The UK’s National Statistician and head of the ONS, Professor Ian Diamond, has confirmed that the question in the Census “what is your sex” should be answered according to someone’s legal sex, and not a self-declared gender identity. /1 https://fairplayforwomen.com/census-sex-question/
In an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today program he said:
“The question on sex is very simply your legal sex, there is then subsequently a question later which asks people over 16 the identity of their gender.
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“The question on sex is very simply your legal sex, there is then subsequently a question later which asks people over 16 the identity of their gender.
/2
This marks a change from 2011 guidance on how to answer “what is your sex”.
In 2011 trans people were told they could answer this according to how they identify. Since then an additional question has been added to the Census that allows people to record identity separately /3
In 2011 trans people were told they could answer this according to how they identify. Since then an additional question has been added to the Census that allows people to record identity separately /3
We and others have argued that the sex question must once again mean the sex you were born /4
Stonewall have argued against this. They want trans people to be able to effectively record gender identity twice; once in the sex question and again in the ‘gender identity’ question. This conflation of sex and gender identity means that information about sex will be lost /5
Sex-disaggregated data is vital to understand differences between male & female people. It’s important for equality monitoring to identify when & how people are being treated unfairly because of their sex. Data on sex is used to make sure public policy works for women & girls /6
When sex and gender identity gets conflated meaning lost and false claims are made. Here the BBC gets it wrong about an apparent rise in women sexually abusing children /7 https://fairplayforwomen.com/sex_data_wrong/
Police now record crimes according to gender identity not sex. So ‘female’ crimes include males who ID as women /8 https://fairplayforwomen.com/police_record_males_as_female/
Why bother to collect data that can’t be used for its intended purpose or claims to be something it isn’t. Bad data is worse than having no data at all. Statistics should inform not confuse /9 https://fairplayforwomen.com/stop-conflating-sex-and-gender-identity/