Should 'gender' rather than 'sex' be prioritised in the workplace?

[WeeBisom]

I've just read an article by Robin White (www.internationalemploymentlawyer.com/news/rationalising-sex-and-gender-terms-workplace) arguing that gender, rather than sex, should be the prioritised characteristic in the context of the workplace. I have some problems with this, and wondered what other people think.

Robin defines sex as a 'physiological characteristic', and gender as 'the social norms or forms associated with males or females.' Robin then goes on to say that in the workplace, sex is not important. Rather, gender is. But sex does take primacy in the context of marriage, and medical care.

The reason for this is because when you get a job, the employer does not get you to prove your sex by testing your chromosomes or checking your genitals. So the term 'sex' in the equality act must refer to something other than biological sex when it comes to workplace discrimination, because employers simply aren't interested in your junk.
White then argues that social norms like separate toilets, sleeping accommodation and changing facilities are based on gender, not sex. And the gender pay gap is also to do with gender, not sex. White concludes "sex may mean different things in the registrars office, the gp surgery and the workplace. And in the workplace we may conclude that when we say sex we really mean gender."

Here are my issues with this.

1. The Equality act 2010 expressly defines 'woman' as a member of the female sex. It doesn't mention gender. So there is no reason to import the term 'gender' into the equality act. The Gender Recognition act 2004 uses sex and gender interchangeably, but that is no reason to apply this to the equality act.

2. The claim about the employer not testing your chromosomes is a straw man. The doctor or wedding registrar doesn't test chromosomes or inspect genitals either.In fact, there is no context where you have to prove your biological sex by getting a chromosome test. Sex doesn't need to be verified with an invasive test...it can be verified by looking at birth certificates (or just looking at the person.)

3. Robin is incorrect to say that separate toilets, separate changing facilities etc are differences imposed based on 'gender'. The real reason we have separate facilities is to protect female people (who are oppressed by male people) from sexual violence, and the male gaze. It is implausible to suggest that we segregate people based on how feminine or masculine they are. The true reason is sex based, and due to sex based oppression.
   Similarly, Robin's explanation of the gender pay gap is very strange. Why would socially feminine people be paid less than masculine people? The gender pay gap only makes sense when you realise that women are penalised for having babies or the assumption they will have babies...all linked to their sex.

As far as I can see, there is no reason at all to prioritise gender in the workplace over sex. Any thoughts about this?

No.
In the world of work adult humans need to take responsibility and declare sex not gender on applications and contracts. For the benefit of other people, depending on your environment aswell as protecting women against sex based discrimination. If we allow sex to be watered down then women are going to be totally subjugated. It's getting bad enough and Handmaid like. We have to be aware of this distinguishing of our sex based protections, which are there for a reason.
If I'm honest I don't give 2 fucks about gender in the workplace, I couldn't care less if the man in reception wears a skirt and enjoys a feminine persona as long as I don't have to pop in a tampon as he's pissing in the cubicle next to me.

I feel the same. I've always been a feminist but this last year when I started noticing the negative bile written about Doc Stock and JKR it really made me want to educate myself more. Through these threads I've read loads and I'm so angry and distressed about what's happening. It seems to me there's nobody that hates women more than TWAW. I feel now I can speak up a bit more and to my 30 yo Dd and 21yo DS.
As someone else said most of the mysogyny and hatred is coming from. a position of enormous sex based MALE fucking privilege.

@Artichokeleaves

The one and only reason White is arguing this is to remove female people's boundaries and abilities to separate themselves from male people, for male people's wishes and benefits to be with those female people whether or not female people consent, are unhappy, are negatively affected or are excluded altogether.

It's an exceptionally self interested and selfish agenda, and there is nothing in this for females. So no. No thank you. White can have third spaces until the cows come home. White is not removing female spaces from females for personal benefit.

Yes, exactly this. Thank you for putting it so clearly.

@GCMM

Surely this is not the same Robin White who has said they have not altered their male (ie sex-based) voice because they rely on it for their work as a barrister?!

Ah yes, I remember Robin saying that. Interesting.

Robin has no skin in the game.
Robin has male entitlement and therefore thinks they can do whatever they want regardless of who it impacts or who objects.
Robin is a TW and therefore cannot give an unbiased opinion on the matter.
Robin will never have have to deal with periods, flooding, menopause, endometriosis, pregnancy, lactation, post birth incontinence, prolapse, or any biological eventualities which could result in them needing to use a private female only space.
Robin things their 'feelings' trumps all of this.

Robin should use their position to campaign for third spaces. They have an opportunity to really be a spokesperson and advocate for TW spaces and protections. Instead, they want ours.
Women say no.

Back in 2015, Stonewall openly argued for the removal of the sex-based exemptions in the Equality Act. They have since taken to denying that they want to remove our sex based protections, presumably because even they could see how bad it looked. It’s my opinion that they have continued to undermine our protections, but no longer so openly.

It’s telling that there are many male born activists who continue to push for the removal of our sex based rights, despite having their own separate protections under the same act.

If they genuinely believed their own protections under the Equality Act were insufficient, they would campaign for additional protections for their own specific group. They don’t. Instead, they continually push for their rights to override women’s sex based rights.

I find the self-centredness and very masculine entitlement sickening.

I find the self-centredness and very masculine entitlement sickening.

What many of us quickly come to realise is that transitioning does not make any positive changes to these attributes.

Privileging gender over sex (in any context, not only that of the workplace) is a way of allowing [some] men to have their cake & eat women’s too.

@NitroNine

Privileging gender over sex (in any context, not only that of the workplace) is a way of allowing [some] men to have their cake & eat women’s too.

Exactly this. Not content with their own rights, suddenly there was a way to have women's rights as well. Just remove the biological necessity of womanhood with a declaration of I am what I say I am instead.

What a crock... You really couldn't make this shite up.

I don’t get this at all. What point is there in separating anything by gender?

Surely as there is no coherent rationale for it businesses and institutions will just make all facilities and services ‘all gender’ otherwise known as mixed sex.

We women will be back at square one. We’ll have the vote but we’ll have to begin again campaigning for everything else we need in order to participate in public life, unlike our foremothers we won’t have protections against men in hospitals, prisons, education or overnight accommodation. We won’t have public toilets, nor changing rooms that we can safely access. Our daughters will need to be chaperoned for their safety or go everywhere in groups.

This approach of not seeing sex appears to be an attempt to exclude and disadvantage women.

Should 'gender' rather than 'sex' be prioritised in the workplace? Absolutely and unequivocally no. Never. Such a thing isn't worthy of more than a cursory glance and a very firm NO. Sex matters, gender means nothing.

@NecessaryScene

RMW argued a case for a transwoman (male) person to get maternity leave whilst the transman (female who had given birth) to go back to work. Ignoring that the female needs time to recover

Seriously? I've not heard this one. Didn't expect Robin to actually go as far as actively arguing against transmen's and nonbinary females' rights, rather than just implicitly.

"Robin Moira White: I am not aware of a case that has argued parental leave per se, but I have advised on it for a pair of trans parents—two people who had both transitioned who were then parents. My advice was that the maternity leave went to the trans woman, and the trans man had to be dealt with under the paternity provisions. The couple were quite happy about that. This was a case of an employer coming to me for advice, wanting to get it right, as many employers want to."

Link to WESC transcript

Given that RMW displays this level of ignorance on the basics over what maternity rights are for, I think it's fair to conclude that anything RMW proposes over gender rather than sex being the basis of workplace policies is just straight up bullshit.

RMW thinks so-called performative 'womanhood' as demonstrated in tweets like this - "How progressive. 3 cis men discussing trans people in girl's schools. If only I had a husband to ask what I should think about this issue..." link to tweet - somehow indicates insight into women's lives. All it does is set RMW apart from the very thing RMW covets most.

@parietal

I think this is sometimes a tricky one. Imagine there is a university physics degree, where the undergrads are 80% male and 20% female. The university has a prize for 'best coursework' and year on year it is awarded to a male. So they introduce another prize for 'best coursework (women)' to ensure some recognition for women. One year, there is a TW on the course. She started the course as a TW and has been perceived that way throughout the 3 year degree. To that extend, she has experienced the same social barriers as the women on the course. And there are no physical barriers to performance, so body shape doesn't matter. And these are all young people age 18-22 with no parenting responsibilities, so pregnancy is not relevant.

Should the TW be in consideration for the 'womens prize'?

That is, if in this particular physics course, the only barrier to women's academic success is the social biases against them, then can we allow that the same social biases might apply to a TW?

Have you considered the fact that boys are routinely given science and building sets as gifts whereas girls are given craft sets? It starts very young.

Is Upton Sinclair’s quote apt here?

It is difficult to get a person man to understand something when their his salary depends upon their his not understanding it.

*changing the original quote pronouns as the intention here is not to mis gender individuals, although Sinclair’s quote may have relevance for men as a sex class more than women.

Bunbury, in her less well known but still seminal work 'Entitlement: what's in it for me?' has a useful reminder for us.

Reporting, with the aim of successfully deleting every post on a thread that uses male sex pronouns to describe an adult of the male sex, or posts where women have simply used the word 'man' to describe 'a male of any age' as per the usage in the Equality Act 2010, even if legally apposite where no GRC is involved, is deployed as a necessary silencing tactic.

When it is demonstrably impossible to engage or muster a coherent counter-argument, there being none, it is far simpler to use the Achilles heel of the FWR board and to ask mods to delete a long / pithy / accurate / powerful post because it contains one disputed pronoun. Strikes on deleted posts on any threads where the article's author is referenced are a frequent and particular quirk, pour discourager les autres. So initials or surnames, roles and job titles are your friend.

Under this chilling regime, Women's reflections, our thoughts, our lived experience, our sex-based reality, our time and effort and energy, our engagement, our blood, sweat and tears and the truth of our bodies and words are literally expunged from the record.

This perfectly demonstrates why Gender should absolutely never be prioritised over Sex in the workplace and all such moves should be resisted.

Because it never benefits women.

This, Bunbury privately reflected in a rare moment of vulgar frustration, 'really, really, really gets on my tits'...

She started the course as a TW and has been perceived that way throughout the 3 year degree. To that extend, she has experienced the same social barriers as the women on the course.

That student would have been perceive as a TW. I'm not at all convinced that would entail "the same social barriers as the women". And they would have had different barriers and experiences before uni.

'the social norms or forms associated with males or females.'

Therein lies Robin's mistake. Robin is perpetuating stereotypes.

My advice was that the maternity leave went to the trans woman, and the trans man had to be dealt with under the paternity provisions.

So says a male who has not realised that the half of humanity that give birth, women, sometimes need a long time to heal and recover after birth. But, yeah.... let's diminish that need officially to 'paternity provisions'.

And of course... breastfeeding needs too.

When the law becomes detached from the real needs of pregnant women (whatever gender identity they identify as) because some males like to forget the huge ramifications on a mother's body and mental health of pregnancy and giving birth, it becomes quite apparent in statements such as this.

The priority is given to the person perceived as a woman but not the female who gave birth.

Unless this was a case where that female did not give birth at all, in which case, it should be dealt with as all adoptions are dealt with without any need to define who is eligible for 'maternity' leave at all.

Once you see it , you cannot unsee it. Ever. It just becomes clearer and clearer.

'the social norms or forms associated with males or females.' i.e. sex stereotypes, unless related directly to biological need have no place in the workplace. It’s so regressive to suggest they should be.

I do not want to be ‘treated as a woman’ at work unless it means sanitary bins in the bogs and other accommodations for my biological needs.

My advice was that the maternity leave went to the trans woman, and the trans man had to be dealt with under the paternity provisions.

That's truly awful, yet Robin seems proud of it. It seems blindingly obvious that maternity leave is very specifically for the person who has given birth. And alongside and after that, what's needed is decent parental leave - for whichever parent(s) are providing early parental care. (Not 'paternity', gay couples may also need this of course). Maternity leave is inherently sexed; parental leave should be unsexed/ungendered to break the old 'norm and form' of the woman being the default carer.

Robin could be working towards making this sort of thing better all round, removing 'gendered' discrimination. It's hugely disappointing when someone in that position does the opposite.

If we can’t justify maternity leave on the grounds of physical recovery from pregnancy and birth, biology (and biopsychology) of the mother infant dyad and option to breastfeed as recommended - 6 months exclusive and continuing whilst gradually introducing solids, then how can it be justified at all? Again we risk losing these rights entirely if they are based on gender identity and not on sex.

Wait, maybe Robin has a point. Now that I'm menopausal and give fewer fucks, can I demand a pay rise because I wear trousers to work?

@MrGHardy

'the social norms or forms associated with males or females.'

Therein lies Robin's mistake. Robin is perpetuating stereotypes.

Yep, Robin seems to think women need privacy from men so we can touch up our make up......

@jellyfrizz

'the social norms or forms associated with males or females.' i.e. sex stereotypes, unless related directly to biological need have no place in the workplace. It’s so regressive to suggest they should be.

I do not want to be ‘treated as a woman’ at work unless it means sanitary bins in the bogs and other accommodations for my biological needs.

I think most women would rather be treated as a man at work and get that raise....

I have just had to amend our (new) Diversity Monitoring Form because it only asks about gender (for these purposes they defined gender as "Male, Female, Non Binary, Trans-woman and Transmen not sex. I argued that sex needs to be included (apart from anything else we're an organisation that helps women!). I was told that ACAS only refer to gender now and sex is not relevant. I was told that gender needs to be included ) because of the rights that trans people have under the Equality Act.

Anyway, I won, sex is included. But my God, it's depressing how everybody has bought into this shit.

I 100% do not agree with Robin.