Category: Repeal | Resolution: GAR #457
Commending the General Assembly's existing protections against unjust discrimination, particularly in the form of GAR #35, "Charter of Civil Rights",
Observing that GAR #35 rightly exempts from its prohibitions discrimination undertaken for "compelling practical purposes",
Recalling the specific example provided by GAR #35 of acceptable discrimination on the basis of gender, namely "hiring only female staff to work with battered women who have sought refuge from their abusers",
Noting that GAR #457, "Defending the Rights of Sexual and Gender Minorities", prohibits member states from discriminating on the basis of gender in the granting of "rights, powers, permissions and services to individuals" without any exception comparable to that of GAR #35,
Deeply concerned that this mandate may therefore prohibit member states from engaging in reasonable practices that technically constitute discrimination on the basis of gender, such as:
- operating same-gender facilities of any kind, including washrooms, changing rooms, or showers,
- in the context of a physical examination, exclusively using physicians or law enforcement officers that are of the same gender as the examinee, or
- "hiring only female staff to work with battered women who have sought refuge from their abusers", the legitimacy of which was explicitly acknowledged by GAR #35,
The General Assembly,
Repeals GAR #457, "Defending the Rights of Sexual and Gender Minorities".