Peta Fluendy is employment law consultant at Sutton based De Brett and Co’s http://www.iambeingfired.co.uk/
Men will not be able to “just put on lipstick and try to get into the ladies’ toilet” even after October, when the new Equality Act is implemented according to the Government Equalities Office (GEO) this week.
Last month the GEO seemed uncertain about implementation dates of the Act. The uncertainty about when the Act will be implemented Act is over. It will definitely be October of this year.
To celebrate the GEO rushed out four advice leaflets to help employers with the Act. One, called “the Summary Guide (about the Act) for Businesses who sell Goods and Services,” gives us the rules for men in lipstick. The leaflet does not tell us if men are allowed in the ladies’ loo if they are wearing mascara.
The real point is that businesses will have to be more careful if the man is a genuine transsexual, but the leaflet offers no guidance on how to spot transsexuals or deal with them.
There is plenty of other advice in them, however. Men, who have unusually high voices, are protected from discrimination by people who try to patronise them and are less helpful over the telephone because they assume they are talking to a woman.
There is also a gentleman called Fabio in one of the examples cited in the leaflets. He suffers victimisation under the Act when he is kicked off his GP’s list for complaining about homophobia suffered at the hands of his Primary Care Trust.
Besides bright colours there is a great deal of white space in the leaflets and some big print. There is little text or information to worry about in them – unlike the Act itself, which is huge.
This means they will be of little use to employers on their own. They are still worth reading for the examples they give of new concepts such as how to discriminate by perception or association, which is where someone suffers because someone else believes they have one of the nine protected characteristics.
Acas has put out a 15 page “quick” guide to the Act and a Q&A. It is definitely time to start reading about the Equality Act because company anti discrimination policies are bound to need an overhaul.
The four leaflets and the Acas information are all here.
>> Click here to see Peta FLeundy’s previous posts on the new Equality legislation.
Tags: employment law, Equality Act, Government Equalities Office, Peta Fluendy
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