Work recognising gender but not sex

[ladybee28]

My company is about to publish a page on the website on D&I, to great fanfare.

Gender identity is represented, but no mention of sex.

When they initially sent the survey round for us all to complete, I asked that they include a question on sex as well as gender. Those results seem to have disappeared, and they're asking for feedback before it goes up on the site.

Do I say anything?

Urgh.

Not at you. At them.

I would point out, if you want to challenge and it's not going to create hassle for you, that sex is the legally protected characteristic and gender is not a word with a clear legal definition.

Something should be said, it's really not ok to omit one of the protected characteristics. I think I'd gauge what to say depending on whether there are significant issues around diversity and inclusion for either or both sexes in your company.

Is this a company that has unequal numbers of male /female employees in any particular role or area? Has there been any instances of sexual harassment? Perhaps ask them how they plan to deal with those sorts of issues in the future if they can't identify males from females. Trans men or non binary people can still suffer from discrimination on the basis of being female - they may go on maternity leave & be bypassed for a promotion, for example. That would be unrelated to their gender identity.

@AnExcellentWalker we only have two men in the whole company...

Oop, posted too soon.

But yes, definitely unequal numbers of men and women!

It just seems odd to me that they asked the question in the survey (after prompting from me) and then are choosing not to publish the results of that question online...

It's not really clear from your OP of the exact context, but if it's anything to do with the Equality Act, then gender identity doesn't feature whereas sex does. You probably know that already.

I guess if it's D&I then gender identity is more of a "trendy" diversity topic. But it sounds like the company is clearly not very diverse when it comes to sex, so maybe that's something they should address before considering gender identity?!