Remember me talking about how we are excluded from harassment protection in certain circumstances in the new Equality Bill? Lynne Featherstone asked Ben Summerskill of Stonewall - the representative organisation for UK "gay men and lesbians" - about this. His response:
I can certainly say on the issue of harassment we are not convinced that there is a need for protection in this area.
He can't think of a reason we might need protection from harassment so we should be explicitly excluded from being protected against it.
The explanatory notes of the bill describe harassment as:
unwanted conduct that has the purpose or effect of creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading humiliating or offensive environment for the complainant or violating the complainant’s dignity.
The examples given can be easily adapted to cover harassment on grounds of sexual orientation:
A white [straight] worker who sees a black [gay] colleague being subjected to racially abusive [homophobic] language could have a case of harassment if the language also causes an offensive environment for her.
The point he goes on to make in his quote above is that any harassment could be dealt with as direct discrimination. If harassment could be dealt with under direct discrimination, then there wouldn't be the distinction. Direct Discrimination is about policies, decisions and how organisations work with people. Harassment is about bullying. They are clearly different offences and to say that we shouldn't be protected is to do us a disservice.
UPDATE I thought of a personal, real (non-theoretical) example to explain what harassment would be. Take a pub. If it had a policy of not allowing me in because I was gay, that would be direct discrimination. If, as has happened, I got into the pub and upon going to the loo found a poster on it from FHM - a poster featuring two scantily clad ladies in a sexy pose on which someone had scrawled "no fags allowed" - that would fall under harassment because it creates "an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment". It is not discrimination because it's aim is not to treat me less favourably. This is not a theoretical example - it really happened to me in one of my favourite pub in June 2007 (so unfortunately I've lost the original post except for the introduction I crossposted to LJ)
In Stonewall's 2008 Annual Return, the listed goals for the next year include "secure legal equality". That's not what I see above. That's Stonewall continuing with their acceptance of our second class status deserving of segregation and lesser rights (civil partnerships and harassment).
Also in that Q&A session, is Stephen Whittle from Press for Change answering about whether the trans protections go far enough - another of my concerns...
Lynne Featherstone: Because it [the definition of "gender reassignment] is medically based?
Stephen Whittle: It is based on a particular limited idea. The idea of then adding in an extra notion that is not gender reassignment—God knows what tribunals will make of it if there is a definition of gender reassignment and then some people are not undergoing gender reassignment. I can see the faces of some chairs of the tribunal now.
The fact is that trans people, who might be in a stage of life where they just cross-dress part-time, get harassed, thrown out of shops, told that they are not able to come into pubs or whatever. That goes right through to people who have undergone gender reassignment and also face those same difficulties.
Lynne Featherstone: Are you saying that there is a whole spectrum in terms of transgender identity and that people should be protected against discrimination wherever they are on that spectrum?
Stephen Whittle: Absolutely. In fact, we would argue strongly that we experience discrimination because other people think that we look different. It is what those other people do, not what we do, that creates that discrimination. Therefore, the Bill needs to refocus upon what it is those other people see and react to.
Worth reading.
Alex
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Hat Tip to Swarmy on the QYA forums for pointing me at this.
Oh, also, still not had a response from the @EqualityBill team on the harassment issue.
