently on the board about it too.

Census returns will still collect information on sex, it's illegal not to! Peeps have their genders and sexes hopelessly mixed. Well done for fighting the good fight!

Thanks Kat. Totally agree that Legal Gender is bollocks.

mobile.twitter.com/goonerprof/status/1065409431016476672

Another twitter thread from a professor of law (as opposed to professors of feelings).

Sorry to bombard you!

Often literally bollocks

There is biological sex definition.
This absolutely cannot be changed.

There is legal sex definition.
This is where a Gender Reassignment Certificate (GRA) is issued to those with a gender dysphoria...
as the law stands currently.

The legal definition is there to help those with a GRA to change their legal documents, birth certificate, driving licence etc.
Self Id will destroy the legal rights that protects biological sex as being a protected characteristic.
It won't help those with a GRC either as it will be rendered meaningless.

So no.
There is no such thing as legal gender.

The law recognises sex as a recorded legal fact.

The law refers to gender as a medical term.

This is government guidance on asking for sex or gender which says you shouldn’t ask for sex unless for medical purposes design-system.service.gov.uk/patterns/gender-or-sex/

There is a major research project at King’s College London using this terminology.

Thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/surveys_students_non_profits_and_start_ups/3419517-The-future-of-legal-gender-survey

And yes, the idea is to abolish the official recording of sex.

See also this very informative thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3514257-Q-A-published-on-the-definition-of-sex-and-gender

They have some public events coming up, one in London on 13 March

Nutellavore
And yes, the idea is to abolish the official recording of sex.

And therefore the legal protected characteristic of sex is gone.
Gone

That government guidance is the result of intense lobbying aimed at conflating sex and gender. However, all places that have to provide sanitary facilities have a need to know sex because the number of facilities they must provide depends on the number of people expected to use the facilities. As single-sex is mandatory for facilities where users wholly or partially undress, you need to disaggregate by sex.

And there is no definition in law (neither in international human rights law nor domestic law) of gender, let alone gender identity. Rosa Freedman spoke about that at the For Women Scotland meeting and she seemed pretty confident that this will prove almost impossible as the meaning of both of these terms is rooted in sexist stereotypes which vary between countries.

And if you work with underage children, "legal gender" ie legal sex is currently irrelevant when it comes to the kids because none of them can have a GRC. Their legal sex therefore matches their biological sex. It may be relevant to staff though.