A Trans Awareness Course

RE: Kent County Council has a Trans Awareness Course on its intranet which, among other things, states that "sex is what appears on the outside of a person...gender comes from the inside". That "there is no UK law saying men must use male toilets or women female ones." Also, that its staff are warned that "referring to someone using incorrect pronouns" would be a "microaggression."

https://www.jamesesses.co.uk/p/the-council-ignoring-the-supreme

Please advise:

1. Do you have any similar material available on your intranet?

Specifically, any training video or other resources which reference transgender issues, pronouns, "microaggressions" or "unconscious bias"?

2. If so, please provide copies of any such materials.

3. What legal advice has been given (if any) as to the accuracy of the claims made in any such training resources given this Supreme Court ruling in April?

https://supremecourt.uk/cases/judgments/uksc-2024-0042

1. We have various courses on the Council’sinternalsystem ‘Lincs2Learn’ in the section Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

• Microaggressions in the Workplace (Short Course 15 mins)

• Gender and Sexuality Awareness (40 mins)

• Sexual Orientation (60 mins)

• Sexual Orientation (Short Film)

• Sexual Orientation: Lived Experience (20 mins)

• Trans and Non-Binary Awareness

• An Introduction to Unconscious Bias (35 mins)

2. The Council is not able to share copies of the materials.

Whilst the Council does produce some of its own training material, all the above were designed by a separate company and sold to the Council. We are not permitted to freely share them in the public domain as this would prejudice the commercial activity of that provider.

The courses are located here> https://vinciworks.com/

Section 21 FOIA - Information accessible to applicant by other means Section 21(1) states Information which is reasonably accessible to the applicant otherwise than under section 1 FOIA is exempt information

3. The Council Legal Services has not given any advice as to the implications of the Supreme Court ruling and it has not had any employment claims relating to transgender under the Equality Act