You also can't be prosecuted for "lying" on these forms.

A fact that had to be dragged out of one rather irritating bright-eyed young thing years ago.

Yes, this exactly. At the moment, it's set up as a variant of the 'have you stopped beating your wife yet?' conundrum.

If you humour/tolerate them by choosing to interpret their use of the word 'gender' to presumably mean sex, you have implied that you are in accord with their own beliefs - those of gender and sex being both different things AND the same thing, however they choose to frame and manipulate it.

On the other hand, if you choose 'my gender identity is not the same as my sex assigned at birth' - because you don't have or believe in a gender identity, so how could you possibly have one, and what does it have to do with sex anyway? - then you will certainly be regarded as trans/NB/gender-fluid/questioning or whatever.

As you say, without them giving an option for 'I do not have a magic gender identity - I am just my biological sex', they're deliberately rigging it so that you're forced to comply. It's no more honest or worthwhile than a company doing market research on a product and making people tick one of two boxes to indicate whether they would describe it as either 'amazing and great value' or otherwise 'wonderful and very affordable'.

At least, in the old days of pen-and-paper surveys that were counted and analysed by actual humans, you could add your own option or description of why the given options were faulty/lacking and thus your reasons for not answering - the same as with a general election ballot, where you can deliberately 'spoil' it. Nowadays, you're forced into Hobson's choice, and if you don't, the computer patronisingly tells you that YOU have made an error and will refuse to let you submit it.

EA protected category and disclosure are separate issues.

Being protected means people aren't allowed to discriminate based on it. It doesn't mean they can't ask about or can't mention it. And that is at least in part because some categories are bloody obvious. They don't need to be 'revealed' because everyone already knows. One of these is sex.

It's useful to compare with the GDPR regulations, which cover all personal data but give 'special category status to some types. From the ICO site, these are:

• personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin;
• personal data revealing political opinions;
• personal data revealing religious or philosophical beliefs;
• personal data revealing trade union membership;
• genetic data;
• biometric data (where used for identification purposes);
• data concerning health;
• data concerning a person’s sex life; and
• data concerning a person’s sexual orientation.

It is also important to be aware that some of the protected characteristics outlined in the Equality Act are classified as special category data. These include race, religion or belief, and sexual orientation. They may also include disability, pregnancy, and gender reassignment in so far as they may reveal information about a person’s health.

Note that 'sex' appears nowhere in these groups. And gender reassignment only insofar as it reveals health information.

Because we can all see (and hear, and to some extent smell) it.

I

That’s my preferred pronoun

There are legitimate reasons where an employee will be expected to disclose their sex category.

The difference is that when these forms ask for religion, you get various tickbox options, which includes atheism, and a "don't wish to say" box. With sexuality you also get a "don't wish to say" box.

With gender questions they are always phrased so that obligatory belief in magic gender essence is assumed for everyone and there's no "this doesn't apply to me" option. "Do you identify with the same gender you had at birth?" as a "yes/no" question gives no brainspace to even the possibility that someone might say "actually gender is just old fashioned sexism dressed up in fancy new vocabulary, I don't have a gender and reject all sexist stereotypes thanks, I'm just a human being not a set of patriarchal ideas of identity". Asking for someone's pronouns gives no brainspace to even the possibility that someone might fundamentally object to the idea of compelled speech - it's fine to give believers the opportunity to express their beliefs if it's important to them so there's nothing wrong with questions like this existing but they need to be optional or have a n/a answer that doesn't require responders to pretend to be a believer in order to complete the form.

But they don’t have to do they? No one is making transpeople declare their sex.

Well yes… I mean, no one’s asking anyone to write make or female on the badges are they?…….

Yes, like sex. So why did you say it was professional and polite to ask people to declare their pronouns, when this means, for most, stating a protected characteristic. A request which is neither professional nor polite

@alcovecupboards I regard any organisation that attempts to impose a contested ideology on its employees, suppliers or customers as unprofessional and any employee, supplier or customer who pushes back against this as acting professionally.

It's still a protected characteristic that some don't wish to disclose. So why the difference? Or is just that you've decided trans people should be forced but you shouldn't?

It's blindingly obvious what the sex of the majority of the population of the planet is.

Like sex?

Well, quite. They have the frankly ludicrous promise that people have to make that they will 'live as a woman/man' for the rest of their lives (whatever that is ever supposed to mean); but if you believe that sex/gender (which apparently mean the same thing when it suits your cause, but different things when it doesn't) are not fixed and can change, surely that would make somebody telling you that you can change it once but never again only slightly less 'transphobic' than somebody who stuck by scientific reality from the beginning?!

In any case, inasmuch as 'living as' the opposite sex goes, it's clearly not enforced (or even enforceable). Freddy McConnell made that promise in order to be granted the official legal fiction that she is a 'man', yet she then went on to get pregnant and give birth twice - fighting in the courts to be officially recognised as the 'father' of the children whom she had been pregnant with and given birth to! None of this makes any sense at all.

By implication, if you can change it once, you can change it twice.

It was a terrible and outrageous decision on behalf of the government to ever agree to retrospectively falsify birth certificates based on 'gender identity'. This isn't to say that people can't live how they want to, as long as it doesn't adversely affect or restrict or compel others, but official documents should be solely about facts.

It would be as absurd as somebody whose birth certificate accurately gave their place of birth as Slough later demanding to have it changed and re-issued to officially pretend that they were actually born in Windsor, as that 'more truly reflects who they identify as now'.

Yes - it's like that silly game that Ted from The Fast Show played with his friends at the pub - where you have to remember to insert the name of a different vegetable before every single word that you say... except, when Ralph inevitably got it wrong, it was followed with good-natured laughter and not angry entitled accusations of him being phobic and needing to be 'educated' or cancelled.

Now apply that to the NHS, who happily register men as women without comment

It isn't a politeness, it is a lie and nobody need acquiesce. Professional standards work both ways... something many organisations are slowly waking up to

Why do you prioritise the feelings of the individual demanding a lie if others?

"I just spoke to Claire about A company and N gave me one of A's business cards and N invited me to get in touch with A"

Thing is, I can see this happening because we have been told this is how to use those ‘he/she’ pronouns etc. and if you get them in the wrong order, you are disrespectful and a bigot.

he,she,them,potato

Type a space

It's neither polite not professional to ask people to disclose a protected characteristic they do not wish to disclose

There was also a thing where there was a man and a woman who were working together, maybe on a project and I think the man accidentally sent an email but from the woman's email address and he couldn't understand why the clients had started to get shirty with him.

Well yes, referring to a simple request that is about politeness and professionalism for others as 'arrant nonsense' would have a negative impact. Any unprofessional conduct will usually backfire on the person involved - and purposefully misgendering someone is unprofessional.

No-one has the right to police what other people call them in their absence, when not addressing them. Pronoun preferences also violate grammar e.g. 'they' being used to refer to one identifiable person. Infuriating and a linguistic nightmare.