What are the legal protections against workplace discrimination for neogenders?

[Middlelanehogger]

I understand that the EqA has a protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

As a layperson I assume this means you can't for example refuse to hire someone for being a (binary, vaguely attempting to pass) transwoman, at least not without finding a different justification to point to such as qualifications.

How far does that extend to various "neogenders", e.g., can you refuse to hire someone because they claim to be catgender or cloudgender or something? Can you explicitly write down in the hiring panel notes "applicant was weird and wore cat ears, no hire"? At some point surely employers are allowed to "discriminate" on the grounds of unprofessionalism and personality and I'm wondering if there is any case law / precedent / legislation that covers this case.

I think in practice, anyone wearing cat ears to an interview probably has other issues/downsides with their CV, interview answers, skills. They're unlikely to be all round competent in every other way, are they? I can't see this becoming a discrimination issue in any real life case.

I’m sure the panel would put ‘insufficient experience’ or something more neutral and it would be hard to prove that there was discrimination.

I have heard anecdotally that some hiring managers are automatically discarding any applications the announce pronouns.

Most people prefer to keep political and personal faith beliefs separate from the workplace.

I'm very interested in the "can you do this in the open" question though. Like if you laughed and said "of course we didn't hire her, she went on about being cloudgender, I can't put her in front of a client!" would that be grounds for any kind of action... Or do you have to be undercover about it?

Likewise with the pronouns thing - in some sense it's a more of a rejection on the grounds of political/subculture differences than "gender" so I'm curious.

I believe "not a good fit for the team/ project/company" is widely used in rejection messages.

I would want to know that you were giving candidates a decent chance to showcase their relevant skills. If you hone in on everyone's weirdest aspect, you'd never hire anyone. It was really only a few years ago that any visible tattoo at all would have a lot of careers advisers insisting you'd never get a job. Now it's totally normal for employees to have a visible sleeve etc. By all means have a dress code at work and if the person appears wearing cat ears which contravenes the dress code, discuss that. Likewise if they're unable to get through an interview without asking if you've accepted Jesus as your personal saviour or whether you believe 9/11 was an inside job, you'd have a legit query on whether they can manage customer service. But somebody's weird belief that they wouldn't normally bring up - who cares?

‘Dressed inappropriately for interview

’failed to adhere to workplace dress code standard’?

would something like that be acceptable?

Are you seriously suggesting that unless there is a dress code specifically banning the wearing of cat ears, it shouldn’t be an issue?
Also - if someone wears cat ears and insists on being ‘catgender’, then they have definitely brought it up as an issue themselves!

Gender identity is not a protected characteristic. However, experienced recruiters know not to write anything ever that could be construed as discriminatory. I stick to "a strong applicant but ultimately lost out to the successful candidate who demonstrated skills, knowledge, experience and aptitude that more closely matched the role."

Legally I think you'd have to do what Maya did ‐ establish that their belief is protected by law. Non binary isn't but if you were a 'non binary' woman you could sue if they turned you down for being a woman who wouldn't wear high heels.

This is what the vegan chap did.

I would think it would always be unwise to make any comment about a personal aspect of an interviewee lest it be seen as discriminatory. My manager didn’t give someone a job yesterday because he was so full in the interview he stopped listening to him, he still put other candidates had more experience.

Dull not full

I assume you're allowed to discriminate against people for being "odd" in general (maybe this is not the case?)

e.g. imagine a job role which is quite hard to fill, so they're interviewing and rejecting candidates more or less independently - every couple of weeks a possible candidate comes along and is accepted/rejected on their own merits rather than choosing from a pool of them.

Scenario A - candidate is well-qualified but wears cat ears, talks about cats a lot, seems a bit odd

Scenario B - same as above, but candidate explains that they are catgender to explain their behaviour

From an HR/legal perspective are these scenarios meaningfully any different? Can you "safely" reject them in both cases?

What in the name of fuck is cloudgender?!

I am assuming that a full assessment of the person would need to be undertaken to ensure that what you perceive as "weird" isn't ND.

If you are in recruitment it is absolutely sad to hear someone speak of potential applications in such way. What chance has young ND/non conforming people got in entering the workforce.

You do realise that surely some of these people are desperately looking to belong? Need support? But by all means go on referring to people as "weird".

Nobody tries to "belong" by announcing they're cloud or cat gender 🙄. Quite the reverse, I imagine.

Was going to ask exactly the same!

You do realise that surely some of these people are desperately looking to belong? Need support? But by all means go on referring to people as "weird".

Employers are looking for employees who can do the specified work and slot into the company quickly and with minimum fuss.

Of course ND people deserve support and belonging but unless the interviewer is one of great organs that exist to help give vulnerable people a springboard ‘first job’ it’s not the what the employers is interviewing in search of.

We can’t all take our whole, weird, selves into work, because nothing would ever get done.

I'm pretty weird (and ND), have never bothered/managed to hide it in interviews and almost always get offered the job I've applied for.

I'm extremely competent as well as easygoing though. And don't throw a strop or even bother mentioning being misgendered (which is actually pretty much daily, over email).

I got talking to my boss about this at my last job, as we had a transgender male applicant (as in, a man saying he's a woman) applying to another team in the company, over in the US headquarters. We were a smaller satellite office based in London.

To my surprise, as I was tiptoeing around the topic, he told me point blank that he rejects anyone transgender as early in the hiring stage as it's possible to find out, as it's not worth the likely management problems, or the hit to the team's morale in having to walk on eggshells all the time. This was based on past experience. Of course he would always give some other vague reason not to hire, to avoid getting in trouble.

I suspect this happens a lot.

Presumably you don’t wear cat ears to interviews Balloons? 😬😂

Education is really failing our youngsters if they aren’t leaving school/college with the understanding that the job interview dress code rarely calls for animal ears.

Unless it’s an interview for Playboy Bunnies? Are they still a thing in 2023?

It is not the employers responsibility to facilitate people's search for a sense of identity. Neurodiversity can be accommodated without making everyone pretend someone is a cat or a cloud.

The issues that nb people could cause in a workplace are not worth it. Toilet issues being a very obvious one.

I've interviewed people (not NB) and there's always a reason that can be found without being too personal.

@Paq reading @NicCageisnotNickCave reply makes me more aware of the absolute horrific future young ND people face. I look around me at the high number of young adults not employed.

Capable of doing the job but due to pure ignorance, prejudice and blatant ignoring equality law don't get a start. I hope society starts to call out our next episode of shameful behaviour.

I work in the public sector we support those who need access supports for a period to help them gain a foothold, over the past decade of probably 5/6 people per year only one didn't work out. Thankfully I work with decent human beings who work hard to be inclusive.

@Marblessolveeverything frankly you do young people a disservice. I have people with neurodiversity and MH conditions in my team and (a) we work together to make sure they are contributing and being accommodated in terms of their needs (b) know what is and isn't appropriate at work and (c) would be horrified at being lumped in with catgender people.

Assuming that people with different gender/species/identities must be in some way ND or otherwise mentally ill is breathtakingly offensive no matter how you look at it.