Expert Witness: Her, his, their rights at work

Gender reassignment, philosophical belief and sex discrimination     

Summary:

Diana Kloss explores the complex and intertwined legal landscape covering discrimination on grounds of gender reassignment, religion or belief and sex.

The Equality Act 2010 (EqA) creates nine protected characteristics and provides that it is unlawful to discriminate on the ground of one or more of those characteristics. This article will concentrate on three: gender reassignment, religion or belief, and sex. I will look mainly at the duties of an employer, but my comments will also apply to the provider of services, both in the private and public sectors.

Gender reassignment

Section 7 EqA states that a person has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment if the person is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning the person’s sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex. A reference to such a person is a transsexual person. Gender is most often used to refer to the individual’s self-perception…

 

Diana Kloss is a barrister, former part-time employment judge, Acas arbitrator and author.

 

Author: Kloss D

Tags gender sex discrimination

Occupational Health at Work April/May 2023 (vol. 19/6) pp33-35

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