How did the GMC come to record the ‘gender’ of doctors and not their sex?
The General Medical Council (GMC) is the statutory regulator of medical doctors in the UK. Doctors who practise medicine in the UK must hold
I submitted a response to the Government’s recent Banning therapy consultation.
As is a theme of this website, my response focussed on definitions and the meaning of terms used — and found the consultation severely lacking.
It’s time the EHRC did its job and set an example that showed it is serious about protecting the rights of women and girls.
I have been trying to understand the position adopted by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in their guidance and in their own recruitment equality monitoring forms in relation to asking for the sex of applicants and their gender reassignment status.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says they are (amongst other things) an information provider, ‘[h]elping people understand their rights and responsibilities and improve compliance with the law’.
They have produced a series of short videos, which they included in tweets linking to more information about all nine protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010:
They tweeted the video about gender reassignment in January 2021 and again on 28 October 2021.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has come in for a lot of criticism in recent years for its silence and lack of clarity on the difference between sex and ‘gender’ in terms of the protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010. I look at their response to a Freedom of Information Act request.