Protected Characteristics - a reflection on a great event

On 8^th October 2025, leaders from churches and mission agencies gathered in London for a day to consider the Equality Act’s “protected characteristics” and to consider just how protected they are. We were grateful to the Christian Medical Fellowship for hosting us.

Roy Magara from Magara Law and Mark Mason from Mark Mason Employment Law - both employment lawyers and members of the Global Connections network - guided us through the day, providing us with information and facilitating discussions and answering questions from delegates.

During the course of the day, we covered the following areas:

• What the protected characteristics are – age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation
• Who has the protection of the Equality Act – mainly employees and applicants for employment
• Different types of discrimination – direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and harassment
• Reasonable adjustments for disability – including a focus on neurodivergence
• Assisting employees experiencing symptoms of menopause
• How to manage the performance of an employee experiencing symptoms of menopause or with a neurodivergence that makes it difficult for them to perform to the standard expected – perhaps as a result of delayed processing, sensory issues or difficulty concentrating
• When is it legitimate to say that the person appointed to a role must be a Christian?
• How do we define “Christian” and whether someone meets the requirement to be a Christian – including subscribing to statements of faith and asking for references from church leaders
• The narrow “organised religion” exemption that allows employers to place requirements relating to sex, sexual orientation, gender and marriage on employees in a very small number of roles. While it may be justifiable to require a person in a role to be a Christian, we discussed how that doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be justifiable to require that person to take a particular position and commit to a particular way of life that is consistent with the organisation’s views on matters such as marriage and sexuality.
• Whether to have a document – either as part of the statement of faith or a separate document – setting out the organisation’s position on matters relating to sex, sexual orientation, gender and marriage and, if so, which employees would be required to commit to the organisation’s position.

Some of the key points delegates said they would think about and discuss with colleagues, managers and trustees (and that we also encourage you to consider) included:

• Reviewing job descriptions to check if the need for the postholder to be a Christian was clear from the duties listed in the job description
• Reviewing the organisation’s position on matters relating to sex, sexual orientation, gender and marriage – and whether there is a need to state that position and ask employees to commit to it
• Reviewing how employees experiencing menopause symptoms could be supported in the workplace

We hope the day was useful for those in attendance and that this summary might provoke some thoughts and discussion among readers who were not able to join us in London. We hope to run future sessions on these and other employment law topics in the future so be sure to sign up for finance & governance forum updates if you would like to be kept in the loop.