'What is your sex?' - ONS question, I nearly fell off my chair

That really is quite fascinating. How would one be expected to answer the question re: 'organs surgically constructed or enhanced'?. It's not possible to actually make a vagina, it's just a crude superficial mock up made largely from a penis. So the enhanced organ a TW has is a penis then, yes?

I’d understood that the results would only be split eg by sex if there was a big enough cohort that individuals could not be identified. So if there was 3 women in the department but 100 women in the firm the males / female split of results wouldn’t be shown for department but would for the firm.

That looks a bit rubbish. I have a couple of questions:

Is 'non-binary' an option for 'legal sex'? I thought legal sex had to be male or female?

Under 'Patient's gender identity', rather than just 'Patient chooses not to disclose', why is there no 'Patient doesn't accept that they have a gender identity' option?

Do they not realise how fucking insulting 'cisgender' is?

Erm yes. That's the whole point of hiding in the crowd. Being able to give pertinent data whilst staying anonymous.
Now if the pertinent data is based on sex then I'm fucked.

Have to eat my own words. Whilst it was an American company doing the IT, apparently “the system design had involved “years of detailed planning by hundreds of teams from both Trusts”, and that the launch had been mapped out “to the last detail”… by doctors, by health care professionals who treat physical bodies. Creating this form that would be meaningful for 0.04% of the population but would indoctrinate every single user into thinking these categories were common and standard practice. George Orwell would understand this form of power as dominance.

I don’t agree. You can be pragmatic about it.
I’m in a this position at work and although the annual staff survey is supposedly anonymous it would be easy for managers to work out it was me being the only woman in the group.

An example of how you don’t have to be a CEO to have enormous power. Just a run of the mill IT person with an obvious agenda creating a new online form.

No. you've basically erased yourself.

🤣

👏👏👏

Meh. I'm the only female who does certain activities in my area. If I had a survey which asked for sex and then asked what role I played, I'd typically lie on the sex question (or the role, depends) as I very well could be immediately identified by some.

There's more to life and everyone has a story... I'm sure highly skilled statisticians can deal with some noise in their data.

It doesn't even have would rather not say as an option!

Well you can't actually stop people from lieing in this way. Surverys are always potentially marred by dishonesty to some extent.

Well, anyone can type the wrong thing in. Why would you think it would be 'trans' people who are unable to stick to facts?

Seems a bit 'transphobic' to me.

Yes, anybody could type the wrong thing in, but it's a simple case of cui bono.

A 'standard' man who knows he's a man or woman who knows she's a woman would have no interest whatsoever in doing so and wouldn't give it a moment's thought before selecting the appropriate one.

It would only occur as a genuine accident - maybe if somebody is partially sighted - especially as they've done it in alphabetical order, with female first, when 'traditionally', forms would often have put male first.

Why would you think it would be 'trans' people who are unable to stick to facts?

Would those be the facts of biological reality they stick to? 🤔

Well, anyone can type the wrong thing in. Why would you think it would be 'trans' people who are unable to stick to facts?

Seems a bit 'transphobic' to me.

Mad, isn't it?

Like with the pronouns thing, it always used to be the most uninteresting basic fact in the world that you were either a she or a he, based on your biological sex - one which everybody knew without equivocation and ticked the right one without thinking for a second about it.

But now, there are people who like to make it into something so strangely significant, are obsessed with announcing it and actually seem to 'celebrate' it - and then berate people who follow the simple rules of grammar surrounding it. So, so many amazing, fascinating things to enjoy in life, but the one thing they want to explore and adopt as their hobby is the most dull element of grammar.

Oooh - the ONS that made such a mess of the Census because they allowed themselves to be influenced by those with a personal interest in removing factual sex based statistics? Maybe the grown ups are finally starting to remove the tantrum based influencers?

Thank fuck for that. Grown ups in the building for once.

I think that trans people might answer with their acquired gender or legal sex, but maybe the ons thinks the numbers are small enough it won't distort the data? Are there any footnotes about how to answer the question?

Glad it wasn't just me 😂