Stonewall statement on misinformation about the Diversity Champions Programme

[WhatyoutalkingaboutWillis]

www.stonewall.org.uk/about-us/news/stonewall-statement-misinformation-about-diversity-champions-programme

Finally, as part of our work with employers we acknowledge that there has been a lack of clarity around non-binary identities within the current legal framework. However, the recent Taylor v Jaguar Land Rover employment tribunal found that non-binary and gender fluid people are protected by the Equality Act. For employers who wish to go above and beyond the law in creating inclusive workplaces, we suggest that internal policies could refer to ‘gender identity’ as a term that more clearly includes all trans, non-binary and gender diverse people.

Am I over reacting to the sentence "For employers who wish to go above and beyond the law"

They may come to regret putting that in writing.

No you're not.

"For employers who wish to flout the law"

Stonewall is welcome to recommend the fiction of gender identity as long as they're completely clear that it forms no part of the legal framework and it can not be a matter that is enforced on employees, no matter how indirectly.

The petition on legally recognising non binary gender identities was rejected by government. The same government that makes the law (something SW may not have noticed or indeed may have deliberately ignored).

Gender identity isn't the only thing SW support being self-declared, charities can also self-appoint themselves as law-makers can they?

Above and beyond the law? At what point does that actually taking you into law-breaking territory?

This feels like a direct challenge to the law after EHRC's statement!

This snacks of desperation. Plus I wish they would stop misrepresenting the Jaguar Landrover case.

Above the law is not a good mindset to have!

@Heidi1982 what is the Jaguar Landrover case? Sorry I haven’t seen it mentioned before.

@heathspeedwell

They may come to regret putting that in writing.

I don't know how to, but hopefully someone will archive it!

@Heidi1982

This snacks of desperation. Plus I wish they would stop misrepresenting the Jaguar Landrover case.

Misrepresentation is their game.

Stonewall encourage companies to go beyond the law. In writing.

Wow…

This is straight from Robin Moira White isn't it?

A couple of years ago the poster boy for gender fluid was Phil Bunce, and that PR move exploded the Stonewall construction wide open.

One comment in one tribunal about fluidity is hardly going to make the idea that men are women on some days any more plausible after that PR fail. I genuinely don't understand what they are trying to achieve anymore with all this wordsmithing.

It's alienating more and more people.

The jaguar land rover case was seen as case law in my organisation to indicate that non binary came under gender reassignment protected characteristic. The positive is it stopped them using gender instead of sex as anything to do with gender identity comes under gender reassignment. Our organisation would say they go above and beyond and focus on inclusion outside of the protected characteristics.

there has been a lack of clarity around non-binary identities within the current legal framework

Really? I wonder who could have caused that?

Archive: archive.li/MwU49

This is just a different twist on "ahead of the law" isn't it?

I think in some circumstances it’s ok to go ‘above and beyond’ the law. For instance, offering more parental leave than the legal minimum. Good employers do more than the basic legal requirement in many areas. However, it gets sinister when Stonewall is saying it when we know that they have been advising employers not just on good practice in LGBT inclusion to go above and beyond the legal minimum, but to do so in a way that tramples all over others’ rights, notably women’s and girls’, and that misrepresents what the law and the legal minimum actually are.

I know this for a fact as about three years ago I was invited to sit in on some Stonewall training for senior teachers (I’m not a teacher myself). The trainers told the teachers that a boy who decides he is trans much be allowed to change with the girls, and if a girl is h comfortable with this, “the law is very clear - you have to provide another space for her to change in, not for the trans child”. I was pretty sure at the time that this was wrong but not absolutely certain so I didn’t challenge it and I regret that now. But it was one of the things that made this lesbian and Stonewall supporter and donor investigate all this further and come to a firmly GC position.

That is not going above and beyond the law in any helpful way: it’s giving legal advice that is flat wrong and that denies the legal rights of other people (girls).

There's an interesting post on it here legalfeminist.org.uk/2021/05/22/to-boldly-go-why-going-beyond-the-law-risks-unlawful-discrimination/

What kind of attacks are organisations advocating for LGBTQ+ equality receiving?

In the first four months of the year there were more than 900 Freedom of Information requests sent to public bodies about their work with Stonewall.

Aww some monsters are asking for information about Stonewall's actions to be made public. The poor stonewall champions are overwhelmed with almost 0.8 FOI requests per organisation per month.

[quote KarmaViolet]There's an interesting post on it here legalfeminist.org.uk/2021/05/22/to-boldly-go-why-going-beyond-the-law-risks-unlawful-discrimination/[/quote]
That’s a much more informed and coherent presentation of what I was trying to say, thank you. Going above and beyond the law risks trampling on the rights of others.

Link to the Taylor v Jaguar judgment

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5fc8d559d3bf7f7f5c134ad3/Ms_R_Taylor_v_Jaguar_Land_Rover_Limited_-1304471.2018-_Reasons.pdf

Paragraph 173 onwards is useful. In short, it appears that this particular ET (they do not set binding authority) found that "gender reassignment" covers all those who have "moved away from their birth gender" in some form or another.

They also concluded that the legislation is ambiguous.

I am not an employment lawyer, but this decision carries no weight in law as it is not binding authority. For Stonewall to present it as such is misleading.

Stonewall have just reaffirmed, in writing, that:

1. They know what the EA PCs are but are deliberately using the wrong ones.
2. They still encourage employers to go beyond the law.
3. They consider use of the FOI Act an 'attack'. But they definitely don't try to suppress free speech.

And they thought this would help?

Also I counted the mentions of the word 'women'. Zero. Which given the basis of the current coverage is the attempt to undermine women's rights, I find... interesting.

I agree it means very little. Whatever label you want to adopt for your identity Stonewall are still just insisting all single sex exemptions are actually a choice.

Agree with JustAWoman many employees go above and beyond the law, when they offer benefits such as:
Contractual sick pay
Holiday over the statutory minimum
More pension than the auto enrollment rate
Paid carers leave etc

Stonewall's issue is that, according to recent reports, they are misrepresenting the law and through various indexes incentivising other organisations to do the same.

Stonewall are idiots. You’ve all explained this very well.