OUT for Independence’s article, “Westminster is testing our tolerance for rolling back human rights” (Jun 29), objects that the EHRC’s draft code is “framed as complying with the law”. That may be because it complies with the law.
It is suggested that “the only way out is to amend the Equality Act”, so as to clarify that it means “what everyone knew it meant before 2025”.
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For years, Out for Independence and allied campaigners have played Humpty Dumpty with ordinary language: detaching “woman” from sex, making “sex” out to mean gender identity, and recasting homosexuality as attraction to whichever identities one is instructed to affirm. When words have been treated as meaning “just what I choose them to mean”, it is unsurprising that the ordinary sex-based language and approaches set out in the Code are caricatured as “horrifying”.
The Supreme Court has clarified the statutory meaning of sex, and the EHRC Code reflects that position. It removes nobody’s dignity, civil liberties or protection from discrimination; it explains how service providers may comply with the law.
Campaigners may seek to change the legislation. One suspects that might not go down especially well with Scots.
Brian Forsyth
Edinburgh
