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Scottish Women’s Aid’s advertisement for head of policy role includes people with ‘protected characteristic of gender reassignment’



Scotland’s leading domestic abuse charity has advertised for a senior “women-only” role but will allow “men who identify as women” to apply.

Scottish Women’s Aid (SWA) advertised for a head of policy, and said that “applications from women only” would be accepted for the key role.

But the advert then said that the definition of women included people with “the protected characteristic of gender reassignment” under the Equality Act 2010.

The legislation defines gender reassignment as proposing to undergo, undergoing or having undergone a process to reassign sex.

People do not need to have undergone any medical treatment or surgery or even have applied for a gender recognition certificate confirming their change of legal sex.

However, feminist groups argued that the SWA had misinterpreted the legislation and put the “feelings of men with trans identities before the needs of vulnerable women”.

Maya Forstater, the chief executive of the charity Sex Matters, said: “If a job needs to be done by a woman, as is usually the case in the women’s sector, employers can lawfully discriminate by excluding men from consideration for the role.

“SWA may, indeed should, turn down applications for this post from men who identify as women.

“The Equality Act protects transgender people from discrimination in situations such as renting a home or being served in a restaurant. It does not mean employers must consider men who identify as women for jobs that require an actual woman.”

SWA is the umbrella organisation for 33 autonomous women’s aid groups helping people, including children, across Scotland.

The advert was posted despite Dundee Women’s Aid (DWA) facing criticism in January for allowing those who identified as women to apply for a female-only job.

Clare Blom, of the group Women Won’t Wheesht, said they had written to DWA earlier this year to complain and it had changed its practices.

She said: “It is unconscionable that SWA - yet another organisation funded by the Scottish Government - have learned nothing from their colleagues in Dundee and are gaslighting and lying to their service users by pretending that only women are employed in their ‘women-only’ roles.

“We are deeply disappointed by this wanton disregard for women’s privacy, safety and dignity, not to mention their profound lack of understanding of anti-discriminatory legislation.”