Work survey asking for 'gender'

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Our most recent work survey has come out and as part of the 'About You' section, it asks you to select your gender. There are several options, 'Prefer not to say', 'Male', 'Female', 'Transgender' and 'Non-binary'. There is no box to comment in which I would otherwise use to say that my sex is female etc.

I'm definitely going to give feedback and ask why they asked for gender rather than sex however this is my first time being gender critical in the workplace and I want to make sure I'm putting across the point in a precise and thought out way.

Would anyone be able to give their thoughts on what they would say if they were in this situation.

My workplace is local council if that helps

The problem is that often on online forms the "Gender" question is a required answer. So if there are only two options (male and female) what do you do? I toss a coin.

Where there is an "other" and a free text field I use this to state "none".

Where the question is "do you identify as" and the options are Male, Female or non-binary I have to use non-binary because I don't "identify as" either male or female, I AM female. It's a loaded question isn't it?

Another thing I don't get: some people (on youtube for example) describe themself (?) as trans non-binary. As in, both trans and non-binary. If the drop-down box on your company's website only allows you to tick one, you are required to choose not only between male and female, but also between trans and non-binary. In fact, IIRC, you can only choose one of these four options. Tricky.

As a pp said most people designing these surveys have given zero thought to the difference between gender and sex. They often think gender is a polite or more modern word for sex. By saying you are non-binary you are giving them more reasons for increasing a focus on trans issues in your organisation.

@Charlie Parley contacting MRS is definitely an option, if they start receiving lots of complaints, that certainly won't hurt our cause.

However the MRS constructed their guidance off the back of reports by EHCR which are primarily concerned that trans people must be presented with survey questions that they're comfortable with (don't get me started!)

When I've got time, I'll try to do a more detailed thread on this.

@YogaDrone under Market Research Society guidelines, as terrible as they are, they must give you the option to say 'other' or 'prefer not to say'. Any survey that forces you to give an answer that is incorrect or makes you uncomfortable is against their regulations and research agencies using such question structure are in breach of the code of conduct

That is very interesting to know NutsToThat. I will bear that in mind.

I take what stopthecavalry says about not adding to the focus on trans too. Good point. I have always assumed that forms or surveys say gender because that's what they are asking for, not as an alternative word for sex, which it obviously isn't.

I think it is all about context. From a market research perspective, sex based differences may not be particularly important. What matters is whether men (including trans men) and women (including trans women) have different buying patterns. However, sex based information is important, as other posters have said, to identify if there are structural disadvantages based on sex. The problem with asking about sex on its own if you don’t also ask about gender and if people’s gender matches their biological sex is that you have no idea if transgender people have answered the sex question according to their current gender, been offended and not answered, felt unsure about how to reply and left a blank or even answered according to their biological sex. Yes, some surveys are constructed assuming that gender is a more polite alternative than sex but actually an awful lot of testing is done to try and work out what question forms are best. The ‘prefer not to say’ option helps researchers because it reduces the number of blank replies where you do not know for sure why the respondent has not answered the question and gives respondents the option of not sharing personal information. You need to use the Equality Act protected characteristics if the object of the survey is, for example, to measure the extent to which an organisation is meeting its public sector equality duty but there are other times when it is ok to ask about gender. The answer to all this is that nobody will ever devise a survey question that satisfies everyone.