Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Reassignment and Unfair Dismissal under UK Employment Law

Employment law

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................2
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES:...............................................................................................................................7
Books and Journals:....................................................................................................................7
INTRODUCTION
Employment law acts as a regulatory body which governs the interests of both the
employer and the employee in terms of the rights and duties of the employee and the
responsibilities of an employer towards their employees. Basically, it acts as a protective tool for
a business entity. It helps to keep a balance between the relationship of the employer and the
employee by providing equal and fair rights to both the parties(Bengtsson, 2020) . Employment
law of UK also safeguards the employees through the implications of various statutes. One of
them is the Equality Act 2010, which provides protection from unfair treatment and
discrimination on the basis of nine protected characteristics which includes sexual orientation,
sex, religion, gender reassignment, age, marriage and civil; partnership, disability, pregnancy and
maternity leaves and race. Discriminating any employee on the basis of these protected
characteristics is illegal. There are several acts combined together which relates with the
discrimination of the employees in a business organisation,namely the Equal Pay Act 1970, the
Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Race Relations act 1976, the Disability Discrimination Act
1995, the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003, the Employment Equality
(Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003, the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006, the
Equality Act 2006 Part 2, the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007.

MAIN BODY
George is an employee of Consortium Care Limited company in which he has worked as
a housekeeper for five years. He wants to undergo the process of changing the sex, where he
wanted to lead his further life as a woman. He informed his manager about his step. He has also
started taking the testosterone supplements for the same. He also wanted to change his name
from George to Georgina. The other fellow employees in the organisation were updated about
the position and a new identity of Georgina. Now, situations changed when the office mates
started cracking jokes on the gender reassignment of Georgina and slammed her by saying that
he was born to wear the rubber gloves and aprons so as to keep his house beautiful. Even the HR
refused her to use the female restroom and told her to use only male restrooms until he attains the
full body of a woman. Georgina refused to accept such conditions. Afterwards, Georgina is serve
with a notice of termination.
On the basis of the above case study, the following issues are formed-
 Whether mocking by the fellow employees on the ground of gender reassignment
can be subjected to discrimination?
 Whether the notice of termination served to Georgina is justifiable?
The very first issue talks about the issue of Gender Reassignment on the basis of which
Georgina was treated unfairly at the workplace by the fellow colleagues. Gender reassignment
means the changing of sex. When any person wants to change their sexual identity other than the
sex assigned to them at the time of their birth to the preferred gender. For e.g.- there was an
individual who was born as a male but now wants to live as a female for his lifetime after
changing his sexual recognition(Cabrelli, 2022). They can also be termed as 'transsexuals'.
Discrimination based on having a transsexual identity is unlawful and must not be carried in any
form and place. Equality Act 2010 particularly acts as a watchdog to eradicate the effect of such
discrimination under the Employment Law and other legislations. If any individual is not
comfortable with its own sexual identification and feels the need to change it then no one has the
right to raise any questions against such decision and to discriminate that person. In the case of
Maya For stater vs. Centre for Global Developments 2019, a tax consultant was refused to
provide with the visiting fellowship because on her twitter handle she challenged the
governmental potency to give permissions to the individuals to self recognize themselves as the
other gender. It was held that Forstater's view harmed the transsexuals who are legally provided