Sunday Times - Sex question catapults census into trans war

[mcduffy]

Sex question catapults census into trans war

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sex-question-catapults-census-into-trans-war-vq29nfvsg

I'm not sure how to do share tokens (or if I can from the app)
Letter sent to the Sunday Times today from >70 academics, some of whom have opted to be anonymous.

It's ridiculous that the sex question is mandatory but

It is ridiculous that the results of a census will be rendered meaningless by not accurately recording biological sex. It is an indictment of the chilling threat to freedom of speech posed by totalitarian bullies that academics are frightened to identify themselves in the letter.

Gender identity should definitely be optional as it's a thing that most people don't choose to have. Everyone has a sex, some people choose a gender identity.

The Government Equalities Office has been complicit in creating this mess. It's funny how the GEO knows the difference between pay gap and equal pay, yet they actively conflate sex and gender.
Disappear the sex characteristic, and ultimately the gov can stop measuring and reporting women's equality. Who benefits?

Whatisthisfuckery trans people are able to get the sex on their birth certificate amended so I can see why the sex question is a tricky one and needs a further qualifying question.

I actually think we should boycott the census. This renders is meaningless and officially removed woman from the dictionary. I don't think we should collude.

I don't understand how anyone is allowed to change the sex on their birth certificate. Well, if it was incorrectly recorded it should be changed (mistakes or due to a developmental disorder), but the sex of transgender people would have been correctly recorded.

InfiniteSheldon
I actually think we should boycott the census. This renders is meaningless and officially removed woman from the dictionary. I don't think we should collude
I agree but isnt there a huge fine if you dont fill it in?

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sex-question-catapults-census-into-trans-war-vq29nfvsg?shareToken=b4530fe2d11592721a360adc8aef34f7

@LongLiveThePenis now there’s an idea!

Sorry - didn't see this had already been shared

@MurrayBlackburnMackenzie
I’ve read the link. Thanks. How would you get around GRC’s? Or fantasists? I can imagine this will infuriate TRA’s, won’t it?

Bit facetious of me but maybe the census could ask whether you can pass the "Chair Challenge".

Apparently females find it much easier than men:

Batshit. There is no point whatsoever in the immense amount of time and beaurocracy and money spent on gathering census info if the info itself can be fictional. Destroys the whole point of doing it in the first place and renders it worthless. Rather like letting males into single sex spaces for females.

A decision is going to have to be taken: is it more important to signal absolute unconditional enabling of someone's subjective sense of special self over and above objective reality without ever interrupting this, or to have usable data about society. Because both can't happen at the same time.

What sex was on your original birth certificate must be a legally required question. Followed by all means by 'what gender do you identify' (list however many hundreds etc) and any other qualifiers. Otherwise ffs stop bothering doing the census at all. If it's fine for anyone to write fictional info or preferred info in to the census as opposed to real info then it has to be fine for everyone to do so, and I am not spending my time filling in a form accurately when the outcome will be a total waste of everyone's time and tax payer money.

I don't understand how anyone is allowed to change the sex on their birth certificate

Nor me. Sex actually matters in terms of delivering public services. Allowing people to lie about it on the census renders the question pointless.

It would be easy enough to ask 'what is your sex as determined at conception and observed at birth' with a big fine for lying about it and then have a separate, optional question about 'gender identity' for the minority who belief in such things.

Re planning future services, what about the ever increasing numbers of girls identifying as transmen and non binary? Are the government absolutely certain they'll all have hysterectomies or become infertile through hormones? Otherwise planning for maternity care is surely screwed. I gave birth in a hospital stretched beyond capacity already. I wasn't turned away but had to labour a long while in an unsuitable room, waiting for another woman to finish. It wasn't the most reassuring thing to go through.

Do women tend to fill in the census for their household? Just generally thinking about any protest, and wondered if surely it would be larger numbers - as my entire household could identify as "whatever protest decision we go with" if I filled it out.
Rather than eg 1x spoiled vote, we'd have 2/3/4/5x mysterious identities.

It’s important the government has sound population-level data on which to plan services. This letter is a positive development and good to see such a wide range of signatories.

I welcome the letter's proposal. Some services, e.g. smear tests, are needed by sex and we need accurate recording of sex as observed at birth in order to plan those services. A separate optional question about gender identity will help to plan provision for transition services, benefiting trans people. Everyone wins if the proposal in the letter is adopted.

I am glad this had been raised via a letter to the Times but the reality is the Telegraph had a news item about it some time ago, and there have been at least 2 threads on here.

So my worry is that all these inroads into the accurate recording of biological sex keep happening. There's limited coverage in MSM. mumsnet has a thread or 2, and then ...

I appreciate that a lot of this is the result of well coordinated lobbying by Stonewall and others for some 15 to 20 years. And we are all playing catchup.

But somehow with reaction to the tsunami of trans culture, which is just rolling relentlessly along, happening in a piecemeal way we need to somehow combine and make more visible.

So much of the self id culture is now entrenched.

(I went with someone to an open day about collecting memories and memorablial from WWII and as part of collecting information they asked the "gender" of the person concerned. Maybe it will turn about Churchill was a transman!)

Nick Ferrari is supposed to be covering this on LBC this morning. Haven’t heard it yet, but the whole programme will be available on catch up later so I will try and post the timing.

On now, 8.40am onwards.

Scrap the census, as its rendered pointless. All stats based on it will be inaccurate unless sex is answered accurately. As in, your sex is your sex, regardless of how desperate you are to be a different sex, you can't be and must answer honestly or face consequences for lying.

From that article it seems that the census already allows lying, so really whats the point.

The govt needs holding to account on this bizarre falsehood.

I really don’t understand why they don’t want accurate info on this. Surely transpeople might be interested in how many transpeople there are? Why can’t we just have a separate box for trans woman, trans man, gender fluid or whatever?! I consider myself pretty liberal and tolerant but this stuff just boggles my brain!

If this goes ahead I shall be putting variable depending on mood and zeitgeist as my answer

I really don’t understand why they don’t want accurate info on this. Surely transpeople might be interested in how many transpeople there are?

The loudest activists, including those behind the original GRA, want everyone to stop recording sex. The ultimate goal is to replace sex with gender identity everywhere.