The census data released this week added to the list of anomalies. Muslims are almost three times more likely than non-religious people to identify as transgender. Black people are four times more likely than white people to identify as transgender. In every case, the census results contradict what we know from other data. For example, referrals to the Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service include far more white and non-religious youth than the overall population of the same age. By contrast, those census results are what would be expected if a number of people with poor English were confused by the question and inadvertently classified themselves as transgender.
The ONS has also finally this week released customised data showing the tabulation of gender identity by proficiency in English. As predicted, those who speak English ‘not well’ or ‘not well at all’ were most likely to be counted as transgender: 2.2 per cent of them, compared to 0.4 per cent of those whose main language is English (or Welsh in Wales). Adults whose main language is not English made up only 10 per cent of the overall population, but according to the census they contributed 29 per cent of the transgender numbers.
How did the ONS manage to produce such implausible data on gender identity? In ‘a case study of policy capture’, the statisticians were guided by lobby groups like Stonewall. It is surely no coincidence that the gender question replicated, with minor variation, Stonewall’s definition of ‘cisgender’: ‘Someone whose gender identity is the same as the sex they were assigned at birth’.
www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-does-the-census-say-there-are-more-trans-people-in-newham-than-brighton/