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.

Morning bump.

Bumping.

signed. shared of fb and emailed to dh (fingers crossed)

bumping

Dh signed it too

Signed and shared. How are there only 3600 signatories so far??? Surely it’s just common sense that women need to be counted, for all sorts of reasons. Am I alone in feeling like the planet is spinning off its axis??

twinmonkeymama
You're not alone.
Maybe sharing on aibu would be helpful?

I shared it on my local feminist mum's FB group. The first response 'what about trans and non binary people? We shouldn't force them into categories they're not comfortable with.' I despair!

Signed.

Done

oh ffs qumquat me too.

DH has signed also