In a college lecture, I received a document the other day about the law. More specifically the Equal Opportunities laws.
This was given out by a lawyer who works in a law firm. And this wording is going out to students.
It goes as follows.
Equal Opportunities.
This may be because of your:
-Race
-Sex
-Religion of belief
-Disability
-Age
-Gay or Lesbian
-Transgendered Person
I mean they could of just said "gender", instead of "sex" and "transgendered person" ::)
Transgendered is illiterate, cross it off, correct it and give it back.
It should be "gender identity, gender expression". Those are the current terms of art and should cover all aspects of discrimination.
ETA: "religion of belief" is ridiculous as well. The term used in US law is "creed" which comes from the latin word "credo" meaning "I believe".
I would respectfully correct them. People aren't transgendered; I didn't walk into a tornado and get transgendered one day. It's incorrect at best, and I would let them know privately. A few of those seem like poor word choices. I'm guessing the religion one is actually "religion or belief", but gay or lesbian should be widened to sexual orientation as well.
And they forgot nation of origin in their list of protected classes.
Correct me if I'm wrong please. Although it is incorrect were all saying: whites, blacks, natives, aboriginals, inuits, eskimos, indians, etc... so mentioning the error or correcting a form is what we should always do but I feel like insisting too much would kinda be like asking for a special treatment not given to other groups in society. And also different regions, groups or languages each have their own conventions like in Europe I think they scrapped transsexual altogether, in French they do put an 's' for the plural form, I also saw transsexualism. AHHHHH so complex.. so what I now use is trans, just trans as a noun or as an adjective when I add girl, guy or people. Much simpler but is it correct? You tell me.
Thanks, Rosie.
Well, if we are going to be correcting it "Gay or Lesbian" should read "Sexual Orientation" too.