This is false, and an embarrassingly unrigorous statement to make. 1. The sex question remains on the census, and remains the same; 2. The ONS has specified that trans people can give an answer that doesn't match birth certificate. (more below) https://twitter.com/SAGE_Methods/status/1361319600231747590

3. Sex is a multi-factoral phenomenon. Most of those factors can be changed. The census has never captured some ideologically purified notion of "biological sex data". People answer in relation to the sex category that they live as, which is still meaningful data.

4. The fact that critics aren't even honest about how they have a problem with the addition of an OPTIONAL question on gender identity is deeply revealing - this is an attempt to generate outrage against trans people for 'erasing women' - something that simply isn't happening.

5. Sex and gender are conceptualised differently by different people, with variable degrees of nuance. That sex and gender as ontological concepts are not separate or separable is not a remotely new idea. Census questions are heuristics, to gather data from the general public.

6. The census does not use the word 'biological' (it simply asks 'what is your sex') - sneaking that in is significant, because it positions the purpose of the question to be at odds with its real function. It isn't a penis/vagina count. Nor a chromosome count.

7. The bottom line is, the ONS has been counting trans women as women and trans men as men for years. People who have a massive problem with trans people have noticed, and are kicking up a stick about something not remotely impacting them. See also: toilets, GRA reform.

If you're curious about the relationship between these issues and misinformation, then you might like the introduction to 'TERF Wars', a peer-reviewed collection of papers which I co-edited with @NotRightRuth + @SonjaErikainen. Available here, no pay wall: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0038026120934713

... Typo in second-last tweet, kicking up a STINK. But you probably got that.