Equality Act 2010

The Discrimination Law Review (DLR) was launched in February 2005 to consider “the opportunities for creating a clearer and more streamlined equality legislation framework which produces better outcomes for those who experience disadvantage …while reflecting better regulation principles.”

The DLR culminated in June 2007 with the publication of the consultation paper: A Framework for Fairness: Proposals for an Equality Bill for Great Britain which outlined the Government's proposals to simplify, modernise, and increase the effectiveness of discrimination law. The Scottish Transgender Alliance (STA) ran focus groups and surveys in 2007 to gather views from transgender groups and individuals in Scotland about the DLR proposals. Based upon the views expressed to us by transgender people in Scotland, the STA submitted a lengthy response to the DLR consultation paper in September 2007.

The UK Government published its Equality Bill in April 2009 and it progressed through the House of Commons and House of Lords during the 2009/2010 Financial Year. The Equality Bill received royal assent on Thursday 8th April 2010 and is now the Equality Act 2010. Much of it is due to come into effect in October 2010. The Equality Act 2010's public sector equality duty is due to come into effect in April 2011. 
 
In regard to transgender equality issues, the Equality Act 2010 provides the following:

• In the Equality Act 2010 ‘gender reassignment’ is named as an explicit protected characteristic, alongside age, disability, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.
• The requirement for medical supervision to take place as part of a process of 'gender reassignment' has been removed so someone who simply changes the gender role in which they live without ever going to see a doctor is protected.
• All the main protections already existing for gender reassignment are carried over from the previous Sex Discrimination Act legislation – e.g. protection from gender reassignment discrimination in employment and goods and services. The existing exceptions are also carried over.
• The Equality Bill offers new protection from discrimination due to association with transsexual people or perception as a transsexual person.
• It also offers new protection from indirect discrimination because of gender reassignment.
• The public sector equality duty is extended to more fully include gender reassignment as one of the specific protected characteristics for which public bodies must take due regard of: the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation; the need to promote equality; and the need to promote good relations.
• Protection is provided for gender reassignment discrimination in education.

The Scottish Transgender Alliance welcomes the Equality Bill becoming law as the Equality Act 2010. However, we are disappointed that it does not go far enough to fully protect all transgender people from discrimination and harassment. We will continue to call for the protected characteristic to be widened in the future to 'gender identity' rather than 'gender reassignment' in order to be more clearly inclusive of those transgender people who do not identify as transsexual and do not intend to change the gender in which they live. We will also continue to call for various anomalies regarding the gender reassignment discrimination and harassment protections in the Equality Act 2010 to resolved (such as how insurance premiums are calculated for transsexual people and the lack of explicit harassment protection for trans people in school education).

It must also be noted that the Equality Act 2010 does not resolve the ongoing problems with the Gender Recognition Act 2004 such as its unreasonable insistence that transsexual people must end their existing marriages or civil partnerships and also submit detailed psychiatric diagnosis reports in order to access their human right to have their gender identity recognised. 

The Equality Network Scottish Transgender Alliance submissions in relation to the Equality Bill's Progress through the UK Parliament are available as PDF documents from the Downloads box on the left of this page.