Local council survey - "are you female including transgender female?"

[Kit19]

my local council has put out a survey with the options as

female including transgender female
male including transgender male
non binary/gender fluid
prefer not to say

so theoretically the people recorded as female could include a majority of people born male and male could include a majority of people born female

does the equality act require them to record sex? and also isnt a person only legally able to identify as the opposite sex if they have a GRC?

and yes my council has clearly been stonewalled....

[sleepyhead]

What do they even mean? Do they mean a female person who is transgender (i.e a transman) or do they mean a male person and think that it's "more inclusive" to pretend they're female (i.e a transwoman?).

It's a total mess. I hope sex isn't actually important to the survey results, although I'm assuming not due to the non-collection of sex information by including non-binary.

And if it isn't important to collect information about sex, why are they asking at all?

[BernardsarenotalwaysSaints]

It's not Warwickshire is it? They have the same options.

[exexpat]

I just had a yougov survey with a question on gender, giving options as cisgender, transgender, non-binary, other or prefer not to answer. They gave explanations, eg cisgender means you "identify with the gender assigned at birth". No mention of sex anywhere.

I ticked other, but in the box at the end of the survey said that my sex was female, and explained my issues with the 'cisgender' label. This crap is getting everywhere.

[andyoldlabour]

There is no mention of transgender here. That local council needs to have its thinking checked. They really should not be including transwomen in the category "female" or the term "transgender woman".

www.thefreedictionary.com/female+person

www.lexico.com/en/definition/female

[SudokuBook]

I saw a link on fb the other day about a local college offering decent free course, I started to sign up until I got to the “gender” question where the options were “female - includes trans woman” and “male - includes trans man”.


Nope.

[Kit19]

i have no idea sleepy - its a complete dogs breakfast! its not really important as regards what the survey is about luckily but ffs

no its not Bernard - its got to be a stonewall thing hasnt it, telling local authorities how to record gender (not sex of course heaven forfend)

[dayoftheclownfish]

Isn’t this illegal under GDPR, collevting data not relevant to a protected characteristic?

[Aesopfable]

Isn’t this illegal under GDPR, collevting data not relevant to a protected characteristic?

Lots of data isn’t about protected characteristics but in order to collect data there has to be a legitimate purpose to do so.

[Barracker]

Are you female including male?
Or male including female?

[BernardsarenotalwaysSaints]

Yep.

It really annoyed me as the one I filled out was about school transport policy so it wasn't information that was needed anyway.

[TheThirdPigWasTooClever]

What is the purpose of the survey?
To find out what sexist bollocks a person follows? Do you read hello magazine? Do you like to wear makeup?
How an earth could this gender nonsense be relevant to a survey? Especially a council one. I really want to know what it’s about!

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

What is this survey about? What kind of information are they trying to gather? It's annoying regardless, but extra stupid if the information they're trying to gather is such that sex actually matters.

[Kit19]

It’s a survey about volunteering during Covid19

[Kit19]

My cup runneth over today. Just got a dept of transport survey through the post with this gem

Which of these do I consider myself to be? For godsake!!

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

So they're going to get distorted results, because female people tend to volunteer at higher levels than male people in general.

[Kit19]

Yes Kittens. I assume they want to know which sex/ages (they asked that too) volunteered more so they can think of ways to target those outside those ranges

So they’re defeating their own purpose

[donquixotedelamancha]

Surely a 'transgender female' is a trans man?

[TheThirdPigWasTooClever]

It’s entirely irrelevant.
I’d feedback to the council.., pointing out the obvious.
The more people speak up, the more they’ll listen.

[TheThirdPigWasTooClever]

Actually pointless may be better. What is the point in deliberately collecting inaccurate information?

[MoltoAgitato]

The GDPR angle might be useful. Legislation is clear that sex is a protected category. You could collect sex information to deal with responsibilities under public sector equality duty. No reason to be collecting gender bullshit, is there?

[bishopgiggles]

"Male / Female / Think of yourself in another way" is currently topping my list of all-time favourite "we don't really know what to write here" phrases

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

I feel that "think of yourself another way" needs a little box for people to write in what they think they are. Today I shall identify as a large potted plant.