University confusing the terms sex and gender

[velvetcake1]

‪Hi, I usually lurk rather than post so I hope this is in the right place!

‪I’m a university student (I’m 20) and when re-enrolling for next year, you have to answer questions about yourself. ‬
‪This is the list, quoted exactly:‬
‪1. What is your sex?‬
‪2. What is your religion?‬
‪3. What is your sexual orientation?‬
‪4. Is your gender identity the same as the gender you were originally assigned at birth?‬
‪5. Ethnicity‬
‪6. Disability information‬

‪Surely question 3 is incorrect - no one is assigned a gender at birth, just a sex!!
There’s no other question about gender or gender identity, just “What is your sex?” (with the options of female / male / other).‬
‪However, when I view my student record information, it’s listed as “Gender - F”, no mention of sex.

‪I tried to go to the next page and leave question 3 blank but you can’t enrol without choosing between yes / no / prefer not to say, so I ended up reluctantly going with yes, my gender identity is the same as my gender assigned at birth.‬ Even though the phrase “gender assigned at birth” has no meaning.

‪Just worrying that a university is collecting data in this way, surely this makes no sense at all?!

Unfortunately, they're all at it. My advice would be to answer the questions as best you can in order to re enrol then once you've got your place, use the wealth of info on this board and on websites like Women's place uk to write a letter explaining where they've got it wrong.

I've been writing to all sorts of places, local/county councils, the ONS, ACAS and others, usually with some degree of success. It really is worth it and the more of us that can do it, the better.

Best wishes for your next year at uni!

At least they’re asking what your sex is. The university I work at is only interested in asking what gender I “identify as”. As I don’t identify with a gender, I’m generally stumped as to how to respond.

1. Not today, thank you.
2. Mind your own business.
3. See attached essay

Did questions 3 and 4 have an option “prefer not to say”?

I usually choose this option, not because it’s true, but because it’s closer than any of the other options.

For the gender question, I’d like the option “Prefer not to buy into this bullshit” as an option, but I’ve never seen it, strangely.

I work at a university. When filling out my new starter forms (online) there was only a question about my gender, nothing about my sex. Which is surprising as sex is the protected characteristic and if they're collating stats I would have thought that's the information they want.

There was recently a paper staff survey and one of the questions was asking what gender I identified as. They got an essay!

Asking someone their religion has historic resonance at an English University. There was a time you weren't allowed in unless you said CofE.

I agree with what others are saying:

Answer the questions as best you can

Ask who the information goes to and how you can contact them

Write to them politely pointing out the problems, ie:
Sex is a protected characteristic and should be included;
Nobody is 'assigned a gender or sex', though sex is identified;

Be polite, and ask for a response.

This is why:
https://www.hesa.ac.uk/collection/c18051/a/sexid
And
https://www.hesa.ac.uk/collection/c18051/a/genderid

Ask the ECU (please!)

Are you sure you haven't been asked your sex GC - you should have been:
https://www.hesa.ac.uk/collection/c18025/a/sexid

Wording very poor though on this one....

The organisation I belong to goes one step further. I emailed them last year when I saw it, but never had an acknowledgement. It's actually worse than last year, because then the section was labelled just Gender, so they've doubled down.

Juells I had one like that.
What gender do you identify as?
I ticked "other" and then wrote "my sex is female" in the box.
I used to think this was a minor gripe , the whole gender/sex thing, but if they are not even collecting stats on sex then how can they assess if their equality policies are working? Without sex there is no sexism!
How convenient..

They need to be recording bith sex and gender. Whoever has put together the online enrolment form hasn't done a good job of making sure they are asking the right questions (or wording them in the right way).

Although looking at the HESA guidelines for the gender question, the university have just used the very poor wording used by HESA.

The ECU actually suggest Does your gender identity match your sex as registered at birth? www.ecu.ac.uk/guidance-resources/using-data-and-evidence/monitoring-questions/ so it’s actually HESA who need questioning.
There should be a prefer not to say option for the protected characteristic options (except sex as that’s mandatory and includes male, female or other according to HESA).

OP I would say you're in a good position to challenge them on this

You will do your course, but anyone subjected to this shit at work runs the risk of losing their job.

I'm also amazed by the questions tbh - is there "prefer not to say" for all the ones where it's not their business?!

I expect all the organisations doing this have had advice and/or training from some trans/equality spokespersons.
It turned out that was the case for the 2011 Scottish census which accepted a person's self-identification for the question on sex.
(That was decided by penpushers, btw, and was never put to Scottish Parliament.)