Poll: 52% of people consider a person who was born male and has male genitalia but identifies as a woman to be a man

[TigerDrankAllTheWaterInTheTap]

twitter.com/helenstaniland/status/1055128928174641153

Interesting results. It's a properly conducted opinion poll which Helen Staniland crowdfunded. I've got to go in a minute so can't post all the headline findings. Maybe somebody else could do that?

But surely women know what men are like as well - if the statistics about how many women have been victims of sexual assault are anything to go by.

You would think. But I wonder if the concept that male sexual violence against women is endemic has not been out there enough. Female socialisation to feel shame and responsibility is also huge! It is starting to be spoken about - me too etc - but almost at the same time we find this push to obscure what even is sex and what even are boundaries and consent.

I say this as someone who only made the connections that what happened wasn't my fault and was part of a greater society wide issue a good decade after experiencing sexual assaults. And as someone automatically TWAW until relatively recently.

And don't forget we also read about "gender based violence" which suggests to the young and inexperienced that a change of clothes will protect you from assault. (it doesn't - I tried!)

I think people are confused and no wonder when we have evidence that even the NHS has willfully conflated the terms gender and sex.

twitter.com/Evanderstap/status/1055195745538789379

LOL. You show them the crowdfunding page. You explain how much it cost. And they still say it cost 3x what you said it did and you're not admitting the shady funding.

I read a comment on the twitter or somewhere that it might have polled using people who are signed up for polls and who get credits and tokens and whatnot for their time, (and I think from a quick check, this is the case?).

If so, it just made me wonder if some people thought that their answers might in fact be monitored. I used to do surveys that were rewarded like this a few years ago and was picky about what I answered for this reason, just in case someone was building a profile of me, even though they say that they don't (not this polling company). But maybe I am just paranoid! It is a sensitive issue though.

That's a really interesting point.

I look at these results in my own way though - a very small minority of Britons are confident enough genderists to express positive support for the transactivst agenda. I find this very encouraging.

Me too.

I look at these results in my own way though - a very small minority of Britons are confident enough genderists to express positive support for the transactivst agenda. I find this very encouraging.

Agreed. That's why I thought it was worth emphasising the small numbers of people who unequivocally agreed that TWAW, rather than the only just over half who thought TWAM.

I read a comment on the twitter or somewhere that it might have polled using people who are signed up for polls and who get credits and tokens and whatnot for their time, (and I think from a quick check, this is the case?).

This is just nonsense. Lots of people are signed up to YouGov and Populus and all the rest and get micro payments for stuff. Nobody discredits YouGov or Survation's election predictions because the survey company has a commercial arm.

This polling is a) professional, b) robust, c) representative. Here is the methodology used by YouGov and Populus, for example.

yougov.co.uk/about/panel-methodology/

www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Populus-Omnibus-Flyer-Jun15-Display.pdf

The two blog posts from WoS that contain results for self-ID polling:

Scotland (Jan 2018) wingsoverscotland.com/the-law-that-nobody-wants/

England (May 2018) wingsoverscotland.com/girls-and-boys/

Oooo I do like a good poll.

This is an editted version of Q6 which is the one about prisons so you can see something.

Those people who are opinion influencers appear to be very different to the general population.

Now I note the don't knows here are much less. Its a polarisation and a lot stronger strength of opinion.

Now I am intrigued as to the make up of who falls into the opinion influencer catagory.

This is question Q5 about changing rooms.

WOW look at that uneasiness and uncertainity in 18 - 24 year olds. Its BIGGER than should not be allowed, which is still more than should be allowed.

Less than a third of 18 - 24 year old are 'yeeeahhhh wooo cracking idea'.

Less than a third.

In the 25 - 34 year olds less than a quarter are woke woooo yeah! Theres also a much bigger group of prefer not to sayers in this group. Its almost as if there is some social pressure going on here.

This is Q4 about sport.

Not much love from men for sport by gender not sex. And those opinion influencers aren't keen either. In fact there seems to be a responding NO coming from each age group on this on. Higher than prisons and changing rooms. The concept of 'fairness' clearly is rather important.

Who'd have thunk?

I knew you'd enjoy this, Red!

This one is good. This is where we explore just how deep the belief that TWAW goes.

On the left I have the 18-24 years answers to the sport question. On the right I have the 18 -24 year Q2 about people with male gentialia.

You'll note that there were 87 people who said they considered the person to be a women, yet strangely when they were asked if they should be able to compete as women we have a disparity. Only 54 people are saying they should compete as women. Now why is that??!

If you do the reverse and look at the 92 people who said they should not be allowed to compete, and then look at how many people thought someone who identified as a woman but was born male and what people consider them to be, you have 79 who consider them men and 13 who consider them to be neither. Thats 92.

I'll just leave that with you, to ponder over the confusion that some of the the TWAW tribe seem to be having with sport.

Who'd have thunk? most people. Is it really a suprise ?

That analysis is fascinating Red, thank you!

Then again, here is what a senior judge in the Judicial House of Lords once said about fairness

'Fairness is an elusive concept. It is an instinctive response to a given set of facts. Ultimately it is grounded in social and moral values. These values, or attitudes, can be stated. But they cannot be justified, or refuted, by any objective process of logical reasoning. Moreover, they change from one generation to the next.'

Ooo I love this LangCleg!! This is EPIC. Sooooooo much fun.

This is the 'TWAW question'. In which we discover that there are more male than female nasty transphobes. (DIE TERFS! errrrr Blokes).

There are also 20% of people who appear to be either really quite confused in the difference between men and women and/or are unsure of the 'correct' response for some reason. Obviously the answer isn't particularly binary. Which is a bit of a problem if you are saying sex is a spectrum whilst also saying TWAW, but y'know. The message is obviously getting through and is completely understood by adults.

Therefore we can conclude this would be, in no way confusing, to teach primary school kids. I mean, what with the adults seeming to struggle so much over this question.

Certainly the idea that there is an overwhelming support for TWAW is nuts. If we are talking about political parties trying to throw people out for raising questions to explore the subject you are talking about chucking out THE MAJORITY of people - who include both those with a fixed view, BUT ALSO people who are trying to work out the answer to this question.

This isn't exactly healthy is it? You are effectively calling THE MAJORITY bigots who should have no political voice. In the name of democracy and liberalism?? Are you on crack?

And ironically we also have the 33 out of 87 18 to 24 year olds, who appear only to be part-time supporters of TWAW and got rather scared by the Sport question.

Its all very well trying to be nice. Its not terribly good for democracy.

There is certainly no consensus on TWAW. Indeed its very much the opposite.

Thank you Red, I have been looking forward to your analysis of this poll!

On the question of gatekeeping by doctors for documentation, there is overwhelming support for it. In otherwords its a conclusive no to self ID.

This is in ALL age groups.

Even in the 18 - 24 group, 49% thought that there should be gatekeepers and that it should be regarded as a medical issue if you want to change your documents. And thats not including all those Don't knows.

Its hard to see how you could move away from Gatekeeping with those kind of numbers. There is no public support for it. None.

Action to do so, will be deeply unpopular - especially if you add in the changing room and sports answers into the mix.

Its a recipe for disaster, without wider public support.

You do get a sense that there is social pressure to say the right thing on this and 'be nice' from some of the answers. Particularly in younger groups.

Its fascinating to see in the sports question that the idea of 'being nice' suddenly appears to be less important, because the idea of 'being fair' seems to be more important.

And thats what I'd reflect on most from those result - how do people react to the debate being framed as 'being nice' compared with the debate being framed as 'being fair'.

There is a difference. People have a different emotional response. Construct your arguments around that.

Since we're talking about genitalia here and doing fun maths, can I please drop in some stats I recently received from the NHS?

You can all play around with estimates and see what you come up with.

May I present the M2F 'bottom surgeries' carried out by NHS England since 2013. a total of 1445 in 5 years. Of course some of these may include the reddit special where the penis remains, but let's not dwell on that.

There are some other published figures from a different FOI that suggest various 'completed consultant episodes' for 'sexual transformations' which includes a whole lot of different operative procedure codes and are probably over-counting, since they may not be strictly all genital surgery.

By my estimates I'd suggest ~1200 operations between 2004 and 2013. A total of ~2641 m2f bottom surgeries carried out in England in the 14 years since the GRA.

so. Make of that what you will. How many male people identify as transwomen in England currently?

300k? then >99% of them keep their penis.
200k? then 98.7% keep their penis.
100k? then 97.4% keep their penis

Perhaps we should include an allowance for the operations that happen in Thailand or privately?
What do we think? an extra 25%?
In that case, the most generous estimate is that with 3300 operations, on the smallest population estimate of 100,000 transwomen, 96.7% keep their penis.

Feel free to correct population estimates, or inflate those extra operations to derive percentages. This data is only for England

Oh bravo Helen, wonderful to see some hard data.

To Wrexhamtrans who was posting upthread - I think you've slightly missed the point and we're not nearly as much in disagreement as you think. What this data tells us is not straight TWAW or otherwise, it's about attitudes to non surgically transitioned TW specifically. Because if you ask people are TW women they are often thinking of medically transitioned transsexuals when they say yes. Asking about people with fully male bodies directly really gets to the root of how they feel about the self ID issue. And it seems feeling is predominantly against when it comes to male bodied people identifying as female. That is very interesting. If you feel that medically transitioned is different to non, presumably you're anti self ID too?

This is fascinating. Does anybody know how these polls are conducted?Given the heated nature of this debate, I did wonder if some of the younger people in particular were influenced in their responses by who was standing beside them listening in if they were on the phone or looking over their shoulder if it was online.

I do need to have a look at the methodology Populas used, (apparently this will be available in a a few days) but its a serious polling company, so I'm largely not hugely concerned. Usually for big companies, it comes down to the framing of questions.

Generally we are used to seeing questions on this subject that are framed in a particular and often emphasise the idea of 'being nice' or at least load the question with it.

These questions are stripped back and to the point. TRAs will argue this is loaded, but from what I can see they are so stripped back they simply ask the person exactly what it says on the tin. It gets people to think about the heart of the question/argument rather than being led from the outside. They are more open and explorative. Put simply it gets people to think about their answers and be more honest than if they had been asked the same in a different way. That in itself is revealling. What I mean by that is to consider, if you have TRA produced polls which are producing very different answers, you have to then look at the gap between them and ask what is producing that effect? The answer to that owes a lot to population control - how much is fear and the desire to be seen as good affecting results?

Fascinating to see those results though.

www.populus.co.uk/

This is populus who did the survey. They are a 'proper' polling company. Therefore their reputation is centred around the quality of what they produce.

If they do not reflect what people think, within a certain margin of error then they would not have a business in the first place.

The polls they produce will only be as good as the questions they ask though too.

If we define transphobia as

1. anyone opposed to doctors gatekeeping, then 87% of the population are transphobic

2. anyone who doesn't believe TWAW then 81% of the population are transphobic

3. anyone who doesn't believe in sport being done by gender rather than sex then 84% of the population are transphobic

4. anyone who doesn't think changing rooms should be along gender rather than sex line then 86% of the population are transphobic

5. anyone who doesn't believe that anyone who identifies as women should be allowed in womens prisons then 88% of the population are transphobic.

If you then believe that anyone who is transphobic should not be allowed to participate in party politics then you are cutting out rather a lot of people from being able to represent their views on any level on everything else. Which is ever so slightly problematic.