Here we provide a general guide to charities and trustees so that they can be mindful of these issues.
Who are transgender and non-binary people?
At birth we are assigned a gender based on biological sex. For many of us, we do not question our gender identity but for some people, it is not so simple. If a person is referred to as “transgender” or “non-binary” they do not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. By way of example, a trans-woman will have been assigned ‘male’ at birth due to her biological sex but she identifies as a woman. A person that identifies as non-binary identifies as neither male nor female.
Equality Act 2010 (“the 2010 Act”)
Under the 2010 Act, the general principle is that you must not discriminate against a person based on a protected characteristic. These include sex and gender reassignment.
Gender reassignment is defined as a person who is undergoing, proposing to undergo or has undergone a process (or part of a process) to reassign their sex by changing physiological or other attributes. This means that the 2010 Act protects people from discrimination at any stage of their journey to change their gender right from the point of their initial declaration that they would like to identify and start living as another gender. The person concerned does not need to be in the surgical process of gender reassignment or having hormonal therapy with endorsement from a medical professional in order to have warranted this protection.
In contrast, the Gender Recognition Act 2004 provides that a person must have satisfied the following conditions for legal recognition as assigning their gender (known as a Gender Recognition Certificate):
A summary of the various issues that your charity should be mindful of is:
This is a complex and developing area of law. If your charity is wrestling with any of these issues we would advise that you take appropriate legal advice.
If you have any queries regarding the employment of transgender or non-binary people, please speak to Matt Wort.
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