Petition to keep sex mandatory question on the census

[PlonitbatPlonit]

I know that many Mumsnetters are concerned about changes to the status of women and girls, including collecting data about sex in the census - which is vital for equality monitoring.

There's a petition to the government at the moment.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/202435

Keep the category of sex a mandatory question in the 2021 Census.

We oppose the published tentative recommendation by the Office of National Statistics to make sex a non-mandatory field in the 2021 Census. We demand that sex remains a mandatory question in the Census and is included in all government demographic data collection in accordance with SDG5 commitments.

More details
Data collection disaggregated by sex gives us vital information for policy making and distribution of resources. If implemented, the ONS recommendation will make widely acceptable that sex becomes a voluntary question. This will render useless equal opportunities monitoring designed to combat sex discrimination. It will influence governments worldwide making difficult the monitoring of imbalances resulting from sex-selective abortion, female infanticide and unequal treatment of girls and women.

Currently has 824 signatories, which I'm sure does not reflect the number of people in the UK concerned about this issue. Do sign, do share if you agree.

Done and sharing like mad on twitter.

I've been following the petitions progress and it seems quite slow moving

Wondering if it's because it's only making the rounds in radfem circles...off to out myself on facebook!

Please don't be afraid to share this on social media. You don't need to mention anything about trans people. All you need to say is that it's important for women to be counted.

For sharing, this Guardian animation is a really good illustration of why we need reliable disaggregated sex data that tracks our life chances www.theguardian.com/global-development/video/2016/oct/11/a-girls-life-how-inequality-starts-before-birth-video-international-day-of-the-girl?CMP=share_btn_fb

So, please share share share widely with the petition. The way I phrased it on my own timeline was with this comment shared with the video:

Lots of statistics in this video that have made use of disaggregated data on sex. Without that data on sex we can't have statistics about the life chances of girls and women. Don't allow the next UK census to downgrade the question on sex by making it purely voluntary. Please sign the petition petition.parliament.uk/petitions/202435

Does someone have a horses mouth link as I can't find any reference on the ONS website about making the 'sex' question optional.

I imagine they're still consulting. Though it doesn't sound like a particularly free and open public consultation.

That's a great post, Plonit.

No they're not that's the point. According to their website they have done the routine post 2011 census consultation and trial surveys and intend to add some questions about identifying as the sex you were born. But there is NOTHING about making sex an optional question.

So i suspect it's journalistic bullshit but I'd like to be certain about that.

So are you saying they completely made up the alleged consultation with trans and "cisgender" participants, including specific well known trans lobbying organisations, which is described in some detail in reports?

The fact that it's not spelled out on the ONS website means nothing.

www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/classificationsandstandards/measuringequality/genderidentity/qualitativeresearchongenderidentityphase1summaryreport

Titchy This is the report. The relevant quote is "We would tentatively recommend that an unchanged 2011 Census question should not be mandatory, for the benefit of, particularly, intersex and non-binary people who cannot choose male or female as a reflection of their current sex or gender. "

"Unchanged 2011 Census question" refers to the current question regarding sex. The recommendation is to make it non-mandatory.

Any other statements to the contrary by ONS are in direct contradiction to this published report. This is classic political tactics: fudge, deny, fudge, deny, oops fait accompli. I think it's probably a good thing that women are responding and giving ONS and govt a clear steer during the fudge/deny cycle, rather than waiting for the fait accompli (white paper).

Signed

Bumping thread.
It's growing steadily but it would be great if it could reach 10000.

That's great to see. Yes, really needs to get to 10,000 to get a response from govt.

I do hope everyone who signs it will also share it. It's relatively uncontroversial for once - you're not going to out yourself as a terf by sharing.

Its nearly a quarter of the way there at 2,426.

It's one away from a quarter of the way! Go on, someone, sign and share!

Signed and tweeted.

Signed and shared.

Signed!

Thank you!

Signed

Signed

It's not far off 3000. Please keep signing and sharing, everyone!

Signed and been sharing loads on Facebook and twitter. Really important to get this petition boosted, whilst there has been a lot of media interest in this.

Yay, it's above 3000! Not far from being on the front page on the 'all petitions' list.