Fairplay for women take ONS to judicial review for redefining sex in census

Cattenberg Agree it is crazy. Also statistically some of those people will die before the date of the census ?

So glad they've nearly got to 95k. Amazing someone donated £5k.
I just despair at the whole thing, all the more because most people really won't understand the intricacy of it or get why it's a problem.

I was a Census Collector during the 2011 census. The involvement of arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin was highly controversial and surely not worth the aggravation.

This is worse. Completing the census days in advance? Why? All this will do is create unnecessary errors. And the questions on sex and gender obscure TWO protected characteristics.

A local historian once gave a talk about the my area using information from a 19th century census. The Census Collectors were certainly thorough back then, even if some of them weren’t that hot on spelling. They weren’t sure how to record one man who’d stayed in a hotel on census night, as a parish boundary ran across his bed. They eventually decided to record him under the parish where his head was.

Now we’re in the 21st century, we have, “oh, just guess where you’ll be in two or three weeks time. You’re not allowed to lie, exactly, but there are different versions of the truth and they’re all equally valid”.

Options -

1. FPFWs action succeeds, red faces at the ONS, delayed but good data. Or at least better.

1. FPFW get nowhere. Bunch of nonsense stats re: trans come out. VFM review concludes millions of pounds wasted. Trans lobby jubilant even though we Still don't know how many trans people there are.

I give up

As to why.. this thread has details (don’t read if you value your blood pressure..)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4179321-The-Census-had-unofficialy-launched-a-month-ahead-of-official-date-knowing-that-there-is-a-legal-challenge-to-its-validity

ONS really are being slippery fuckers. The point about trans kids in the screenshot above is important too - apparently there is no gender identity q for u16s so any parent with a trans child is going to register them as either birth sex or parent-id gender with no way of sorting that out in the data.

Surely it is problematic in the data when children of 1 sex turn into a child of the other sex in the data?

I got my code in the post today. So people are definitely receiving them already

It's not clear from the website when codes are released, but they do say: If you've responded before 21 March and things have changed, you can contact us to let us know, which does imply that early submissions are possible and allowed.

My understanding is that you need a code, which aren't released yet

The census website says:
All households should complete the census on Sunday 21 March 2021 or as soon as possible after.
So why are they letting people submit early?
census.gov.uk/help/getting-started

It's live already?

What about people whose kids live with separated parents? How do they know which parent's house they will be in on 21st March?

I smell deceit

It seems at least one person has already made a point of filling in the census based on self-identified sex and not biological sex.

to everyone

Hearing will be on 9th March.

🥳 thank you Dr Nic and everyone involved including donating.
I feel like I'd have more energy to direct to worthy causes (and spare money!) if it wasn't for just maintaining the status quo for women's rights. Sometimes it feels like we're not advancing, just pushing back on having them eroded.
Still, together we make a difference 🥂

It's passed it's stretch!
Thanks to an anonymous pledge of £5000!

It's passed it's stretch!

Date is set... Tues 9th March

mobile.twitter.com/fairplaywomen/status/1366822148963241989

twitter.com/fairplaywomen/status/1366727441759240196?s=20

If we exceed £90k then we will ring fence anything above that amount to be used for any future legal action, on this matter or other aspects of our work.

Bumping.

Harvesting is ending tomorrow!!!

See I dispute the idea that this should be only decided by the relative weight of various interest groups. This is what got ONS into this mess. After all other trans interest groups in other country lobby for a sex registered/assigned at birth coupled with a GI question (this is what the canada census is doing actually). -

The problem with the ONS manipulating the situation so the Census goes ahead regardless, is that they will be accused of a lack of integrity in their data at every turn, thereafter.

Agreed. The lack of integrity and transparency at a time when we have an infodemic of misinformation and disinformation will undermine their otherwise outstanding achievements during this pandemic. It will taint their reputation in a way that will harm them in the future. And it won't be enough.

It’s been easier for organisations to roll back on women’s rights than to stand for a balanced approach.

If only WEP or any large women's organisation had not been captured - why were there no women's representatives with enough clout to give the ONS pause to consider the relative power bases and other issues?

I am hoping the court will indicate that it is not entirely happy the the ONS’s behaviour. That will give ammunition for us to raise complaints include asking if the Nolan principles have been breached.

Part of the problem we have been facing is the intense pressure the aggressive TRA have placed on some organisations. It’s been easier for organisations to roll back on women’s rights than to stand for a balanced approach. Now the women are pushing back hard and you can see the cracks appearing. Organisations have no sound justification for their behaviour other than, we didn’t want to get shouted at. Unfortunately the only option we now have is to make the impact of ignoring women’s rights painful enough that they stop doing it. If that means that we have to call for individual resignations if the judge is critical of the ONS’s behaviour so be it.