FPFW: ONS concede defeat!

HeraNow

Do not answer the gender question.

It is voluntary.

If you reply in any way you give substance to the idea that there is such a thing as gender.

Please ignore!

Thank you OvaHere.

From the FAQ: Question 27 asks “Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?”.

Is there ONS guidance to help me evaluate what gender I identify with? I understand it’s a voluntary question but I want to complete this in full and it is illegal to give incorrect answers. I’d quite like to know what my official, as advised by the ONS census, gender is. Or don’t the ONS define it either?

The ONS last made a submission to the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index during 2018. We do not hold a record of the submission due to staff changes since then.

ONS person, Year 2022: Hey, what happened to all that census data we collected last year? You know, everyone in England had to fill it out.
Other ONS person: Oh, that was Leslie's job, but he left 6 weeks ago, so guess we don't hold those records any more.

The gender question is voluntary so you don't have to answer it all as far as I'm aware.

Apologies if this is slightly off topic. Is there guidance on how to answer the gender question? I haven’t seen the exact phrasing of it so if someone could advise, I’d be very grateful.

What a waste of time, resources and human energy.

“This case establishes that sex is a distinct concept in law, not something shaped by how a person feels and that organisations need not worry about asking people their sex when they need to do so"

This is so important. And wouldn’t have happened without FPFW. Thank you @DoctorW for everything you do, you amazing woman !

This time last year there was a huge push on social media trying to belittle and bully and ban anyone GC, mostly because it was becoming obvious that more and more people were actually thinking about the impact of allowing people to self identify into a sex category, and the sheer numbers of women who have managed to get sunlight on what’s been happening, who have challenged organisations to ensure they are applying the law correctly, who share the stories of others, and who are always pushing back against the patriarchy is just incredible.

And I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that it’s largely down to the conversations that have taken /are taking place on this board, so cheers to all of you wonderful women of FWR!

This is amazing news, it’s made me well up. Thank you so much FPFW.

It does nobody any good to collect data that isn’t factually correct- not women, not trans people, not anyone. This is a great achievement.

Stonewall no longer meets the public benefit requirements of a charity. Unfortunately the Charity Commission is an absolutely toothless organisation that seems incapable of stripping an organisation of charitable status.

The public benefit requirement for a charity states (my bolding):

For an organisation to be a charity, each of its purposes must be for the public benefit. The Charities Act 2011 calls this the ‘public benefit requirement’.

The public benefit requirement has two aspects:
The ‘benefit aspect’

To satisfy this aspect:

a purpose must be beneficial - this must be in a way that is identifiable and capable of being proved by evidence where necessary and which is not based on personal views
<strong>any detriment or harm that results from the purpose (to people, property or the environment) must not outweigh the benefit - this is also based on evidence and not on personal views</strong>

The ‘public aspect’

To satisfy this aspect the purpose must:

benefit the public in general, or <strong>a sufficient section of the public - what is a ‘sufficient section of the public’ varies from purpose to purpose</strong>
not give rise to more than incidental personal benefit - personal benefit is ‘incidental’ where (having regard both to its nature and to its amount) it is a necessary result or by-product of carrying out the purpose

Just seen on twitter:

Just had a very interesting conversation with the ONS- they are investigating 3 TRAs for fraudulently filling in the sex question on the census and inciting others to do the same.
They are escalating my complaint immediately

I think there are plenty of screenshots - people like Paris Lees, Mermaids, Shon, the usual crowd - I wonder what the ONS can or will do about this....

"ONS backs down" nice! Haven't read full article as paywall.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/17/ons-backs-sex-census-legal-dispute/

Great news. Thank you to all.

Just adding this from Sarah Phillimore via twitter showing shot of Census 2021 employee training materials that misrepresent the Equality Act - I wonder if they have changed their materials or flagged their error up to the thousands of census employees who they have just taken on?!!

twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/1372176750369726465

And on a similar note it appears Twitter have banned someone for correctly stating the law as now accepted by the ONS
…
so much for flagging up fake news - they're deleting the actual law.

Thank goodness there isn't a war on women or a mass of pressing political and social dangers around misinformation and disinformation or this suppression would be very disturbing.

twitter.com/fairplaywomen/status/1372259391458705409

so much for flagging up fake news - they're deleting the actual law.

Whilst the key thing is that the ONS have had to bow to the law and biology, it as @gardenbird48 says, infuriating that people are allowed to continue to passing on incorrect advice, recommending flouting the law or flaunting their own law-breaking with no hint of any repercussion.

Thing is TRA are putting themselves at a disadvantage. If we know how many people have a different gender identity from their sex we’ll know how many trans people there are and that can be used ti plan better healthcare & support for trans people. You know the support they’re always claiming there isn’t enough of!

But if a TW puts female as sex and as gender identity it’ll look like there are lots more women and so money will be allocated on health services such as maternity, cervical screening, mammograms etc which is great for women but not so much for TW

I do not understand why they don’t want accurate data about numbers. It’s like a bunch of teenagers thinking they are sticking it to The Man 🤦🏻‍♀️

A state body has agreed in a court order that a reference to sex in legislation means either birth certificate or grc. You can’t alter what people do on the Census but it will be harder for any department to introduce self id by stealth again.

There’s something called ‘Digital Preservation’ and EVERY organisation should have a Digital Preservation Policy. Many institutions have them such as the Parliamentary Archives, The National Archives, The National Records of Scotland, The Public Records Office of Northern Ireland plus many U.K. Universities (including Warwick, Glasgow, Durham, Cambridge) Banks, Libraries etc...

It’s not just about having ‘back-ups’ it’s about preserving an organisation’s digitally created documentation so that it can be located, retrieved, accessed and preserved for future use. One of the main reasons for having a robust Digital Preservation Policy is that an institution can be accountable and protect itself from reputational damage should anyone challenge them on details of policy implementation, finance etc... It’s just basic house-keeping and means nobody can just pop stuff in the shredder and go ooops! we’ve lost that vital document. I’m beyond shocked that an organisation as important as the ONS has put up such a feeble excuse as ‘staff changes’ to explain why they don’t have this critically important documentation.

As someone has said, if they are paying third parties for services out of the public purse then there should be complete transparency. Where is their accountability in this?

I’ve seen lots of trans people on social media saying they’re going to answer the sex question on the Census based on self ID anyway - so has the legal case actually changed anything?

There’s a gender question too, so I guess if trans people complete that, there will still be data on how many trans people there are?

I think charities receiving significant government funding should have to comply with FOI for the portion of their activities funded by that money

Especially when they're trying to have such a pervasive influence! There really should be more monitoring of charity activity all round. It's anti-democratic for a special interest group, supported by huge amounts of public money, to go about changing legislation (that severely impacts half the population) by stealth.