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I am writing to you to convey my views on the government’s plan to update the equality act, in particular on the gender ground. While I welcome the review, I have some concerns regarding the rights of women under this act. At present, women as a sex are not protected as the discrimination ground is “gender” rather than “sex”. I would welcome the inclusion of an additional protection on the grounds of sex, whilst also providing protection under the gender and gender identity grounds.
The reason I would like to see the additional inclusion of sex as a protected characteristic is that, in a small number of instances, it is appropriate to segregate or provide facilities on the basis of sex rather than gender. If sex is not separately protected and gender can be self-declared, protections for biological women and girls will not be possible.
Some examples where I think protection on the grounds of sex is important include:
• Competitive sport – a person who has gone through male puberty retains physiological advantages over a person who has not gone through male puberty, even if their testosterone levels are reduced. This results in unfair advantage to those individuals and prevents women who were born female from achieving at the highest levels. An increased risk of injury is also posed to those born female in contact sports if competing against individuals who have gone through male puberty.
• Women’s refuges – women who flee domestic violence are usually traumatised. Allowing male bodied people into the refuges on the basis of having a female gender identity is likely to be extremely traumatic to these women. Protection only on the grounds of gender will not allow these women a refuge in a female only space.
• Prisons – the same arguments apply as for refuges. The case of Barbie Kardashian, who has a GRC, and is housed in Limerick Jail shows the need for careful thought on how to balance the rights of transwomen and women.
• Medical procedures – many women have a preference to be treated for certain conditions (e.g. cervical screening, mammograms, checks following sexual assault etc,) by another woman, while many men have a preference to be treated by a man (e.g. prostate checks). Additionally, people who are adherents to certain religions cannot be treated by a member of the opposite sex. If we are not allowed to request a medical professional on the basis of sex, we will have a situation where people will forego treatment, resulting in increased health problems.
• Data on sex equality – if we only gather data on gender (e.g. workplace, census, public bodies) we have no way of knowing whether men and women are equally represented or whether progress is being made wrt equality. Equally, we have no way of knowing whether transgender people are being discriminated against as the data will not distinguish between women/transwomen, and men/transmen.
• Child protection – at present, male trainers of underage female GAA (and presumably other) teams, must have a female present. As a male cannot enter a changing room, the female will deal with an unwell child etc. If we are only offering protections on the basis of gender, a male bodied person who identifies as a woman would be allowed to enter a female changing room. Many young girls are likely to feel uncomfortable with this. Obviously the converse is also an issue with a female bodied person in a male changing room. Additionally, children (and their parents) should be assured when children are on overnight stays that sleeping accommodation is segregated by sex and that chaperones are female bodied for girls and male bodied for boys.
• Medical records – know the biological sex of an individual can save lives. While an individual’s gender identity can obviously be recorded on records, failing to record sex can be problematic. For example, people who should be called for cervical or prostate screening may not be called, symptoms of a variety of diseases (e.g. cardiac disease) often present differently based on the individuals sex. Medical tests can be misinterpreted if the sex of the individual is not known. A rather start example of this a test for human chorionic gonadotropin. High levels in a woman indicate pregnancy, high levels in a man, indicate testicular cancer.
In conclusion, I fully believe transgender people should have protections under law. However, I believe that protections should be balanced to ensure we do not remove rights from women in order to provide those rights.