Attitudes to Gender - a survey being used to write a new gender bill in the UK

[Trousered]

What is the purpose of the study?
This survey is part of the Future of Legal Gender (FLaG) project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (2018-2021). It explores 1) whether people should have a female/male legal status assigned at birth; and 2) how we could change the way that female/male and other gender categories are used in UK law.
Who is doing this research and why?
Professor Davina Cooper (King’s College London) leads the overall project and Professor Elizabeth Peel (Loughborough University) is leading this part of the research.
We want to make sure that the research is informed by the experiences and views of a wide range of people. Thank you for sharing your opinions and contributing to the project. You can read more about why we are doing the project, and the research team here.

Survey now open

Attitudes to Gender

Our
@FutureGender
public survey is now open! This is open to ANYONE over the age of 18.

To access the survey, please click this link:

lboro.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/attitudes2gender

Project website:
futureoflegalgender.kcl.ac.uk

Event
futureoflegalgender.kcl.ac.uk/events-and-public-and-policy-engagements/

As a result of the 2016 enquiry £575,000 has been given by the government for a study which will draft a new Bill, ostensibly with the intention of removing birth registration of sex completely They obviously assumed SELF ID was a done deal and so started work on the next step due to come onstream in 2021.

Planned Impact
As a major piece of law reform research, this project is intended to significantly contribute to debates about gender identity reform. While current agendas focus on the experiences of people whose birth gender does not "fit", this research addresses more broadly the implications of reforming a binary legal structure currently anchored in gender designation at birth.

It will contribute timely, evidence-based research to benefit government, non-government and service-providing organisations and, in its concluding phase, produce a draft reform Bill to focus further policy and wider public discussion on the legal regulation and recognition of gender identity in England and Wales. It will also generate in-depth social psychological data from a demographically diverse sample on everyday experiences of legal gender, as well as on attitudes towards legal reform.

Collaboration as follows (see Pathways to Impact for full details):

A) Advisory Group (AG): Including representatives from the EHRC, Stonewall and EDF. It will meet at key stages to advise on research design, dissemination, and assessment of research methodology. Members will also assist in reaching research participants.
B) Stakeholder Involvement in Research Design: Key stakeholders (EHRC, EDF) have inputted into research design and will be consulted at each stage through the AG, expert meetings and stakeholder events. Lay participants will be involved in developing the survey (through a pilot); and data reflections in interviews (WP2C).
C) User-appropriate Activities/Dissemination: draft Bill presented at Policy & Practice event, fine-tuned and downloadable from website; 8 page non-academic summary of findings; organisational presentations, media coverage, website, and through social media.

EDF members (I recall the CEO attended the launch of the Equality Act review meeting and was adamant that all organisations involved believed that trans women were women.

Equality and Diversity Forum Membership Organisations
Members
Associates
Observers

Members
Action on Hearing Loss
Age UK
brap
British Institute of Human Rights
Children’s Rights Alliance for England (CRAE)
Citizens Advice
Disability Rights UK
Discrimination Law Association
End Violence Against Women Campaign
Equality Trust
Fair Play South West
Fawcett Society
Friends, Families and Travellers
Gender Identity Research and Education Society (GIRES)
Humanists UK
Law Centres Network
Mind
National AIDS Trust
National Alliance of Women’s Organisations (NAWO)
Press for Change
Race on the Agenda (ROTA)
RNIB
Runnymede Trust
Scope
Stonewall
Trades Union Congress (TUC)
Traveller Movement
UKREN (UK Race in Europe Network)
UNISON
Women’s Budget Group
Women’s Resource Centre

Associates
Amnesty International UK
Asylum Aid
British Muslims for Secular Democracy
Business Disability Forum
Caritas Social Action Network
Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales
Child Poverty Action Group
Churches Together in Britain and Ireland
Consortium of LGBT Voluntary and Community Organisations
Employers for Carers
Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion
EqualiTeach
Equal Rights Trust
Faith-based Regeneration Network
GALOP (Gay and Lesbian Policing Project)
HEAR
Inclusion London
Inspire
Just Fair
Law Society
Liberty
Migrants’ Rights Network (MRN)
Odysseus Trust
Refugee Council
Rene Cassin
Royal College of Nursing
Unite the Union
Unlock Democracy
YESS Law
Young Women’s Trust

Observers
COMPAS
Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)
Government Equalities Office
Greater London Authority
Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC)
Joint Committee on Human Rights of the UK Parliament
JUSTICE
Local Government Association
Macmillan Cancer Support
Ministry of Justice
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Office of the Committee for Employment and Social Security, States of Guernsey
Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC)
The Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England
Unicef
Women and Equalities Select Committee

Apologies for the apparent spamming. I've been keeping an eye on this project and wanted to alert everyone to the fact they had now opened up an attitude survey. I imagine you have put some thought into gender ID and sex registration at birth recently and could make good use of it...

Thanks

FutureofLegalGender

@FutureGender

On twitter

Timely reminder of an earlier thread started by Pencils.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a3274586-Big-research-project-to-decide-if-we-still-need-sex-as-a-legal-category

Gah, I cam across this survey a few days ago. It's the usual crap. Confuses sex and gender, almost guaranteeing skewed data.

All research funded by a Research Council has to demonstrate potential impact - it is a condition of funding. This does not mean that a Bill drafted by this project will make it into the statute books, but that the research investigators, the peer reviewers, and the funding body think it is a reasonable piece of ‘impact’ to propose - namely to see what a draft Bill would look like.

It is perfectly possible to draft a Bill as a researcher which never gets anywhere, because it is flawed, but the process itself highlights those flaws.

Although, even just skimming this quickly, there are a whole range of assumptions behind this project which are problematic. It would be interesting to see if the full Case for Support is available online.

While current agendas focus on the experiences of people whose birth gender does not "fit", this research addresses more broadly the implications of reforming a binary legal structure currently anchored in gender designation at birth.

I think we need to remind them that gender is not sex.

We don’t have a legal gender designated at birth. We have a legal sex recognized at birth.

For example, it is notable that it talks about legal gender, rather than biological sex. Quite a lot of current policy on reproductive health relates to biological sex.

Thanks. This one really concerns me about confidentiality. There was a thread some time ago about the researchers: I think we found that at least three had research histories to indicate they are confirmed transadvocates.

Its so badly written, I assumed it was a student project.

I suppose one must do it, but I'm focusing on my council, my MP and my employer right now.

They state upfront that they are only using the word gender to mean both.
futureoflegalgender.kcl.ac.uk/2018/10/13/acting-as-if-other-law-reform-options-were-already-on-the-table

The plan on publishing more on why...

These questions are important for current policy debate, but our project on gender’s legal future poses a different question: are there good reasons for a jurisdiction, like England and Wales, to retain a system where sex/ gender is legally assigned or declared at birth? (Whether the key terms should be sex or gender; and whether each is assigned, attributed or declared are being fiercely debated currently, and we will discuss them in a subsequent piece).

That questionnaire is fucking useless.

It sort of distinguishes between sex and gender at one point but then goes on to ask loads of questions that conflate the two.

We don't have a legal gender for example! We have a birth sex observed and noted on our birth records.

I can't answer the questions because I don't know what they mean when they say gender, maybe they mean gender in which case my answers are one thing, but maybe they mean sex in which case my answers are different! Utter tripe.

From the survey site:

What if I am not happy with how the research was conducted?

If you are not happy with how the research was conducted, contact the Secretary of the Ethics Approvals (Human Participants) Sub-Committee, Hazlerigg Building, Loughborough University, LE11 3TU. Tel: 01509 222423. Email: [email protected] .The University also has policies on Research Misconduct and Whistle Blowing, available at www.lboro.ac.uk/committees/ethics-approvals-human-participants/additionalinformation/codesofpractice/.

Its so badly written, I assumed it was a student project.

It is a Law Phd student project. But it's purpose is to draft a legal bill.

Someone doing a PhD wrote that?

Fuck sake.

Is n't this what 'Jane Fae' is pushing for as her ultimate end goal in this downright scary thread?

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1052841553364996096.html

It is not a PhD project, if the two lead investigators are Professors. Which part is the PhD project?

There's another long thread about it. Mainly those of us who have done some research in real life were very scathing about it. It is VERY poorly written, is self contradictory in many places and the inconsistent use of language makes some of the questions impossible to understand.

Add to that the internal bias that is highlighted in the outline, the language and the double negatives of many questions I doubt I was the only one who suggested that it wasn't fit for purpose and that whoever passed it for publication should be very ashamed of themselves.

If you did away with biological sex in law, you would surely erase the many protections women (female-bodied people) have on grounds of their sex?

The article on prefigurative law - where it talks about living as if legal change is already happening - is precisely what is happening with self-ID. It is described as anarchist, feminist and left socialist or something. But laws exist for a reason, and many of our current laws, even if we do not agree with them, exist for reasons of protections.
Consent laws, for example, exist to protect women.
Property laws exist to protect your right to a home and your belongings.
Criminal laws exists to protect people from harm.
Laws on maternity pay, maternity care, access to abortion exist to give women protection and rights.
If you did away with ‘legal gender’, there would be no clear way of ensuring many of these protections.

For example, grooming gangs consisting of people with penises (peni?) targeting young people with vaginas? How do you know or describe what is happening? How do you explain sex-specific violence and abuse?

My questions are endless.

Off to read other thread

This is a paper recently published by the lead researcher, which is probably why the money came her way to do this.

kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/files/86823522/If_the_State_Decertified_Gender_COOPER_Published1December2016_GREEN_AAM.pdf

Someone doing a PhD wrote that?

Fuck sake.

It's non binary innit

KataraJean

As you rightly point out these are the issues but they are also THE INTENTIONS .