Gender Discrimination

[Marmaladelover]

This has come up in the equality training am about to do. Googling the term seems to bring up many many examples of what are sex discrimination not gender discrimination and some websites and guidance seems to mix the terms freely. Which can’t be right?

if sex is a protected characteristic not gender, doesn’t it follow that it can be lawful to discriminate someone on the basis of gender but unlawful to discriminate on the basis of sex . Obviously gender reassignment is also a protected characteristic so I am trying hard to think of a scenario where it is lawful to discriminate on the basis of gender.

This might be one and is the issue I am concerned with .

The WI admits transwomen. At National Conference , members who are delegates, have their accommodation paid for by the WI Federation . This is based on 2 members sharing. If a transwoman wanted to attend the conference they should have to top up the cost of a single room rather than being allocated a shared room. Even if they are a delegate. This would be lawful and not discriminatory . But would protect women who are protected under sex characteristic . The WI do not do this at the moment .

is this correct?

Anyone who talks about "gender discrimination" should first have to define "gender".

I bet they can't.

What does the WI do at the moment? I’m guessing it’s either pay for a transwoman to have a single room, or assume that one of the women will be happy to share with a male?

I don’t know , but TW have attended the conference- maybe they went for the day . Possible for some , eg living in Somerset and going to Cardiff. But since they now accept TW and there are at least 3 I know of it’s going to crop up at some point.

It's worth remembering that for a long time sex and gender were used pretty interchangeably. There are still some people who do this, especially in North America. They say gender but really mean sex.

And then quite a lot who have some sense that now they are not the same thing, but they are very fuzzy what the difference is supposed to be.

What it means not to discriminate on the basis of gender identity always seems unclear to me. Does it mean I have to accept that a woman who thinks she is a man is allowed to believe that, and I can't avoid hiring her because I think that's nutty? I guess, maybe like I couldn't discriminate against a scientologist which I also think is nutty.

But does it mean I have to use female pronouns, or allow her to use the men's locker room, or even the men's uniform? That seems a lot less clear to me, I am not sure they do constitute gender discrimination.

I think it could be considered sex discrimination to require the transwoman to have to pay extra to have a single room since the only reason they require a single room is because of their sex, as women wouldn't be required to pay this fee.

In that situation, it sounds like the way to not discriminate would be for the WI to cover the difference in cost, as it's their decision to admit transwomen and the transwomen themselves shouldn't be expected to pay extra when they can't help being male and the WI has admitted them as such.

Does the course contain a section on gender discrimination AND sex discrimination?

They're not just being all coy & using gender for sex?

I can't think of any case of gender discrimination where it's not actually sex discrimination e.g. a business says meale employees can't have long hair but female can. It's gender that equates long hair with women but the guy is being discriminated against because he's a male adopting (supposedly) female gendered attributes.

In the WI example, I think probably gender reassignment is the characteristic? TW have to pay more than women by excuse they are trans (or sex, because they are male) . But... would a woman pay more if she was assigned a single room because she was e.g. disabled?

I think whoever is doing the training hasn't done their research.

It doesn't matter what has become common usage of language, what is important are the protected characteristics of the EA.

One of these is Sex
Another is Gender Re-assignment

If the training is being put on by your work place you could try and raise it with them.

Not necessarily antagonistically, but just to say you are concerned / confused by the material you have seen and it implies the material is not accurate.

And of course (if they are paying for the training) they will want it to be accurate.