Equality roulette: assessing the legality of the Department of Education’s guidance on gender questioning students in schools (Part 1)

Dr Bianca Jackson, Family law barrister, Coram Chambers

This is Part 1 of a three-part article exploring the possible legal difficulties for schools and colleges that adopt the Department for Education’s recent non-statutory guidance on how to approach gender questioning children. In particular, this article examines whether the recommendations around social transitioning at school are compliant with the provisions of the Equality Act 2010, both in respect of direct and indirect discrimination. Part 2 of the article, which will be published in April 2024, will consider the advice on access to single sex spaces, also through the lens of the Equality Act 2010. Finally, Part 3, which will be published in May 2024, will look more generally at the principles underlying the guidance and whether they fall foul of other pieces of existing legislation, including the Human Rights Act 1998 and GDPR.

The full article has published in the March issue of Family Law. 

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Read the full article here.