Sikhs sue govt for treating them as a belief, instead of an ethnic group. Is it something women should do?

[Barracker]

Sikhs sue govt for treating them as an identity and NOT as the ethnic group they are

The outcome of this will be VERY interesting.

In 2011, the UK-wide census recorded about 430,000 Sikhs based on a non-mandatory question about religion.

However, the Sikh Federation, which is bringing the legal action, says not all people who would identify as ethnically Sikh identify as religiously Sikh

It estimates there are 700,000 to 800,000 ethnic Sikhs in the UK and says it is vital that the ethnic Sikh population is properly accounted for.

So, they are arguing that Sikh is an actual, tangible, observable, biological ethnicity. With physical characteristics.
Although some people, including the government, simply consider it to be just a belief.

And they are suing the govt for failing to recognise and capture the importance of the tangible, real ethnicity.
Because the govt are ONLY treating them as if their physical, biological reality is merely a
religious belief that anyone can adopt, irrespective of their own ethnicity.

Think about this. The parallels.
Ethnic = biological
Sikh = female
Religious = identify as/ believe oneself to be irrespective of being or NOT being ethnic (biological)

Woman is a physical, observable, biological reality.
The census is also treating our sex as if it were a belief, and only a belief.
There are two questions relating to whether one is a woman on the 2021 census.
One is 'gender identity'. It's optional to complete. It invites respondents to ignore their biological sex and answer with their belief instead.
The other is 'sex'. BUT. It ALSO explicitly invites respondents to ignore their biological sex and answer with their belief instead. It is mandatory.

The two questions are both explicit replications of the govt opinion that sex is always a belief, not a physical reality.

There is no question that exhorts respondents to answer accurately with their actual sex.

So.

Do we sue? I'm serious. Should we?

I'm for this.

I've been appalled at the cavalier, utterly disrespectful way belief is being treated anyway by the leaders of the TRA political lobby: Madigan's comment that people following a religion (Islam for example) that clashes with Madigan's politics should abandon their religion immediately. I suspect if these groups were interacting with male leaders of this religion they would step a good deal more carefully, but we are not there yet.

The right to freedom of belief is going to have to be tested on this one. And I agree completely, also the right to be named, recognised, to assemble and organise, for needs specific to this group to be provided for as a large and specific class of people connected only by biology (more than half the human race, previously known as women/female).

It would be hard to deny in law.

Interestingly, Sikhs have been recognised for a long time as a distinct ethnic group in law. That's why when there have been legal cases about discrimination against Sikhs they have been brought under race discrimination legislation. (This is pre Equalities Act.)

But you make a very good point, Barracker.

It would also be highly useful to expose through process in court to the general public the underlying belief that unless a person complies to and adequately performs the required political views, they are regarded as a non-person, not entitled to standard civil and human rights. Which would of course permit the legal teams involved to discuss, shall we say, other cultures and historical periods and political groups who held this belief. And how millions of lives were lost overturning them, because of a basic belief in the unconditional freedom of all individuals, not just some of them.

The census only collects data on Jews as a religious group and not an ethnic one, doesn't it? Despite the large number of atheist Jews?

How do you define “ethnic group” though?

I don’t think this will be terribly helpful to women.

I'm not suggesting women argue that we are an ethnic group.
I'm suggesting we argue that we are an immutable, biological group.
It's an even stronger, more tangible concept than ethnicity, which is blurred and blendable. And sex has been recognised as a basis in law for centuries.

And of course, it's true.

sorry but that’s really not the same, you can do it but you couldn’t use the same arguments. The Sikh case is about ethnic erasure. In your proposed case the issue is about definition of sex not about ignoring an ethnic group. You could obviously ask the responsible public body to change their definition and when they say no you could file for JR but don’t expect to use this (rather flimsy) case as authority.

@Michelleoftheresistance I think you’ve watched too many us law shows.

Sikhism is a religion not an ethnic group. Pathaan is the ethnic group that some Sikhs come from (not even most because a lot of Sikhs converted to Sikhism from Hinduism) and that is the ethnic group found across Afghanistan - Nepal.

Michelleoftheresistance, Maya Forstater's upcoming employment tribunal is covering these sorts of issues:

I lost my job over tweeting and writing about sex and gender identity, and sharing campaign material about the negative impacts of the proposed policy of ‘gender self-ID’ on women and girls. I am now taking the organisation I worked for to the Employment Tribunal for discriminating against me because of my beliefs.

medium.com/@MForstater/i-lost-my-job-for-speaking-up-about-womens-rights-2af2186ae84

If I understand you correctly, Velveteenfruitbowl, you're saying the Sikh case is about ethnic erasure, and the female case would be about biological erasure, but the former is valid and the latter isn't?
And that ignoring an ethnic group is grounds for challenge, (albeit you suggest flimsy) but ignoring a biological group isn't?

Your argument seems to hinge upon ethnicity being more real, tangible and worthy of recognition than sex.
I'd disagree with that.

Perhaps you can explain with respect to physicality vs belief how the two cases have no comparison?

I'm not sure how helpful the analogy is with this case - they want Sikh to be recategorised (or dual categorised?) from 'religion or belief' to 'race' (using the EA protected characteristic terms).

We don't need to do similar as 'sex' is already the appropriate protected characteristic for capturing information about women. We just need the meaning of sex to be upheld. What they have done with the sex question is more straightforwardly unlawful (IMO, obvs).

The arguments for why it matters are the same though:

“They believe it is crucial that individuals are able to identify as ethnically Sikh in the next census to ensure a more accurate picture of the community is taken.

“This will ensure public bodies are fulfilling their duties under the Equality Act when making decisions about the allocation of vital public services.”

We believe it is crucial that the sex of individuals is correctly recorded in the next census to ensure a more accurate picture of the community is taken.

This will ensure public bodies are fulfilling their duties under the Equality Act when making decisions about the allocation of vital public services.

I'm in two minds about this. However, even if such a case failed, wouldn't it force the courts to clarify the legal definition of "woman" in order to even consider the case in the first place?

There's a perfectly good dictionary definition, of course.

I think Sikh can be both a religious belief as well as an ethnicity.
There are people who have converted to Sikhism and are accepted as part of the community. Usually though, it's an ethnic community and since they marry within their group, it maintains the ethnic structure. Most come from the Punjab region I think? Which spans both areas in India and Pakistan. So I guess the argument for upholding it as an ethnicity makes sense.

I think the concept of biological sex is much more clear than ethnicity and is defined in law. What's missing is public bodies and other organisations refusing to comply with such legal definitions and making things up as they go along on the say so of Stonewall and the TRAs.

I hope the new LGB Alliance will bring forth a lawsuit that challenges Stonewall as impacting sexual orientation (and by extension biological sex) with its wishy washy gender identity concept.
Homophobia is discrimination against sexual orientation. If sexual orientation is upheld, then by extension I would imagine it means biological sex is also protected.

Sikhism doesn’t equal punjabi though. Most punjabis in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are now a mix of ethnicities and religions and the actual ethnic group that the original punjabis came from is pathaan - however a lot of Sikh people want to erase that link. It would be easier for them to say Sikhs are all one single ethnic group to account for the Sikh people still living in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to make children born in mixed-race or mixed-religion marriages automatically Sikh (and so prevent conversions)- and that is absolutely wrong.

The ethnicity vs religion debate in Sikhism is centred around the culture around Anglo-Indian Sikh communities being ‘unable to change’ and that is absolute crock.

@Michelleoftheresistance I think you’ve watched too many us law shows

Would you like to explain why?

The right to freedom of belief is going to have to be tested on this one.

Seems a fairly obvious and rational comment to me?

And I agree completely, also the right to be named, recognised, to assemble and organise, for needs specific to this group to be provided for as a large and specific class of people connected only by biology (more than half the human race, previously known as women/female).

Such as in the now several declarations of women's rights in the UK, this can't be US TV law show based.

It would also be highly useful to expose through process in court to the general public

As happens when a case is prosecuted and defended,

the underlying belief that unless a person complies to and adequately performs the required political views, they are regarded as a non-person, not entitled to standard civil and human rights.

Much evidence of this from UK based activists, easily available and openly stated and defended.

Which would of course permit the legal teams involved to discuss, shall we say, other cultures and historical periods and political groups who held this belief.

Which again to me would seem bleeding obvious.

Thanks Pencils shall be watching that case with much interest. Also Glinner's.

Also no need to @ people, we're all here on the thread.

Thanks for the explanation GrumpyHoonMain. I hadn't realised there were other dynamics in play underlying the push for categorising Sikh as an ethnicity Vs religion.

I see that everyone has ignored my earlier post, so just to hammer the point home: Sikhs have long been recognised as an ethnic group in law. See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandla_v_Dowell-Lee

In this 1982 case, brought under the Race Relations Act, in which a Sikh boy asserted his right not to cut his hair, in contravention of his school's policy, the House of Lords ruled that Sikhs were an ethnic group and could therefore be protected under the Race Relations legislation. (Note that this all happened before the Equality Act 2010, which includes religion as a protected characteristic.)

Ahhh... Sorry RoyalCorgi, should have read through the thread first. :)