Protection for trans people

A. Absolutely not. Possessing a Gender Recognition Certificate is not a requirement for a trans worker to be eligible for protection under the Equality Act 2010 (EA10).

The EA10 provides protection for workers against discrimination on the basis of gender reassignment. 


Under Section 7, a person has the “protected characteristic of gender reassignment if the person is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning the person’s sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex”. 


This means trans workers do not have to have undergone any medical procedure before receiving protection under the EA10. 


The EHRC equality watchdog’s Code of Practice on employment gives examples of trans workers becoming protected under the EA10 from the moment they make the decision to start living as someone of the opposite sex.

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/employercode.pdf