Boycotting the Census?

[Alicethroughtheblackmirror]

In the CTEEA committee meeting today, Joan McAlpine pointed out that 3% of the sample of 2000 members of the public said they would consider not answering a sex question if it were based on self-identity.

Nat Records for Scotland have made a big play about the possibility that a fraction of the trans population might not answer an actual sex question, but they don't seem to have been too worried that women might object, and they don't seem to have tested for women's likely non-response.

Would Mumsnetters consider boycotting the census if the sex question is a de facto gender one such as is currently proposed by both NRS and ONS?

Not returning the form at all (or not filling it in online at all) will surely have much more impact than just skipping one question - and the online version won't let you skip it, I'm sure, as others have pointed out.

I'm in England not in Scotland but exactly the same issues are happening around the E&W version too.

The full session is worth a watch if you have a couple of hours. www.scottishparliament.tv/meeting/culture-tourism-europe-and-external-affairs-committee-january-9-2020

Peter Whitehouse of NRS flounders right from the start.

Sounds like we all need to ask for paper copies to make any protest. We need a term line mentioned gender refuser or no gender identity to make a collective grouping.
Is the gender question going to be open?

“Boycotting the census is an offence.

I shall identify as having done it. That's working for the Scots Govt at present.

I shall put for 'sex' that I haven't decided yet.

Or there's the good old reply: 'yes please'.

I’m a right in thinking that there is a space to write your religion and if a certain number of people say the belong to a religion then it official counts as a religion in the data eg Jedi Knights?

I wonder if anyone fancies becoming a member of women - female adult human?

Less than 400,000 identified as Jedi at the last census and the data was officially recorded. It’s does not make Jedi a religion but it’s an interesting way to make a statement.

Is the gender question going to be open?

In Scotland yes (if you mean optional).

It's worth noting that none of this is finalised yet, even in Scotland. I don't know whether McAlpine's committee has any power to tell NRS to go away and get it right, or whether all they can do is write a scathing report; in any case the census has to be approved by the Scottish Parliament (due to be proposed fairly soon I think) and presumably Holyrood can reject/amend it then too. AFAIK the process is similar for England and Wales except I don't know whether any select committee scrutinises it before it goes to the House of Commons.

So in theory it's possible that the self ID question won't in fact be on the Scottish census - or the E&W one - and the sex Q will be biology- (or at least legalsex-) based, if the respective governments rule for that. But I think realistically we are still at the stage of regulatory capture where it will barge through as self-ID.

It will be worth keeping an eye out for when the respective census bills go to Holyrood / Westminster and writing to our MSPs/MPs at that point, as well as planning how to protest at census time itself.

I'd boycott this. Women died so i could vote - i'm willing to risk a fine so that their struggle was not in vain. If 'identifying as a woman' was what prevented them entering public life, the Pankhursts et al would have simply declared themselves to identify as men!

What would happen if most women put/select male/man option?

Kundal, men would get more funds if there were suddenly 'more' of them?

Part of me thinks it would show them right - another part of me thinks that's exactly what the woke want us to do so that the Govt can pretend we don't exist and cut services for women further.

^What would happen if most women put/select male/man option?

Tempting though it is ...

In his evidence to the Scottish committee yesterday Peter Whitehouse stated that only 0.8% of people had failed to answer the "sex" question.

So I would think that vastly increasing that number is what to aim for - rather than mis-stating.

In any case isn't the point that it needs to be accurate?

How will Scotland (or England and Wales) know whether sex-selective abortion is taking place if they don't know population by sex?

How will Scotland be able to plan health campaigns around longevity if they don't know what the age-death-gap between men and women is?

How will Scotland be able to plan maternity services, prostate cancer services, ovarian cancer services if they don't know how many men and women there are?

And so on.

And (much though I was initially tempted by the idea!) I think that using the "religion" question to make a statement would be misguided too. It's not fact-based thinking that's the cult in all this, after all.

So I would think that vastly increasing that number is what to aim for - rather than mis-stating

Exactly. Then the new guidance would be shown to have exacerbated the problem rather than helping. I think the only issue would be that the electronic version will not allow people to skip the question and it's probably a hassle to get a paper version so the chances of getting people to do this en masse would be difficult.

It's better to boycott for various reasons, really - conversation.which.co.uk/technology/no-to-the-census/

What's the point in it if people can lie about their sex? How on earth can any person with either male or female genitalia actually be allowed to claim they are non-binary or the opposite sex?

A census is not just for planning provisions and funding. If the information collected is accurate, it can give you an idea of how society changes over decades and centuries and the potential implications of this.

So you can see how many people choose a religion vs choosing something like humanism. Are people getting less religious over time? Or more?
What's the ethnic distribution across a population and which cities or regions are more ethnically diverse?
Which age group is more likely to be single / married / divorced?
Stuff like that... It gives researchers a starting point for further investigation because you can see social trends change over time.

I find it astounding that for all the shouting by TRAs about their love and concern about trans people and how this particular demographic faces so many problems and challenges and oppressions, they seem determined to avoid obtaining accurate data about trans people!

Do they worry that accurately recording the biological sex of the trans population might uncover some unexpected or uncomfortable things over time?
It would be great to know how many biological males identify as trans vs how many biological females identify as males; what is the distribution of trans identity across the age ranges? Are trans people more likely to be unemployed or in work? For those in employment, are there any patterns in the sectors they work or in the levels of income distribution / income brackets? How does this compare to the wider population who aren't trans?
And as we accurately track such data over the coming decades, what kinds of trends or changes might we see? Is there a rise in young biological females identifying as trans and then as they get older (15-20 years from now) will there be a significant decrease in females identifying as trans? Does this mean that some have abandoned their trans identity or detransitioned? Are males more likely to stick with their trans identity as the years go by?

I can't see how anyone who claims to be concerned about trans people can then advocate for filling in a census based on subjective opinion rather than objective fact so that it's harder to get an accurate understanding of the demographics and any shifts.

I can't help but keep thinking about all the messaging we got at my work about GDPR when it was about to come in. There was a big thing about the GDPR principles and how organisations should not collect or hold data you provide to them without being clear about WHY they wanted the data and HOW they would use it.

If the census authorities are basically asking people to respond with either their biological sex OR their gender identity, then that's not clear, is it? If we all requested paper copies of the form, surely it would be legitimate to indicate on the form that we only consent to providing information about our sex if it will be held by the census authority as information about our biological sex (and not our 'gender identity').

I dunno. I'm riffing out loud here. Any lawyers specialising in data protection out there?!

Ugh! We are as a sex stuffed