All #emplaw practitioners would do well to read kcl.ac.uk/law/research/f… as it has some statements about Equality Act & discrimination which I find interesting & contentious. Their entire hypothesis is about not registering sex & people/companies relying entirely on some form of
sense of gender or looser. Sex and GR would be replaced as a merged protected characteristic by gender. Some thoughts:
1. their assertion that this is simply in line with current protection re perceived sex doesn't compute. My work experience is that sex discrimination isn't
1. their assertion that this is simply in line with current protection re perceived sex doesn't compute. My work experience is that sex discrimination isn't
related to presentation but nearly always by biology (relative strength, size and potential for childbirth). Discrimination against trans women is nearly always on grounds of perceiving them to be trans.
2. That race and sexual orientation are not registered, and sex is, seems
2. That race and sexual orientation are not registered, and sex is, seems
irrelevant to the issue of how best to frame protected characteristics. Most disabilities are not registered but you still are often put to proof of how you meet the criteria in chapter 1 of the EA; and ones "gender" likely still need to be proved in order to establish comparator
3. Indeed it seems amazing that you can do a report concerning protected characteristics and not mention comparators once. If gender is some kind of inner feeling and doesn't reflect any objective standard, who is the comparator? At least currently s7 has some kind of criteria
4. Equal pay (& requirement for a real comparator of opposite sex) doesn't get a look in. Doesn't help that Gov and ACAS etc wrongly advise companies to do pay gap returns on self declared gender (rather than as they should by males and females - see s2 legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2017/978… )
5. There is no consideration of how important good quality demographic statistical data, relating to the protected characteristic is needed in indirect discrimination.
6. The idea that different organisations could have "definition setting autonomy" as to which sex/gender that one would fall into, depending on their own criteria is frankly a recipe for chaos in the courts
7. Overall what this report does not address is why sex was made and might still need to be a protected characteristic. Anyone reading @CCriadoPerez 's book Invisible Women (which is essentially a directory of indirect sex discrimination against females) would consider this the
elephant in the room. End
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