UK Law and Transsexuals/Transgender
The Equality Act 2010 lists a number of “Protected Characteristics” to which the law applies. Gender Reassignment is one such characteristic and it refers to transsexuals (people planning, in the process of, or having had a sex change). Here’s a bit from the act:
It should be noted that the law uses the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ interchangeably. Not everyone else does so. The Act’s explanatory notes confirm this:
There is further confirmation from the Crown Prosecution Service:
The Act uses the term “transsexual” to refer to someone who meets this definition and is protected from discrimination under the Act. The CPS just uses the term transgender to include all aspects of being transsexual.
Scottish Laws
For reasons never explained, or even addressed for that matter, this is not the case in Scotland, and it’s not necessarily the case in the English public sector either. Some people have sought successfully to extend this protection to include transvestites and cross dressers. Transvestism is a sexual paraphilia, mostly affecting men, and characterised by getting turned on by wearing clothes of the opposite sex. Cross-dressers is a term used to describe anyone who wears the clothes of the opposite sex for whatever reason. It includes transvestites.
I myself am a homovestite (I looked it up on the World Health Organisation website). Homovestites wear the clothes associated with their sex/gender, and it’s perfectly legal to discriminate against us.
The Offences (Aggravation by Prejudice) (Scotland) Act 2009 defines transgender identity for the Act. “The definition gives four specific examples: transvestism (often referred to as ‘cross-dressing’); transexualism; intersexuality; and where a person has changed gender in terms of the Gender Recognition Act 2004. However, the definition also extends expressly to cover other persons under the generality of broad reference to non-standard gender identity. For example, those who are androgynous, of a non-binary gender or who otherwise exhibit a characteristic, behaviour or appearance which does not conform with conventional understandings of gender identity.”
In 2012 Scotland brought a new act into law, the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012. It’s not a law many of us are familiar with. It limits football supporters and prevents them from insulting their opponents’:
at football matches.
Tucked away a bit further on in the act we find that “transgender identity” now includes being a transvestite:
“What’s going on there?” I hear you ask. I don’t have a clue.
It didn’t stop there of course. It never does. Next was the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill. It was introduced in the Scottish Parliament on 23 April 2020. Although enacted, it was later repealed. It had some Explanatory Notes. Parliament doesn’t get to vote on these notes, just the Bill. The Notes list the usual protected characteristics, and adds a few as well:
The notes provide a definition of what is meant by Transgender Identity. Tacked on, right at the end, we see that “cross dressing people” have been added:
Essentially the law is about incitement and hate speech. But you can be arrested for insulting transvestites and writing nasty things about them in Scotland. Here’s the worry though. This offence where it refers to cross dressers doesn’t exist in England or Wales. When you engage with someone on social media, you have no idea which country they’re in and you can conceivably commit an offence in their country without leaving your own, because what you wrote appeared on their screen. Legal advice is needed here, but essentially transvestites have legal protection in Scotland.
Change By Stealth
Back in England, protection to transvestites is proceeding by stealth. It has in fact been going on for some time. Here’s a nice fluffy 2007 poster:
Tucked away on Page 2 we find that transgender, transsexual and transvestites are all equally deserving of NHS protection:
Later, in 2009, the Equality and Human Rights Commission produced a report called “Trans Research Review”. It’s definition of ‘Trans’ on Page 14 of the report includes transvestites and people who cross-dress for whatever reason. They were included, apparently, because they might have experienced discrimination in the past and because “For example, there may be men who cross-dress for enjoyment but who are happy with their identity as a man. Alternately, there may be men who cross-dress as a way of exploring their trans identity, and may later choose to transition.”
Some UK Universities then took this up.
Southampton
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Leicester University
Europe
The Commissioner for Human Rights, Council of Europe, takes a view on transgender issues, specifically that transgender people are those having a different gender identity than they are born with. It then perhaps wrongly includes transvestites and cross dressers in this category, regardless of whether they have a different gender identity than they one they were born with. It’s a different definition of trans than that used by our own EHRC.
UK Government
In its publication, The Recruitment and Retention of Transgender Staff, Guidance for employers, November 2015, the UK government provides a definition of transgender. Surprise surprise! It includes cross dressers:
The document defines cross dressers as:
So that’s government employment policy then. It draws on the Equality Act 2010 as its authority, but wrongly changes the definition of transgender and places all transvestites on an equal footing with those undergoing transition from one sex/gender to the other.
It follows from this, and the ONS has been looking at this for a number of years, that future government statistics and figures regarding anything ‘trans’ will include heterosexual males wearing women’s underwear. Any numbers you hear bandied around are likely to be suspect.
I don’t have a stance on transvestism, but I found the anomaly curious enough to investigate.
