Clause 10 - Groups
Equality Bill [Lords]
6:00 pm
Vera Baird (PPS (Rt Hon Charles Clarke, Secretary of State), Home Office; Redcar, Labour)
I beg to move amendment No. 50, in clause 10, page 5, line 35, at end insert
‘or a demonstrable commitment to maintaining a transgender identity for a significant period of time,’.
This probing amendment is an attempt to interest my hon. Friend the Minister in the prospect of developing a broader definition of a transgendered person. Clause 10, which deals with groups, refers in subsection (2) to
“a group or class of persons who share a common attribute”
in respect of any of the strands of discrimination that are listed. A transgendered person is defined as some who has
“proposed, commenced or completed reassignment of gender”.
My amendment would add that a transgendered person is someone who has shown
“a demonstrable commitment to maintaining a transgender identity for a significant period of time”.
The point is about inclusivity in the category. By maintaining a transgender lifestyle, people who have not undergone reassignment are, none the less, as likely to be identified as in the transgender class as a person who has gone through the process or is approaching it, as the definition is wide enough to include somebody who is commencing on it or proposing to commence on it. Persons who are not yet in that situation are capable of suffering the same kind of discrimination, as they will be perceived as members of that group. Consequently, their rights ought to be properly protected. The element of the original definition in subsection (2)(d), which is about a person who has “proposed ... reassignment of gender”, will cover part of this mischief, but there will be people who have not got that close to the process who are living a settled life in a transgendered way. As I say, they are likely to need the employment protection that we are keen to give to this sector.
I have thought of an analogy, although I do not know whether it works; I shall wait to be criticised deeply the minute I sit down. If I intend to live my life as a Christian, and I do, I expect to be protected in that status, whether or not I have been baptised or confirmed into the Church, because I live my life in that way. If that is anything like an analogy, we come quickly to the mischief at which I am aiming. By linking the definition totally to the physical process of gender reassignment, the subsection is perhaps too arbitrary and exclusive. I am inviting my hon. Friend the Minister to consider whether the definition could be widened.