School Equalities policy: "gender" instead of "sex"

[Hazeldine]

I have been reading the Equalities policy of my daughter's primary school and this is how they represent the protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010:

"The Single Equality Act combines the existing three duties into one new Equality Duty that covers all seven of the equality strands: age, disability, gender, gender-identity, race, religion or belief and sexual orientation."

These seven are repeated multiple times; sex (the actual protected characteristic under the EA 2010) is not mentioned at all.

Any recommendations about how to raise this with them? Has anyone done similar?

Also, a massive thankyou to all the people who have raised this and are challenging schools.

I have lurked on and off for years and the way women have so tirelessly fought against this insidious crap for so long is awe inspiring.

I want to know what the source of this is. It’s been CP from somewhere, clearly, as the wording is all the same.

To all those who are concerned about the way gender ideology is being quietly introduced into schools, can I just recommend TransgenderTrend?

www.transgendertrend.com/

No affiliation, I’ve just found it a really great resource. They have really great, thorough critical reviews of schools policies from the likes of Stonewall (which a lot of this stuff will no doubt be based on), as well as their own excellent, evidence-based alternative approach.

Just checked our primary school's policy for staff and children, it misses some of the protected characteristics out completely and it conflates sex and gender, it says in the intro:

This policy will be reviewed annually, or whenever there is an update or change to legislation on age, sexual orientation, religion and belief or transgender equality,

It goes onto say:

While the school recognises that any person or group of people can become victim to discrimination, victimisation or unfair treatment, people may be more at risk of becoming victims of inequality due to:

Race
Disability
Gender and transgender - under which it says:
The Gender Equality Duty 2006 places a general and specific duty on schools to eliminate unlawful discrimination and harassment on the grounds of gender and to promote equality of opportunity between
female and male pupils or students and between women and men and transgender people.
Under our general duty we will actively seek to:
Eliminate unlawful discrimination and harassment on grounds of sex and gender reassignment.
Promote equality between men and women.

I am going to send a letter, I think the whole policy sounds like a mish mash from several different sources.

I'd never heard of the Equality Act 2006, but here it is, with the 7 characteristics mentioned in the OP.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/3/section/10

Perhaps these policies haven't been updated since 2010.

Really appreciate that schools have a shitload on their plates at the moment but a positive letter which helps them avoid future problems by correcting incorrect assertions about UK law will hopefully be received sensibly by schools.

Both my DS primary and DD secondary policies are gender not sex. I am beyond gobsmacked, since when was this allowed. They both sound very similar, but not related schools. Since when was this a ‘thing’.
I will be emailing both requesting a response, I will also be emailing my MP as this should not be happening. Gender is not a protected characteristic, sex is, grrrrr.

Hmm, you could be right Crone

Not all nine protected characteristic apply to children in schools - I think not age and marriage if I remember correctly.

The EA 2006 was updated in 2010 and the protected characteristic didn't change www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/4

And later on it says:

Gender reassignment
(1)A person has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment if the person is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning the person's sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex.
(2)A reference to a transsexual person is a reference to a person who has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.
(3)In relation to the protected characteristic of gender reassignment—
(a)a reference to a person who has a particular protected characteristic is a reference to a transsexual person;
(b)a reference to persons who share a protected characteristic is a reference to transsexual persons.
www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/7

And then:

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.
www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/11

But as someone posted up thread because so many schools seem to have the same wrong information as their policy it would seem someone (DoE??) has sent out an inaccurate briefing.

Or it is a result of Stonewall "training" which seems to have been more about presnting as fact what they were campaigning for, not just changes to the GRA but to remove sex as a protected characteristic from the EA. (Without this they know women will always has the right under the EA to have same sex spaces for provision of services etc.)

If it is as a result of Stonewall training ie the civil service it is a clear indication of just how far they had gone in subverting women's rights and might have got there had women who were more alert warned us all of what was likely to happen in the GRA was amended to self identification.

Phew - some of us may have been a bit late, but hopefully we are making up for it now!

AFAIK Gender reassignment as a PC doesn’t apply to anyone under 18. GRA applies to over 18s. I’m not a lawyer so happy to be corrected if I misunderstood that. This would mean that schools don’t have a legal basis for undermining single sex provisions for under 18s.

@ChattyLion

AFAIK Gender reassignment as a PC doesn’t apply to anyone under 18. GRA applies to over 18s. I’m not a lawyer so happy to be corrected if I misunderstood that. This would mean that schools don’t have a legal basis for undermining single sex provisions for under 18s.

My understanding is it does apply but anyone without a GRC (so all children) who identifies as someone of the opposite sex must not be treated any differently to other members of their own sex. So a boy who identifies as a girl (transgirl) must not be denied access to the BOYs toilets or denied the ability to take part in sports with other boys.

The EA 2006 was updated in 2010 and the protected characteristic didn't change

There was a change from 'gender' in the 2006 act to 'sex' in the 2010 act. From the link I posted earlier:

(2)In this Part “group” means a group or class of persons who share a common attribute in respect of any of the following matters—
(a)age,
(b)disability,
(c)gender,
[F2(d)gender reassignment (within the meaning of section 7 of the Equality Act 2010),]
(e)race,
(f)religion or belief, and
(g)sexual orientation.

But as someone posted up thread because so many schools seem to have the same wrong information as their policy it would seem someone (DoE??) has sent out an inaccurate briefing.

Since they only list 7 protected characteristics, and one of them actually mentions the 2006 act, it might just be that they haven't updated them properly since 2010.

Thanks Aesop I still find the legal basis confusing but I had a look at the EHRC technical guidance for schools, and you are quite right it says that children are covered by EqA. But what that actually means in practice is not easy to decipher though (for me anyway!)
www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/technical_guidance_for_schools_england.pdf

ChattyLion it is very much not helped by the fact that the EHRC have been putting out unlawful guidance on this matter.

Stonewall actively campaign for the removal of the protected characteristic of sex. Why is a lobby group writing policy in this area. Is it a surprise that they misrepresent the Equalities Act?

Does anyone fancy writing to the DWP?

They have replaces gender with sex and have closed my 'case' which was they should comply with the law.

@sashh

Does anyone fancy writing to the DWP?

They have replaces gender with sex and have closed my 'case' which was they should comply with the law.

Have you asked an MP to take it to the parliamentary ombudsman?

My MP has not responded to me.

I couldn’t see anything to suggest it has to be your MP - though other MPs don’t have the same responsibility to you. But if there was one that was interested...

Just in defence of schools ....its not that long ago that a legal team at the LA would write policies which you just used with tiny adjustments. Then LAs wound back their support to remaining LA schools. I cant get any help or guidance on what a policy should cover. Schools have lots of statutory policies that are actually well outside the area of expertise of the people writing them.
This means people borrow other school's policies - there is one particular resource 'The Key' which a lot of schools will use to get template policies from. It may be that the policies suggestions on 'The Key' have gender listed. I will check and approach 'The Key' if thats the case.

I also think that whilst users of MN seem incredibly clear that gender and sex are very different things - i have met very few people that dont use the words interchangeabley - in fact many think gender is just more polite (like some say pardon instead of what) so they arent willfully on an agenda to erase sex, they just think they are polite.

@OldCrone

The EA 2006 was updated in 2010 and the protected characteristic didn't change

There was a change from 'gender' in the 2006 act to 'sex' in the 2010 act. From the link I posted earlier:

(2)In this Part “group” means a group or class of persons who share a common attribute in respect of any of the following matters—
(a)age,
(b)disability,
(c)gender,
[F2(d)gender reassignment (within the meaning of section 7 of the Equality Act 2010),]
(e)race,
(f)religion or belief, and
(g)sexual orientation.

But as someone posted up thread because so many schools seem to have the same wrong information as their policy it would seem someone (DoE??) has sent out an inaccurate briefing.

Since they only list 7 protected characteristics, and one of them actually mentions the 2006 act, it might just be that they haven't updated them properly since 2010.

That’s interesting. A couple of places who I contacted actually cited the 2010 Act though so maybe they updated which act they were citing without checking/noticing that the characteristics had been changed

I also think that whilst users of MN seem incredibly clear that gender and sex are very different things - i have met very few people that dont use the words interchangeabley - in fact many think gender is just more polite (like some say pardon instead of what) so they arent willfully on an agenda to erase sex, they just think they are polite

(In addition to my previous point) or realise there’s a difference

This is an example of the info pushed to schools from trusted sources. It would be good to see a follow up by schoolsweek covering the topic again.

schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-urged-to-ignore-dangerous-gender-guidance/

It's not really surprising if someone who is not a legal specialist is confused about the distinction between sex and gender in legislation. Apart from 'gender' in the EA2006 becoming 'sex' in the EA2010, we have clauses like this in the GRA.

Where a full gender recognition certificate is issued to a person, the person’s gender becomes for all purposes the acquired gender (so that, if the acquired gender is the male gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a man and, if it is the female gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a woman).

As a former school governor I remember we were often told we had to have a policy on xyz. There were dozens of them often on very dull topics. We would be given the choice of a) drafting our own policy or b)using a template. I can never remember anyone volunteering to draft a policy from scratch! Often the template would be suggested by the secretary who was from the LEA.

This explains how inaccuracies are perpetuated.