Tuesday 9th March - could be a big day

A popular story teller on twitter. Does it diminish his message?

Firstly, the UK Statistics Authority (of which ONS is the executive office) is a non-ministerial department, meaning that ministers don't play a role in its decision making. UKSA is only accountable to Parliament. This places a huge responsibility on civil servants as they are solely responsible for the policy decisions that are made, some of which, such as this, clearly have political consequences. This is different to a ministerial dept where decisions are made by ministers who are accountable to Parliament AND voters. It means that adherence to the Civil Service Code is all the more important. It also means that Parliament has a particular duty to scrutinise because there is no ministerial layer of scrutiny - so where is Parliament on this issue? The last time UKSA gave evidence to Parliament on sex in the Census was in 2019 I think, and the Parliamentary debate on the Census order last year (right in the middle of the first wave of the pandemic) didn't explore what the sex question meant (more time was spent discussing Cornish national identity). The meaning of the sex question did not crystallise until the guidance was published.

Secondly it highlights the difficulty of bringing together a coherent policy position across govt on a cross-cutting issue like this where there are multiple policy domains in which self-ID policy can be set by stealth via operational decisions that are not governed by statute. Having finally staked out a position on legal sex self-ID, Liz Truss is in a pretty difficult position because she doesn't have direct levers over the departments where decisions to adopt or endorse sex self-ID for operational purposes take place. If her ministerial colleagues responsible for those departments don't agree with her on this and don't set clear direction for their departments I think her avenues to get a coherent approach across departments are pretty limited.

In which case, feminists are right to adopt a legal strategy, as it seems that the courts are currently the most effective way to scrutinise decision making. Although fighting this case by case is piecemeal, slow and expensive.

I thought that RS Archer guy was a writer? Embellishing a true story to increase its appeal, about Brexit? As entertainment.

[quote GAHgamel]**@DisillusionedTech* and @EmbarrassingAdmissions* you might want to take that archer_rs twitter thread with a pinch of salt:
twitter.com/cloudtrapeze/status/1369383322200203277[/quote]
Thanks for flagging!
Will do ffs fiction doesn’t help anyone

Yes please, I’d like to email my MP about it too (although I don’t have much hope that she will do anything, she is typically useless on this issue).

Thank you. I'd like to write to my MP as well.

I’ll post email here when I’ve written it, in case anyone wants to crib.

@Xpectations great work. Do you have a source for the cases? I'd like to email my MP too but am lacking knowledge on the cases to reference.

Surely you are living as the sex you are, irrespective of how you identify. You can only be the sex that you are, so what else can you do?

And the EHRC was an official stakeholder on the sex question and RECOMMENDED they ask for lived sex. Literally everyone has abandoned sex as a material reality.

So the EHCR are asking for 'lived sex', what's that? The sex you are or the sex you'd like to be? Seems to me this is indeed Self-ID by they back door. Gender identity will morph into 'lived sex / legal sex' then the men will be women and they'll have been shoved into our single sex spaces, sports and services.

@Defaultname

The BBC have "They argued this could potentially have the effect of "distorting" the data gathered in the census." though I don't see what purpose the inverted commas serve.

Yes the inverted commas around 'distorting' stood out to me too, why are they needed??

Isn't this a basic admission that the ONS have a political bias with preferential treatment to their chosen political groups?

Is this just ok now?

The Trans support group Chrysalis posted this on the 23rd Feb, they were given a "Special briefing" on the changes. Wonder if those on the ONS list of their special groups they only communicate with have been told the info in the brief has been deemed illegal?

One of the covid 19 sets of regulations used parent rather than mother in legislation about being present at births I remember from a month or two back. I can see why they do it as some people change their gender by law to male but give birth but the state does need to be careful to consider pros and cons of some of these things.

I did, on the webchat with the minister for safeguarding, ask how depts own safeguarding practice protected them against capture by lobby groups. I was deleted.

Really, Michelle?
What a shame, I think Victoria Atkins would have appreciated your question.
Policy capture is a recognised problem in all kinds of public bodies and policy areas, it's not a conspiracy theory.

The MN webchats with politicians are such a wasted opportunity.

I think its a mixture of things. First a text book case in institutionalised sexism so no one spoke up when ONS agreed to a set of policies around data collection (if that happened - emails have been lost ). Second an understandable wish to double down rather than admit you are wrong; this leads to campaigners against self id being treated as trouble makers to be ignored rather than people with a point. Last is that the language needed to express the points clearly was treated as transphobic, so making the points was hard

Seeing the new official government 2021 census ad poster which says ‘it’s all about healthcare’ as it’s strapline wasn’t good for my blood pressure.
If it was all about healthcare they’d be trying to collect accurate statistics not self identifying validatory ones.

I know someone very senior at the ONS and am not a bit surprised. The last time I saw him, the first thing he said to me was “I hear you hate trans people now, Sophocles”. Based, I kid you not, solely on the fact that a mutual friend had gone nuclear over the solitary comment that I’d made at that time on my social media in my own name on the topic which was “I don’t like the word T*RF”. Denunciation followed, and this guy decided without having heard anything from me that this was sufficient evidence of my bigotry.

He is your typical lefty bro. Alive to any social injustice with a massive blind spot for misogyny. He’s by no means rare. There’s also the concept of the “fachidiot”, which is someone who is an absolute expert in their chosen field, but who lacks any breadth of knowledge, so completely clueless across other domains. Some data people are interested in the data in terms of the purity and beauty of manipulating it (weird, but horses for courses ). Others are very interested in using it to present points of view, and to advance particular agendas, and from what I’ve seen you’ll find as many of them in the ONS as the first type.

So I have no difficulty at all in believing that this goes to the top and all the way through.

'The government was in court backing @aons. The @cabinetofficeuk minister was an interested party and submitted papers saying they opposed granting the JR and interim order. Their barrister was in court on their behalf'

And further downthread:
'And the EHRC was an official stakeholder on the sex question and RECOMMENDED they ask for lived sex.'

Worth reading in full:
twitter.com/BluskyeAllison/status/1369560032585605123

What!!

A cabinet minister was pushing for illegal self ID? And we all know the EHRC is captured but clearly the prospect of Anne Sinnot's case hasn't dampened their determination to push for it either.

Dear lord.

Doing some urgent digging now.

This is the ONS leadership team

www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/leadershipteam

They're nearly all career civil servants or from local authorities - public bodies that were stonewalled ages ago. I expect that they were exposed to the Stonewall champions programme at a time when no one questioned any of it and since then have just continued to work on the basis that if Stonewall is telling them something it must be right

Yes - I am wondering how the senior people are being influenced

They are terrified of being named and shamed by the likes of stonewall. Mud sticks, whether it's based on the truth or not.

However case by case there is now legal judgment that can be used to help push back.

There is a huge difference between some random twitter person saying this, and your boss, or some other senior person with power over promotions, pay etc - asking you in all seriousness to go along with it

Yes - I am wondering how the senior people are being influenced.