In retrospect this is an interesting read:
www.gov.uk/government/speeches/amanda-spielman-at-stonewall
But as we know from many controversies of the past and of the present, the important rights we have established, and that we protect, are not in reality completely separable from each other. The exercise of one right can sometimes be seen as limiting of another right. The different protected characteristics can and do bump into each other. Many of the other rights are stoutly defended, just as Stonewall defends LGBT rights.
And Ofsted’s position, as the checking mechanism of equality, means we are obliged to make decisions in situations where the different protected characteristics are colliding. This is even more difficult where there are competing claims of individual rights, parental rights and group rights.
...
And we are an increasingly diverse country. Multi-cultural, multi-racial, increasingly socially liberal in many parts of society, but not in others. And the laws of this country, embodied in the Equality Act, are designed to ensure that we give equal weight to many of the facets of difference, the nine ‘protected characteristics’.
And that point about ‘equal weight’ matters. There is no hierarchy in the law. One characteristic does not have primacy over another. And here’s the rub. When voices are raised in argument, it can result in what I’ve previously called ‘cause wars’ as in, ‘my protected characteristic should be more protected than yours’.