An astonishing conversation

[multivac]

I am a new governor at my local secondary school. FGB meeting last week, and we are discussing attendance data, which have been broken down under various categories for the purpose of meaningful comparison. And the following exchange occurs:

Me: When you say the figures are presented divided by 'gender' into 'male' and 'female', are you actually referring to gender, or to sex?
Head: Um, girls and boys.
Me: OK. I think it's important to be clear on this, though. It may not be an issue for the school at the moment, but it's likely to become so in the future.
Head: I see. So, do you think we should be categorising by sex, or gender?
Me: Sex.
Head: Fine.

Oh, why must it all be soooooo complicated?!

That went well.

The Head may not realise what they agreed to but that was a momentous, pivotal moment. Well done!

Can we just have a big picture in the sky please, Hunger Games style, that illustrates the difference between sex and gender? That would be most helpful. All this confusion is doing my head in. It really isn’t a difficult or obscure concept and it’s not hard to grasp. I’ve known since I was a kid, and I’m neither exceptional nor a proffessional in a position of responsibility.

I think the head was hedging it in case you started down the TWAW route. I wonder what they would have said if you had?

Most people really don't care. They seem to manage just fine. Get over it.

Great conversation!

I've had a very sensible conversation with the deputy head of my children's secondary. There are many, many sensible people out there who simply don't, and never have, bought into TWAW. Easy to forget over the shouting of the TRAs. When we speak up, other secretly GC people are probably mightily relieved. Strength in numbers. We will win and the emperor will be pronounced naked.

Did she actually understand what you were saying?
From the above it looks like she thinks it's the same thing.

I know what you mean CaptainKirk, and my sense was indeed that, around the table, people weren't entirely sure what I was saying, or why. But the head (and I love, by the way, how everyone has accidentally misgendered him... ) did, I think, get it. If nothing else, it felt like a seed had been sown, and an important one.

and I love, by the way, how everyone has accidentally misgendered him

Not sure it's misgendering. 'She' can just be a neutral term for people, like how womankind is the default.

The Head may not realise what they agreed to
^^ but that is exactly the way TRAs have managed to put in fundamental changes without anyone noticing, by swapping sex for gender.

We need to swap back. At the highest levels we can.

I had similar a few weeks back.

I am working on a big government project.

I was helping to design a spreadsheet to capture the people's info and kept changing the term from gender to sex. The outside agency kept changing it back.

I then researched and found some guidance from that government department that stated we should ask for sex. So I referred them to that.

It's gone out as sex not gender.

Why did the people keep changing it back to gender ABuff?

I'm interested to know what these people's motives are.

Also interested. Are people just squeamish about the word "sex" and don't realise the current importance, or due to an Agenda, do you think?

I have no idea whether they were squeamish, one person said 'its what we use these days', and I stated that actually we are trying to target a specific sex for some of the interventions but I punched the air when I found that document as they were being a bit pushy and I didnt want to have to start quoting the equality act at them.

Well done.

I had a similar, albeit unsuccessful encounter with my company's Diversity and Inclusion Manager which was part of HR.

I pointed out that the policy wordings did not align with the EA 2010 which is intended to eliminate SEX discrimination.

She didn't get it, she just got fixed on 'the word gender is more inclusive'....I didn't want to get into an argument or a discussion and just left it...but I just thought WT, you are the D&I manager, you have ONE job, and you have absolutely no idea, it's just all warm feelz and inclusive of everyone to you. I despair sometimes.

wtf not WT

I got our governing body to correct the same error last meeting. The Chair immediately apologised and said it should be changed, without any dissent around the table.

I then researched and found some guidance from that government department that stated we should ask for sex.

The government states we should always ask for sex?

The government states we should always ask for sex?

In this instance, in the guidance document it didn't mention gender. At all.

Not sure if it is because it has sailed under the radar, so don't want to link to it right now.

Just got the minutes from the FGB meeting:

"HT agreed that sex will be used to refer to male and female"

Excellent. When people are forewarned about this sort of thing, even if they don't understand why, or the implications, as stuff starts to be pushed upon them, they see it.

Because a vanishingly small percentage of the population are living with gender issues. For the majority (98-99%) it simply isn't an issue they have to consider. It's "complicated" because statistically only one out of every 100 people you speak to will actually care about the issue. For them, men and women is all the gender they need.

I noticed that our school's GCSE results, this year, are divided into 'Maths: Males, 83; females, 95' etc.

Last year's were 'Boys: ...; Girls...'

I don't think it's coincidence. The year has (at least) three transboys, i.e. girls.

...so, including those three (incidentally clever, high-achieving) girls in with the boys' results would have skewed their stats quite a bit.

Good for you. Most people will agree to good sense in these matters.