Sunday Times - Sex question catapults census into trans war

The sex question should be: “What is your birth sex?” (do away with the assigned/observed equivocation) and provide additional guidance in the notes for intersex/DSD individuals about which box to tick. Record gender separately.

I think putting gender critical as a religion is an excellent idea
I don't think being GC is the religion. I think the trans ideology should fall under a belief system.
Being GC is adhering to fact.

If this goes ahead I shall be putting variable depending on mood and zeitgeist as my answer

This is perfect, I'd like to do this too. Or I might just write something like: I don't understand how to answer this next to the question on sex. Because I don't, if you can self-ID there should be far more options.

I really don’t understand why they don’t want accurate info on this. Surely transpeople might be interested in how many transpeople there are? Why can’t we just have a separate box for trans woman, trans man, gender fluid or whatever?!

Good question oncemorewithfeeling99 (although I wouldn’t say you need to consider it any challenge to your personal liberal-ness or not if you happen to disagree that human beings are capable of changing sex. It’s just how things are, like gravity or the tides. No human being can change sex and that’s that.

The short answer to this (in some people’s genderist terms) is if TWAW then why is a second box to indicate transgender or non binary status needed, because TWAW.
So if the form implied that TWANW but in fact TWATW, then that would not be sufficiently validating and therefore not acceptable.

Also we have the Gender Recognition Act which gives the UK the a legal fiction that the holder of a GRCertificate is now (legally) of the opposite sex than what they were born as. So if you’ve got a GRC you might also want to tick the (say) W box rather than TW box, even though biologically you’d be fine to be ticking M box..

We have to find a form of words that is understandable and acceptable to everyone that allows people to fill out their sex accurately, and their gender status if they want to add that, but I can’t work out what that wording would be because there is such fundamental category-level disagreement about what words mean.

your sex is your sex, regardless of how desperate you are to be a different sex, you can't be and must answer honestly

This is the absolute heart of it. This, to the extremists, is pure transphobia. The idea is to enable someone to never encounter any information or boundary suggesting to them that their sex hasn't changed in line with their preferences: what they say is what they are, and anything that ever provides that jolt back to reality is harmful/wrong.

The problem is that other people and society have needs and rights too. There has to be the line as PP says above that says, transition is great, transition is fine, it will be protected from discrimination as other protected characteristics are, but the boundary is that no one can change sex and you must be honest about that sex, and in some situations that truthful birth sex is the deciding factor. Third spaces are an option to facilities for birth sex in the few situations where it matters. Confidentiality and data protection is in place for those whose birth sex is highly sensitive information to them. And support and help needs to be provided to people who struggle to tolerate the reality of their birth sex. That reality unfortunately isn't going to go away and the falsifying of legal documents and statistics cannot be an answer.

I hope they have a big enough box for gender identity otherwise I'm going to have to write very small to explain my feelings on my 'gender identity'.

I really don’t understand why they don’t want accurate info on this. Surely transpeople might be interested in how many transpeople there are?

The loudest activists, including those behind the original GRA, want everyone to stop recording sex. The ultimate goal is to replace sex with gender identity everywhere.

If this goes ahead I shall be putting variable depending on mood and zeitgeist as my answer

I really don’t understand why they don’t want accurate info on this. Surely transpeople might be interested in how many transpeople there are? Why can’t we just have a separate box for trans woman, trans man, gender fluid or whatever?! I consider myself pretty liberal and tolerant but this stuff just boggles my brain!

Scrap the census, as its rendered pointless. All stats based on it will be inaccurate unless sex is answered accurately. As in, your sex is your sex, regardless of how desperate you are to be a different sex, you can't be and must answer honestly or face consequences for lying.

From that article it seems that the census already allows lying, so really whats the point.

The govt needs holding to account on this bizarre falsehood.

On now, 8.40am onwards.

Nick Ferrari is supposed to be covering this on LBC this morning. Haven’t heard it yet, but the whole programme will be available on catch up later so I will try and post the timing.

I am glad this had been raised via a letter to the Times but the reality is the Telegraph had a news item about it some time ago, and there have been at least 2 threads on here.

So my worry is that all these inroads into the accurate recording of biological sex keep happening. There's limited coverage in MSM. mumsnet has a thread or 2, and then ...

I appreciate that a lot of this is the result of well coordinated lobbying by Stonewall and others for some 15 to 20 years. And we are all playing catchup.

But somehow with reaction to the tsunami of trans culture, which is just rolling relentlessly along, happening in a piecemeal way we need to somehow combine and make more visible.

So much of the self id culture is now entrenched.

(I went with someone to an open day about collecting memories and memorablial from WWII and as part of collecting information they asked the "gender" of the person concerned. Maybe it will turn about Churchill was a transman!)

I welcome the letter's proposal. Some services, e.g. smear tests, are needed by sex and we need accurate recording of sex as observed at birth in order to plan those services. A separate optional question about gender identity will help to plan provision for transition services, benefiting trans people. Everyone wins if the proposal in the letter is adopted.

It’s important the government has sound population-level data on which to plan services. This letter is a positive development and good to see such a wide range of signatories.

Do women tend to fill in the census for their household? Just generally thinking about any protest, and wondered if surely it would be larger numbers - as my entire household could identify as "whatever protest decision we go with" if I filled it out.
Rather than eg 1x spoiled vote, we'd have 2/3/4/5x mysterious identities.

Re planning future services, what about the ever increasing numbers of girls identifying as transmen and non binary? Are the government absolutely certain they'll all have hysterectomies or become infertile through hormones? Otherwise planning for maternity care is surely screwed. I gave birth in a hospital stretched beyond capacity already. I wasn't turned away but had to labour a long while in an unsuitable room, waiting for another woman to finish. It wasn't the most reassuring thing to go through.

I don't understand how anyone is allowed to change the sex on their birth certificate

Nor me. Sex actually matters in terms of delivering public services. Allowing people to lie about it on the census renders the question pointless.

It would be easy enough to ask 'what is your sex as determined at conception and observed at birth' with a big fine for lying about it and then have a separate, optional question about 'gender identity' for the minority who belief in such things.

Batshit. There is no point whatsoever in the immense amount of time and beaurocracy and money spent on gathering census info if the info itself can be fictional. Destroys the whole point of doing it in the first place and renders it worthless. Rather like letting males into single sex spaces for females.

A decision is going to have to be taken: is it more important to signal absolute unconditional enabling of someone's subjective sense of special self over and above objective reality without ever interrupting this, or to have usable data about society. Because both can't happen at the same time.

What sex was on your original birth certificate must be a legally required question. Followed by all means by 'what gender do you identify' (list however many hundreds etc) and any other qualifiers. Otherwise ffs stop bothering doing the census at all. If it's fine for anyone to write fictional info or preferred info in to the census as opposed to real info then it has to be fine for everyone to do so, and I am not spending my time filling in a form accurately when the outcome will be a total waste of everyone's time and tax payer money.

Bit facetious of me but maybe the census could ask whether you can pass the "Chair Challenge".

Apparently females find it much easier than men:

@MurrayBlackburnMackenzie
I’ve read the link. Thanks. How would you get around GRC’s? Or fantasists? I can imagine this will infuriate TRA’s, won’t it?

Sorry - didn't see this had already been shared

@LongLiveThePenis now there’s an idea!

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sex-question-catapults-census-into-trans-war-vq29nfvsg?shareToken=b4530fe2d11592721a360adc8aef34f7

InfiniteSheldon
I actually think we should boycott the census. This renders is meaningless and officially removed woman from the dictionary. I don't think we should collude
I agree but isnt there a huge fine if you dont fill it in?