EDI and the nine protected characteristics

[IamAporcupine]

I have just received a high importance email at work (academic setting) re an 'EDI toolkit', whatever that is. I haven't read it yet, I only clicked on the info re the nine protected characteristics.

According to my university these are (my bold):

age
disbility
gender affirmation
marriage and civil partnership
pregnancy and maternity
race
religion and belief
gender
sexual orientation

I hit 'reply' immediately to send a brief and to the point email, but when looking in more detail I found this 'disclaimer'

We use the term ‘gender’ to be more inclusive of all genders and not what sex refers to as male and female. 'Sex' is a legal term listed under the Equality Act 2010 that should be used when writing documents.

Digging a bit more, the information is (mostly) about sex discrimation, etc
but what the fuck are they playing at re-labelling it as 'gender'?!

Gender Affirmation is a new one on me, although I've seen Gender Identity instead of Gender Reassignment before.

It is timely that today's debate is regarding the meaning of the word 'sex' in the EA. An organisation can't just take it upon themselves to change the protected characteristics as they are written in law! Regardless of the author wanting to be more inclusive.

What is the point of a toolkit that contains deliberately inaccurate information about a legal document?? They know full well that the term "sex" should be used instead of gender, and I'm sure they also know that "gender reassignment" is the other term they should be using.

Those were my thoughts too

Drafting the email now.....

I've also seen 'gender presentation' used. So no-one is allowed to laugh at me for wearing trousers?

My workplace have also done this. Also education.

any chance you could post a suitably anonymised version of the email as I have just had similar, with 'gender; replacing 'sex' as one of the nine characteristics, but defined as 'the feeling of being...etc etc' so clearly NOT intended to mean sex. But then in the examples, case histories were all about sex.

Remind them that conflating sex and gender is anti-trans - many people identify as trans on the basis that the two are distinct and can differ.

Can I PM you?

@AnneWhittle Actually, no need. Here is the email:

Dear Colleagues,

An EDI Toolkit for Researchers has now launched on the University’s Research Culture external website. The toolkit was created as part of a Wellcome-funded project to help embed equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) into research culture.

This EDI toolkit is a set of practical resources, designed to help researchers and those who enable researchers to engage with and understand EDI. It aims to empower people, particularly those who supervise students and manage research teams, to really value diversity and promote inclusivity within their teams. This endeavours to improve colleague and student experience, as well as the quality of research itself.

Whilst the toolkit project has been funded by Wellcome and created and written with researchers in mind, there’s lots of content in the toolkit that’s relevant for professional services colleagues too. For instance, you could check out the guides on Allyship and Accessibility or find out more about the nine protected characteristics.

The toolkit is available to colleagues and students at XX and beyond. Take some time to explore the toolkit and share it with your peers.

I think every single person experiencing this should send the evidence to all the MPs (who are mentally capable of understanding the issue: read through Hansard to find out) who took part in the debate about clarity regarding the meaning of the protected characteristic ‘Sex’ yesterday. And also send it to Kemi Badenoch, and to the head of the EHRC.

Well IAm I hope everyone in your institution's Law department is also emailing in. Fingers crossed someone listens. HEFCE hasn't collected data on sex for years and the UKRI's last survey of academics was gender only (FFS)

Interesting, I also work in an academic setting and last week our team had EDI training with an external trainer (professional in dealing with harassment cases I think). The trainer made it VERY clear the EA protected categories are sex and gender reassignment. Thank goodness!