We've touched on statistics in a lot of these threads, mostly to do with accurate measuring of violent crime. Having looked at four different situations in the last 24hrs, I'm noticing all sorts of methods from different organisations that are really muddying the waters and making the stats hardly worth keeping.
I'm not much cop at stats these days, but I'm always interested in what's being monitored and why. Race seems to have settled into 6-12 boxes (usually depending on local population) but sex is all over the place. I thought it might be an interesting exercise to ask you all what trends you've noticed in your day to day life, and perhaps we could dig into ONS information and guidance too.
For example:
- Signing up to BBC iPlayer asks for "gender" and gives "male", "female" and "prefer not to say".
- I registered for a sports event which asked for "gender" and gave "male" and "female" only with prizes in those categories (and also age groups and a technical difference in competition equipment)
- NHS organ donor register asks for "gender" and gives options of "male", "female", "other", "prefer not to say" and "transgender"
- a local policing survey asks for "gender" and gives "male", "female", "prefer not to say" and "prefer to self identify"
I also filled out a survey last week for the local leisure centre which, amongst other things, required "gender" but asked about the demand for "single sex sessions". It's never been something I've wanted before but I clicked YES on that and wrote a rather cross paragraph at the end!
What are your thoughts on these categories? Are they helpful? PC gone mad? Pointless?