FFS

[TittyGolightly]

Just completed our staff survey.

[UpstartCrow]

Assigned To Be. What a lovely turn of phrase.

[soapboxqueen]

Tick all of the boxes

[UpstartCrow]

Someone got paid actual money for writing that.

[loveyouradvice]

I find it seriously frightening.... how can so many organisations believe this is a good way to go... believe that sex is assigned rather than just a given (in almost all cases)....

[PlectrumElectrum]

I had similar - 'do you identify as male/female/other' - took the opportunity to rant but doubt it made any difference.

[TittyGolightly]

I have serious rage over it.

This survey has gone to 78,000 people.

[glenthebattleostrich]

I suppose at least they acknowledge that gender and sex are different. But yes, assigned at birth FFS.

[CircleSquareCircleSquare]

Do they also ask questions about your sex as well as your gender? I would email to ask how they will provide sex based provisions across your company (not mentioning toilets) when they only ask about gender.

[TittyGolightly]

No. This is the only question.

[BeyondSceptical]

If it's equality based and they aren't even asking your sex (even under the wishy washy "gender"), then there's a problem - how can they analyse equality stats without knowing?

[TittyGolightly]

Just checked the transgender policy. It’s a few years old, and refers to legal entitlement based on GRC, but the section about changing facilities, showers and toilets is .

Talks about the appropriate time for a trans person to use the other sex’s facilities as being the time of “the change of social gender”.

Should anyone object, separate facilities should be made available for the objectors, not the person undergoing gender reassignment.

[Ihuntmonsters]

So they are only collecting information on trans status? Seems a bit odd, but I'd rather be asked that question and be able to tick 'prefer not to say' than be asked about what sex/gender I 'identify with' and have no option I can tick at all even though I would like the data collectors to record me as woman/female as I think accurate information on the sex break down (by which I mean male/female) is important in many circumstances.

[TransplantsArePlants]

I would have crossed out 'assigned to be' and written 'observed to be' or just 'are'

[Theinconstantgardener]

At my work we had training on equality by Equate. It was quite good. However at the end we were asked to fill out an evaluation form which asked if my gender was male or female. I wrote my SEX is female I do not have a gender. Gender is a social construct consisting of oppressive stereotypes. The HR manager sitting next to me was watching me write and asked me what I meant so I told him. Frankly Im surprised I still have a job as I work for a very woke college!

[Ihuntmonsters]

But the 'assigned to be' is only part of the problem, you have to believe in gender identity in order to respond. Plus the answer logically is surely always 'no'. Sex, whether considered to be assigned or observed or anything else (so long as the dictionary definition of sex itself is being used and not some fantasy) is not the same thing as 'gender identity' whatever that actually means.

Many surveys are electronic so you can't change the wording, plus it's a bit futile in big surveys as they won't really be read, just scanned and the data entered into a system (spreadsheet, database etc) with the questions prepopulated, so your tick will be taken for as answering whatever question has been asked. It's probably better with company type surveys just not to complete either that question or the survey as a whole. Low respondent rates compromise the data quality as a whole, although as said previously that's a bit of an own goal if you think it's important that demographic data is collected.

[TittyGolightly]

I’m a senior HR person.

Alas as an online firm couldn’t alter it.

[Maryzsnewaccount]

I had to make a new account on mn this morning.

Did you all know they ask for gender? The answers are "male" "female" and "prefer not to say".

I do not have a gender so cannot choose male or female. But I'm sure as hell not choosing "prefer not to say" because I do want to "say" - I want to yell from the rooftops that it's a ridiculous fucking question.

[TittyGolightly]

Fom

[TittyGolightly]

Form!

[R0wantrees]

Someone at a recent party was saying that they had been given the same question on a form for a club (?) that their pre-school child recently joined.

[MsSensibleWay]

It's not plain English is it. I can imagine a great many people who don't particularly follow current affairs or know anything about the whole trans debate looking at that question and thinking WTF?!
I'd be more than a little cross with that question as I don't have a gender identity.

[ErrolTheDragon]

I had to make a new account on mn this morning.
Did you all know they ask for gender? The answers are "male" "female" and "prefer not to say".

Yes, I've mentioned this a few times myself, and commented to the effect that it's ridiculous that a parenting site fgs, which absolutely depends on biology and people DTD for its very existence, is using a mealy-mouthed euphemism. I assume it's meant as a euphemism for sex; if they actually wanted to know people's gender they're 70-odd options short.

[NotTerfNorCis]

After all this time I'm still confused by this.

Do trans people want to be the opposite sex or the opposite gender? (Yes I know gender is a social construct.)

[MsSensibleWay]

I'm wondering though, presumably it's a question to find out whether you're transgender or not rather than a question to determine your sex?

[Maryzsnewaccount]

There's no "want to be" about it any more. They ARE, apparently both. That is, if you believe in gender which most of us don't.

So male bodied people who have XY chromosomes, were born boys and are now men have decided they are in some way different from all the other XY people who were born as boys and are now men. They are allowed to come onto Mumsnet and announce that they are 100% biologically female, that they have always been, that they are women in every sense. More than that, they are allowed to call people bigoted and transphobic and tell everyone that we are all being nasty to them purely because they are a woman with a slight physical difference.

As justification for this they are showing proof that they are taking on (or at least some of them are) some characteristics that are stereotypically associated with the opposite sex (growing their hair and liking pink and "feminising" their voices).

We are all meant to nod along and pretend it all makes sense. I can't tell if they actually believe it themselves, or whether they just think if they shout loud enough we'll all give in and agree.