Interesting to read the Scotland article, which is about the disputed meaning of the phrase "gender reassignment" in the Equality Act. Reindorf, who wrote the Essex Uni report, says that "gender identity" is not the same as "gender reassignment". According to the article:
'On Friday a spokeswoman for the EHRC said that Reindorf’s opinion was “correct”, adding: “While terms such as ‘trans status’ and ‘gender identity’ are in common parlance and are related to the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, they have no specific legal meaning in this context.”'
But then it also quotes Nancy Kelley:
'Nancy Kelley, Stonewall’s chief executive, insisted that the Equality Act protected anyone whose gender was other than the one assigned at birth. “The statutory code of practice to the Equality Act, published by the EHRC, states that ‘gender reassignment is a personal process, that is, moving away from one’s birth sex to the preferred gender, rather than a medical process’.
‘The practical effect of this, in everyday language is that trans people are protected in law from discrimination based on their gender identity.”
Quite bold of Kelley to tell an expert barrister and the EHRC that they are both wrong in their interpretation of the law.
This is what the Equality Act says:
'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.'
It seems to me that the get-out phrase, from Stonewall's point of view, is "other attributes". "Physiological" is very clear, but what on earth are "other" attributes of sex?