Part of Equality Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 11:15 am on 16 June 2009.
Evan Harris
Shadow Science Minister
11:15,
16 June 2009
As for whether the perception works in a way that the Minister identifies, Equality Network noted in the Government’s equality impact assessment at paragraph 2.20 her view that protection on the basis of perceived gender reassignment will provide new protection for people who are “considered as being transvestite”. I, like Equality Network, welcome that assertion. However, the concern is that such people might not be adequately protected on the basis of perceived gender reassignment, because relying on that provision would perhaps require proof that the discriminator wrongly perceived the person to be transsexual—proposing reassignment, as the Minister put it—as opposed to knowing or perceiving that they were transvestite, inter-sex or androgyne. If the perception has nothing to do, in the mind of the discriminator, with gender reassignment but relates to whether someone is a transvestite, would that be covered by the perception provision?
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