AEA is a Community Interest Company established to promote the professional and personal interests of women and girls.
Currently, AEA is waiting for a judicial decision about AEA’s application to mount a Judicial Review of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
As some of you know, because of AEA's insistence and persistence over several months, the EHRC eventually corrected its Equality Act guidance documents.
This incorrect statement appeared in EHRC's guidance documents:
'Where someone has a gender recognition certificate they should be treated in their acquired gender for all purposes and therefore should not be excluded from single-sex services.'
Other EHRC guidance documents contained the same statement in relation to single-sex accommodation and single-sex toilets.
That guidance does not reflect the law. The Equality Act 2010 permits the exclusion of GRC-holding gender reassigned people/transsexuals from single-sex services, accommodation and toilets, provided it is a proportionate means to achieve a legitimate aim.
That EHRC misguidance has been corrected - or, in most cases, guidance documents simply suppressed!
That’s one side of the equation.
We now turn our attention to the other side of the equation and a related vital task for which we need to raise funds.
The other side, is the organisations on the receiving end of that misguidance. AEA called on the EHRC to make a public statement about the corrections and for selective organisations to be individually informed. Instead, the changes were made quietly. The EHRC didn’t even post a notice on its website. No organisation, apart from AEA, was informed.
EHRC’s incorrect guidance stood for almost 10yrs. During that time, the guidance was accessed by many hundreds, probably many thousands, of organisations. The misguidance was further disseminated by management consultancies, training agencies and lobby groups. Misinformation has thus been spread far and wide and is replicated in the equality policies of all types of organisations throughout the country.
That needs to be redressed!
AEA stopped EHRC from promulgating incorrect guidance. We now want to let organisations know that they have been misled. Organisations need to be given accurate information about the Equality Act and the single-sex exception, so that they understand how to bring their policies and practices into compliance with the law.
Please help AEA deal with both sides of the equation!
Why does AEA need money?
AEA publicly launched in Oct 2019 and quickly made promising headway. But, just a few short months later, Covid struck. AEA was temporarily stymied. Planned in-person training was halted. Many hoops had to be jumped through to ensure AEA’s survival. A Government Bounce Back Loan has covered our overheads. With AEA Founder and Director Ann Sinnott working flat-out for many months on the legal case against EHRC, development was inevitably slowed but we are now forging ahead and AEA’s online training packages will soon be launched.
Though AEA is secure, our coffers are too low to cover this additional vital task. Ann Sinnott has already sunk considerable personal funds into AEA and cannot do so again. NB: Ann doesn't draw a salary from AEA and that won’t change any time soon.
Your donation - which will go directly into AEA’s bank a/c - will help pay for –
1. Design expertise
2. Design and print of leaflet featuring ‘before & after’ EHRC guidance
3. Sending leaflet, with covering letter, to organisations via Royal Mail and email
4. A series of one-off adverts in local & national press and trade publications
5. A temporary workforce [female - invoking the single-sex exception] to help carry out this vital task
Please help AEA get the job done!