My Lords, we are all impatient for the Law Commission report, but I believe it is best to await it before deciding how best to frame any law on hatred towards women. Sex and gender have become conflated in ordinary speech, even in legislation, but they are not the same. While “sex” has a clear meaning in law, as defined in the Equality Act, the term “gender” does not, and is taken to mean social roles or stereotypes associated with someone’s sex, and that is too tenuous, at least at this stage, to be a legal definition.
If the intention of adding “or gender” is to ensure that legislation also covers hate crimes perpetrated towards trans women, it is unclear why the law would
not catch a crime directed towards a trans woman on the basis of presumed sex. In addition, crimes directed against someone based on their transgender identity are already covered by hate crimes legislation.
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Going back to the conflation and confusion of sex and gender, I quote from a statement by the Equality and Human Rights Commission in 2018:
“‘Gender’ refers to socially constructed roles of women and men and/or an individual’s conception of their identity. The term is often used interchangeably with ‘sex’, partly in recognition that much of the inequality between women and men is driven by underlying social and power structures rather than by biological sex. Although the Equality Act protects people from discrimination because of their sex, other UK legislation (such as the regulations requiring employers to publish their gender pay gap) refers to gender. This may cause confusion in some circumstances.”
The EHRC went on:
“To avoid any ambiguity, we are reviewing our use of language across our website and publications to ensure clarity and consistency. However, it is important to note that any mistaken or structural use of the term gender does not affect how the law works in practice.”
I have not had the chance to check through all the EHRC publications since 2018, but those were wise words.
I want hate crime legislation to be extended to misogyny. I very much hope the Equality and Human Rights Commission continues its pursuit of clarity and consistency, and I was interested to hear the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner. I cannot see that conflating sex and gender, as in this amendment, goes in the right direction. We should wait to hear what the Law Commission advises.