Enby they/them pronouns - what's the law on this?

[SirChenjins]

New person coming into my team who I think may want others to use they/them. I have a standard team signature that I don't want altered, but if my suspicions are correct and she starts bringing her whole enby self to work, where do we stand legally if I or anyone else says nope, not doing that?

I know the moral arguments on each side of the debate so don't want a rehash of the for's and against's, just want to know where I stand in law .

An Eddie Izzard/Philip Bunce scenario.

"... if a man who claims to be a woman is protected from discrimination on that basis how can it be right to deny that protection to a man who simply claims he is not a man?..."

I don't see the problem.

If the EA defines gender reassignment as reassigning someone's sex, then that protects a man claiming to be a woman. (And a woman claiming to be a man)

But it doesn't protect a man (or a woman for that matter) claiming to be neither a man nor a woman, because being neither a man nor a woman is not a sex

Therefore - if the law only recognises two sexes - the EA does not protect being non-binary.

It seems consistent and fair to me.

It also seems clear to me what the intention of the legislature was. I'd be very surprised if an ET made new law here rather than saying it was up to Parliament to clarify the law if they wanted to, and not up to an ET.

In 2015/16 the Women and Equalities Committee held a “Trans Equality Inquiry” with such luminaries as Jess Bradley and Helen Belcher giving evidence. A report was duly produced and submitted to the government who basically batted most of it away. One of the findings the report made was that non binary gender identity had no legal status and needed to be brought under the EA PC, they also wanted that changed to “gender identity” rather than GR. The government acknowledged that non binary wasn’t covered but said they didn’t consider that was the best thing to do. They said that non binary people would often be covered under the discrimination by perception part of the law.

That's very interesting but I wonder how the government thought that would work in practice? (If they really thought at all!)

Say you have two non-binary employees A and B

A is employed by employer C, and B is employed by employer D

Both A and B suffer identical "discrimination" from their respective employers because of their non-binary status.

The only difference between the two scenarios is that employer C knows that being non-binary is not a protected characteristic whereas employer D mistakenly believes that it is.

Does discrimination by perception mean that B has suffered unlawful discrimination because of D's mistaken belief, but A hasn't because C knew being non-binary is not protected?

i guess they thought it would protect the ones who appeared to be transsexuals under the Act. Taylor would fall into this although as I’ve said, he fit the GR definition of having started a process to reassign his sex anyway.

Enbies aren't covered by the PC of gender reassignment so any demand for they/ them/xie/xey, etc, is on the same footing as rocking up to a new job & telling everyone you're of the Elven Folk & require High Elvish pronouns (in this case, sí for she & the suffix lya attached to the object in the genitive - good luck with that).

"SHOW ME YOUR GENITALS."

....
Alright Cher let's think that through again shall we? There are probably things closer to harassment than being unsure on the sex alignment of your grammar.

Trans activists in “not mentioning genitals gratuitously for at least 10 minutes” challenge. Believe in yourself, you can do it!

😂From the very first sentence I knew this was less about the issue and more about a creative path to Genital Inspector. Nicely played, OP. Nicely played.

NBs in the work place are a pain in the hole. Every single one I have worked with spends more time faffing around in staff network groups and bleating about their identity than actually doing their work. This is a feature of this group I believe, not a bug.

I am not sure the law on this has been fully clarified. I believe workplaces can set reasonable policies, as long as they dont run counter to the law.
So a workplace can say use of preferred pronouns is compulsory. If a GC staff member swerves this and uses names only and no pronouns, and the enbie lodges a complaint, I don't think this has been tested in a court of law. I suspect that this would be viewed as a reasonable approach to accommodate both views. I would love to see the outcome if the employer insisted on wrong sex pronouns and the GC employee insisted that she would only use correct sex pronouns. That would be quite a battle.

If a nb woman demands they/them pronouns then that woman is demanding that she is never referred to as she/her and if someone refers to her as she/her even when she's not present that person's job is at risk.
You may not like the analogy i used for you but its apt and accurate. Thr fact is a request of wrong pronouns is exactly what we are talking about here its just you don't like it when you are having your language compelled which should help you understand why gc people refuse a "simple" pronoun change.
Without being rude the fact that English isn't your 1st language explains why you don't understand why using they in the singular form as a pronoun is so jarring to most English 1st language speakers.
As for why is everyone including the op worrying about this before its happened its because every single nb we have ever interacted with goes mental when we refuse to use they/them pronouns and just their name. Look at the posts on this thread by people trying to bully, manipulate, threaten and misrepresent the law to get us to use the preferred pronouns of a woman who they've never met.
I personally have yet to meet a person who identifies as nb who isn't an attention seeking navel gazing narcissist whos permanently looking for offence.

You are correct that TRAs are nasty bullies however the reputational damage for a business comes from adhering to the demands of trans identifying employees not for adhering to the law these days.
As for getting a lawyer to take the case thats getting easier and easier with every single winning case and I know lots of people who would happily contribute to a crowd funder for this and ofcourse if you are a member of the free speech society they have their own lawyer who are specialists in this and have had lots of success in settling claims before crt and have yet to loose a case.
Nobody likes a bully and bullying is all the TRAs have

For all those who think "they" is fine as a singular pronoun, try reading this. I have no idea why the gallery thinks a woman who died in 1979, after a life-long affair with a man which resulted in 3 children, should get they/them pronouns - which, incidentally, were used in the main intro to the gallery but not elsewhere. I had to read the intro a few times to understand what it was actually saying and who did what.

The gallery was, unsurprisingly, dotted with pride stickers and welcomed men into the women's toilets.

https://thenewartgallerywalsall.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/GRC50-a5-for-Issuu.pdf

Isn't 'they' in this example referring to Garman and Ryan as a pair? Garman is referred to as 'she'.

"'This work was very precious to Kathleen Garman. It was the only work in her collection that she retained at her house until after her death. This was perhaps because she was an accomplished pianist and music was very important to her.'"

Maybe it was written before more than one person. First paragraph:

"In 1973, this prestigious collection was donated to the people of Walsall by Kathleen Garman (1901—1979). Kathleen had grown up in Wednesbury, lived their adult life in London, but wanted to give something back to their home county,"

Second paragraph:

"Kathleen was the life partner of acclaimed 20th century British-American sculptor Jacob Epstein (1880—1959). They met when Kathleen, a talented pianist who ran away from their Black Country home to pursue a career in music..."

The intro in the gallery says something like "they died in 1979", so I was thinking, strange, that two people died in the same year...

My DD (adult) is nb - I don’t use pronouns when they/she is about. I use ‘she’ when taking to dh, but DS usually uses ‘they’ - at work it’s def ‘they’ but then dd has never been a ‘she’ to them.
if I had an enby person at work I’d comply w their choice to be a ‘they’ - it’s v different when it’s your family - very complicated and emotional.
So - a colleague I’d call them whatever they wanted as I have no emotional attachment to them.
if say ‘they’re over there’ or ‘they’ve gone to lunch’ etc.

Oh right. I see what you mean. TBH, I think it’s just really badly written. They seem to be trying to jam everything into single long sentences.

Women with young children?

Pregnant Then Screwed just entered the chat.

I swear a lot. I’ve worked with people I know hate swearing. In those circumstances I think before I speak. Is that an undue burden?

Avoiding swearwords and using a wrong-sexed or plural pronoun for a known individual are not comparable. Until extremely recently, no one was offended by correct-sexed pronouns. People have been offended by swearing for a very long time.

Given the other features of the gallery (endless pride stickers, women's toilets for "all who identify as women"), I'd say it's pretty deliberate. Ironic that a gallery named for two women artists, who from all I can see were just heterosexual women of no gender identity at all, changes their pronouns.

We don't need to see someone's genitals to know their sex. Most of the time, their (real-life photo, unfiltered) face is enough, even when haircuts and clothing are cropped out.

Your point?

I think if it were a deliberate decision they would have been more consistent.

As an aside, I don't think Garman was an artist herself.

Short hair, innit?

Yes they do, and you know it.