Census sex life questions will not be compulsory, Government says

[stumbledin]

Article in the Telegraph www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/12/13/britons-will-not-fined-refusing-tell-census-officials-sex-lives

So as someone commented on facebook this means that the ongoing process and trying to say that sex and gender identity are the same thing has resulted in the Government agreeing NOT to collect one of the basic stats we and they need in terms of planning and monitoring progress or lack of.

But then maybe Governments dont use the census for planning anymore, as given the shortage of school places you would think the government through there had been hardly any babies born in the previous 10 years!

I think this refers to the question on sexual orientation not the sex question.

Both census authorities in Scotland and England and Wales are saying they want the sex question to remain compulsory but they want to introduce voluntary questions on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Alarmingly in Scotland they are talking about adding a third option on the sex question but there have been two evidence sessions on the draft legislation where there has been a lot of pushback on this idea.

they want the sex question to remain compulsory but they want to introduce voluntary questions on sexual orientation and gender identity.

That's what I got from it too, that the sex question would be compulsory (as before, to ensure continuity of information from previous censuses to this one) but the additional questions around sexual orientation would be voluntary.

That sounds pretty sensible to me?

It's definitely a more sane proposal than the one under consideration in Scotland!

I would also assume that 'sex' is a required question, but not sexual orientation. That makes perfect sense to me, and I hope that is how it will be.

If they do ask for 'gender identity ' as an optional question, I think that feminists should really try and point out the reasons and implications - and encourage people to consider answering 'none' or 'not applicable' rather than automatically putting man/woman.

From watching the Scottish sessions, there were suggestions that people might not want to reveal sexual orientation on a household census. The panel in second session also said that this data was pretty accurately captured in the sexual attitudes survey.

Of course, Rosa Freedman pointed out that if the gender question were to conform to EA2010, it should be on reassignment with perhaps separate question on "identity". Both sessions mentioned how difficult this was to define.

Last time (or the time before, I forget) there was a census many people round my way got very worked up about the amount of information it was asking for and there was a grassroots campaign of some kind to get people to veto it. Some officials got sent round at the last minute to collect at least minimal information for it, and there was no particular comeback. Answer what you want to. Anyone for the jedi religion?

I've re-read the article and now wonder if the question on sex will remain.

I think I have been so conditioned by the stupidity of recent government questionnaires that I just assumed they had gone down the trans path and would no longer be asking the normal biologically factual question what is your sex, but the I am what I feel gender identity question.

I just sort of assumed this was now government policy eg consultation re GRA and that survey being carried out by academics which only allows you to answer as an identity not a biological fact.

I posted this on the thread about current Scottish committee re census. Still no sure exactly what they mean, as it could be interpreted either way. And of course shows that the trans activists have been busy other the past few years influencing the census designing. Extract:

3.2 Gender identity
The 2021 topic consultation highlighted a need for data on gender identity in order to understand inequality, inform and monitor policy development and allocate services for this population. The introduction of the Equality Act 2010 further strengthens the user requirement for those with the protected characteristics of gender reassignment.
We also identified a respondent need, with some members of the public reporting that they were unable to complete the current sex question accurately as it only offered the two categories of male or female. A major concern was not to damage the information already collected through the male or female sex question, which is an important variable. The research was focused to ensure that we fully understood this issue.
We don’t currently collect this information on any social surveys, so we developed a Gender identity research and testing plan (May 2016) to inform our position on this topic. It outlined next steps including engaging with relevant stakeholders, learning from other National Statistical Agencies, and identifying alternative data collection options. Within the plan we also committed to undertaking a review of the transgender Data Position Paper which was published in 2009. In response to this we published a Gender identity update (Jan 2017) which detailed changes and progress around the topic of gender identity and covered our research, testing and findings to that date.
Engaging with stakeholders
We have continued to engage with users and held focus groups to understand this user need further and to develop a clear understanding of the different concepts. We held a stakeholder update meeting in June 2017 and two stakeholder workshops, one in August 2016 and one in September 2017.
The workshops presented a consistent data need for a transgender population count, including individuals of all ages, and a respondent need for being able to self-identify. The workshops also provided insight into how we could ask a gender identity question on the 2021 Census. This has shaped the testing we have been, and will be, conducting to ascertain whether we can devise questions that meet needs while ensuring that we can collect the vital information on male or female accurately.
Understanding concepts
Our research has focused on understanding three concepts:
•Sex: male or female – this is the legal concept and a key research variable
•Gender: male, female or other – this is about the respondent need to be able to self identify and answer the census as well as being able to estimate those who identify as non-binary within the transgender community
•transgender population – the need for a reliable estimate of the population identifying as transgender which we define as those whose gender identity is different from the sex they were assigned at birth, including those who do not use the binary classification of male or female
We are aware man and woman are sometimes used in the transgender community rather than male or female but our research so far has suggested that the use of male and female are acceptable.
www.ons.gov.uk/census/censustransformationprogramme/questiondevelopment/2021censustopicresearchdecember2017