Sexual minorities: policy context

The Equality Act 2010 is the primary legislation that protects LGB people from discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation.  The act brings together all previous anti-discrimination legislation into one place to consolidate, strengthen and simplify the law.  The nine main pieces of legislation that have merged to form the act are:

  • the Equal Pay Act 1970
  • the Sex Discrimination Act 1975
  • the Race Relations Act 1976
  • the Disability Discrimination Act 1995
  • the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003
  • the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003
  • the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006
  • the Equality Act 2006, Part 2
  • the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007

The Equality Act 2010 identifies a number of ‘protected characteristics’, characteristics that are prevented by law from being discriminated against. Sexual orientation is a protected characteristic, meaning that everyone, whether they are lesbian, gay, bisexual, heterosexual, or other, is protected from discrimination because of their sexual orientation. Gender reassignment is also a protected characteristic under the act. This means that somebody who is undergoing gender reassignment, no matter what stage of the process they are at, is protected from discrimination based on this. The other protected characteristics are race, sex, disability, age, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity and religion or belief.

The Civil Partnership Act 2004 came into force in December 2005 and grants same sex couples entering into a civil partnership similar rights and responsibilities to civil marriage.  Same sex relationships are recognised as equivalent to opposite sex relationships in Scottish legislation including the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000, the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 and the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003. In February 2014 the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Act was passed, extending the right to marry to include same sex couples. The Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill became an Act on 28 July 2020, allowing mixed sex couples to enter into a civil partnership. 

A number of significant policies have been introduced in recent years aimed at tackling issues of inequality and discrimination in Scotland. The Scottish Government provides specific information about Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) equality issues.