Equality Diversion and Inclusion workshop: what points should I raise?

[RhubarbCrumbled]

I'm taking part in a workshop to develop the EDI strategy. What points and questions should I raise? Here's the information I have for the session so far...

We want to show that we are an inclusive and diverse
Trust, where prejudice, racism, homophobia, transphobia
and ableism is not tolerated - and we need your help!

The process will:
● Share and inform to support staff with any questions,
views and informed opinions on EDI
● Create opportunities to feel involved
● Prioritise what matters to our staff in terms of EDI
● Create a vision for EDI
● Look for feedback on our equality objectives.

I can guess that my GC views will not be what they are looking for but they need to be heard. I also need to make sure I don't sound like a ranting, ill-informed harpy! I'll be taking notes in with me including legal definitions, sex based rights etc. Please lay out all the facts, laws and further reading that I can take in with me!

We want to show that we are an inclusive and diverse Trust, where prejudice, racism, homophobia, transphobia and ableism is not tolerated

As a start, perhaps suggest that sexism and misogyny are added to that list.

(And that surely it should be ‘are’ not tolerated, not ‘is’ )

''Why isnt sexism on the list?''
''How will the trust deal with conflicts between protected characteristics?''
''How will the trust monitor results of this policy?''

'How are you defining "transphobia", exactly?'

Key one for me. If I had an employee I was asking NOT be be, say, "ableist", I'd think it was essential practice to give them a written definition and explanation, along with clear guidance about how that was consistent with the Equality Act 2010 and the employee's employment rights.

Vague policies are no use. Policies have to be built on clear, non-circular, legal definitions.

Good questions and yes, shocking that they don't include sexism/misogyny explicitly. I'd want to know they are aware of their public sector equality duty to all 9 protected characteristics.

Employees of the female sex need specific considerations, eg same sex bathroom facilities, maternity policy, representation in boardrooms etc in order to be included in the organisation overall.

How can they aim towards better inclusivity and equality for women?

Check that the same attention in terms of working hours, planning, initiatives and £££ are devoted to all the relevant protected characteristics.
Have workplace audits taken place to identify what are specific needs / issues in the workplace? Are there ally programmes, guides about language, reasonable adjustments made in terms of disability? race? sex? pregnancy and maternity?

Make them audit and identify the real life issues and then address them. At present inclusion / diversity issues appear to focus solely on gender reassignment and sexual orientation, excluding the other characteristics. They also enable workplace bullies to set up intimidatory practices that openly target and harass women and anyone else who doesn't obey the pronoun police.

Don't forget age!

Not sure if your trust is a hospital trust OP.

In any case you may find this a useful resource to justify the use of sex based language.

internal-journal.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgwh.2022.818856/full?fbclid=IwAR1GmMyg9yC58i3SargXSSpsw1NgaVoD6raB8cz40YuEgx9VxFTr5A4m4OQ

I think I'd pick one of the 'not women and trans' options and major on it. Use it to draw lines around what constitutes good practice. Then allow those lines to cross over to other protected characteristics (like ours...).

People with a disability might need particular toilet provision - there needs to be enough of it so that people with a disability won't need to wait longer than other people.

People with a disability might have needs which are not immediately obvious to someone on the outside - we need to make sure we consult with anyone who might be affected by a policy/change, and that means asking explicitly who might be affected.

People with a disability are under-represented in employment - we need to make reasonable adjustments to allow them to compete on a level playing field with other people.

Brilliant, thank you all for your help. I'm just digesting and putting points together. I need notes for this as otherwise I go hot and scared and forget everything.

I'll definitely feed back after the meeting as to how it goes.

[quote FannyCann]Not sure if your trust is a hospital trust OP.

In any case you may find this a useful resource to justify the use of sex based language.

internal-journal.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgwh.2022.818856/full?fbclid=IwAR1GmMyg9yC58i3SargXSSpsw1NgaVoD6raB8cz40YuEgx9VxFTr5A4m4OQ[/quote]
This is a great piece of research, thank you for the link

Yes that initial list needs 9 items, one for each characteristic of the Equality act.

Don't let them sneak gender identity into the list!!

Keep banging on about the impact (impact assessments) on other protected characteristics. Eg 1 man in a women's single sex space, means that half the population are not comfortable. There is no compromise here, no middle ground.

Statistically (ONS stats) there are twice as many gay (same sex attracted) men as women. So an accommodation here may be of little benefit to women.

When it gets to loos, it's not just safety and dignity. It's also health- UTIs are a killer for women. And then there's the growing problem of concealed cameras.

As Mr Menno says, remember to say 'the current demands of the trans lobby are in direct conflict with the rights of women'. Use that wording, say demands, not rights.
Good luck...

I would also suggest that to be most effective as a group you need some kind of research into which groups your user base consists of in what numbers and to what extent they experience negative outcomes because of their membership of that group - then target efforts at the most impactful areas. (I’m thinking here of how much focus we see in the police on lgbtq hate crime - lots of rainbow colours and activist police voices in the general community, yet it is racism which has the highest impact on the population and the police are pretty much silent on that outside of specific crimes and have a huge problem with it internally).

yes, ask them how their EDI policies relate to the 9 protected characteristics of the Equality act, and how they understand the public sector equality duty (which if IRC mandates organisation to foster good relations BETWEEN groups)
and monitoring, how are you going to monitor any differences of outcome etc by all of the protected characteristics?

What about 'if I weren't in this workshop, I could be getting on with my job'

There seems to be a flurry of inclusivity activity at work after this initial call. I've applied to join the Women's Network which is welcoming all genders. First meeting to be held on International Women's Day.

There's also a series of LGBTQ+ inclusivity training sessions planned.

I can see that this is going to be a tough one. My plan at the moment is to focus on there being coverage of all 9 protected characteristics, the need for audits before changes are made and impact assessments.

Hi OP.
I'm guessing you are a hospital trust and the women's network is on your hospital intranet? Ours has same - "for anyone who identifies as a woman"
Then they started a "young woman's " network. So I posted a snarky "I definitely identify as a young woman but sadly the reality is different" and linked an excellent podcast about fertility that all young women who hope to have a baby one day should listen to. (Hopefully anyone who listens to the podcast will find other topics on the same channel...).
The deputy Chief Exec gave it a "like".
Guessing she didn't get my joke but who knows, maybe she's a secret terf.

Anyway yesterday I poked my head well above the parapet to comment on a mention of world cancer day and our services being for all protected characteristics except they listed gender instead of sex.

So I pointed out that sex was the protected characteristic, there are quite a few sex specific cancers that aren't affected by gender and took the opportunity to link to the recent paper about using sex specific language.

So far I have been thanked and the list has been amended to reflect the law. The roof hasn't fallen in yet.

I'm just so sick of it all, I just had to do it.

Yes ask for the stats about pay and progression. I can tell you now that you'll have a sex based pay gap and a sex based issue with promotion - leaky pipeline. Transgender issues are usually way down the list when you start looking at the actual numbers because the number of people ticking 'other' are minute and usually not reportable (because you can work out who these people are). In terms of return on investment, sex and race based initiatives should be the priority for an EDI team in most organisations.

And if they start saying 'well the women in the stats could be trans women' then you need to say that it's offensive to infer that from statistics and they need a complete overhaul on how they collect gender and sex data.

That'll keep them busy.

This is the link to the podcast I posted.

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/venus-rising/id1481872967?i=1000542136630

The paper about sex based language I have already linked Thursday 13:25

HR are my next target as I have noticed the word gender instead of sex in a couple of policies. I may be marking my card but all I'm doing is pointing out inaccuracies with respect to the law and no one can complain about that. If we all start insisting on Sex not Gender we can push back against the march of gender neutral language.

Ageism too - it's like they haven't read the equality act!

I agree with a what a lot of people have said here.
I too would get them to concentrate equally on ALL of the protected characteristics; EDI seems to be all about TQ+ at the moment. And definitely don't let 'gender' be used when they mean 'sex'.

@MagpiePi

I agree with a what a lot of people have said here. I too would get them to concentrate equally on ALL of the protected characteristics; EDI seems to be all about TQ+ at the moment. And definitely don't let 'gender' be used when they mean 'sex'.

Yes. I'm personally chasing a couple of issues in my workplace that are disability related (one quite serious involving the most used accessible toilet).

So, the workshop has happened! Thank you to you all for the advice and guidance, it was so useful.

I stuck to a very generalised approach so didn't pick up on any one characteristic. Instead I made it clear that any strategy should cover all 9 protected characteristics, should be evidence based with a clear link to the evidence gathering process and have continued analysis of the impact on other protected characteristics.

It seems that there are some very GC people here, who look at the evidence of physical reality. When I spoke about evidence gathering and using clear, consistent language and legal definitions there were nods all round. In relation to the gathering of evidence, I asked about the sex or gender question and it was clearly stated that this is being changed to ask about sex AND gender in two separate questions.