#ManUpForTheCensus

[AnyOldPrion]

It appears that Scotland are likely to run with a census that centres gender ideology instead of sex, but does so in a way that remains under the radar.

The attached image contains the NRS response, on behalf of the Scottish government, to Murray, Blackburn, Mackenzie.

Twitter thread here:

twitter.com/mbmpolicy/status/1284118531911581697?s=21

This approach is devious. The main question will appear wholly straightforward and will ask for what most will assume to be sex in a simple, binary question.

Only those who consult the guidance notes will realise that the question does not refer to sex, but instead to “gender identity”.

This would appear to be yet another means of introducing gender ideology into the mainstream by stealth. In a few years (indeed it has already happened) it will be stated that the question has been asked that way for years without problem. Reversing it will be near to impossible. The reality is, of course, that any problems with this approach would take years to surface. They are almost impossible to identify, especially when the meaning of words such as “woman” have been changed to include men.

I think it may be prudent to campaign against this, and demonstrate the obvious problems with this approach by direct action. Inspired by ManFriday, and discussion in the linked twitter thread, I suggest that a movement should be created where women in Scotland should consider identifying as men on the day the census is taken.

#ManUpForTheCensus

Civil disobedience has a long history within Women’s Liberation. If anyone has any ideas or comments, please do join in with the discussion.

@contactusdeletus

This annoys me, but I'm one of those people who think the Census is important. It needs to be accurate, and I'm not sure the ManUp movement - as well-intentioned as it undoubtedly is - would reach far enough to do more than skew the data in favour of men.

Given that the Census is used to determine government funding and resources allocated to marginalized groups, and to help set policy, I want women represented fully. We need to stand up and be counted as ourselves.

I do, however, think we should call for sex to be registered, and for gender identity to be an optional extra. I'm tired of seeing the two conflated.

Do you know, in all the time I've been on MN FWR threads and twitter, I still cannot for the life of me understand why there would be an option for gender identity? I mean, what is the point of it?
Who gives a shiny shit about anyone's gender identity. I am so sick of this gender woo and the relevance it is being given.

@TheWordWomanIsTaken Well, for one thing, it would help to provide hard data on the phenomenon. If the Census tells you that such-and-such a proportion of people in a certain age group identify as non-binary, or that such-and-such a proportion of natal females with autism identify as trans males, would that not help to tackle issues like Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria? We've seen how powerful statistics like that of the 4400% increase in referrals for teen girls are.

It's hard to fight what you don't know, or can't prove.

It would also be helpful to have a better base of information regarding transtrenders vs old school transsexuals. How many people identifying as trans experience sex dysphoria, how many have had or are willing to have surgery, etc. There is a vocal portion of the trans community expressing unhappiness with self ID and calling for more gatekeeping. People like Blaire White and Miranda Yardley. If there was hard evidence to prove that these people take the whole thing more seriously than the fetish and trender crowd, perhaps they'd be able to get their voices heard, and the whole debate could return to something approaching reason.

The Census might not be the best way to find out some of this information, but you'd be surprised what could be inferred from it. If, for instance, there was a pattern of teens and young people identifying outside their birth sex for a few short years and then reverting to that birth sex in future Census polls. It would be impossible not to look at a pattern like that and say "Okay, so these kids are detransitioning, or not properly transitioning in the first place. We need to have a conversation about how we're defining trans kids vs gender nonconforming kids. We need to re-evaluate the steps we're allowing or encouraging them to take at this age, if there's such a high likelihood they'll desist in time. We need to look at what other factors might be driving this phenomenon, and which groups are experiencing the highest rates of identifying and then desisting. This data is worrying and we can no longer dismiss it as simply word of mouth."

Your mileage may vary but that's why I, personally, would like to see gender identity as a separate Census category to sex.

Less women in the census =
less money for maternity care
and women's health
and schools
and women's refuges

be careful what you wish for

The census is distributed to people whose details are taken from the electoral register (as far as I know). It's not like a survey, really!
No
The census includes EVERYBODY living in the country
immigrants
children
visitors
EVERYBODY

@ListeningQuietly Exactly. I can understand the desire to rebel against stuff like this, but I genuinely think we'd just be shooting ourselves in the foot here. Misogynists would be only too happy to see women's services defunded and conversations about our needs dismissed as irrelevant.

In my opinion, you wouldn't get enough women doing this anyway to make the powers that be take note. You'd need an absolute landslide for that.

All that would be achieved is that women's statistics are skewed in small ways. Ways that might not make a difference to the average person until we start to scrape the bottom of the austerity funding barrel, and someone in an office somewhere has to decide where the money is needed most.

Perhaps a good approach, rather than giving incorrect data, would be to simply spoil the census form and not provide any answers. Perhaps they could be returned empty with a note to the effect of "I will not contribute to the legitimisation of gender ideology that this census represents". It is still disobediant but gives them missing rather than incorrect data.

Perhaps a good approach, rather than giving incorrect data, would be to simply spoil the census form and not provide any answers.
If you do not exist on the census you do not exist for funding of
healthcare
schools
housing
infrastructure
democratic area definitions
be careful what you wish for

Some suffragettes refused to fill in the census at all, but others filled it and added their own comments.

Eg some filled in the box for Infirmity (intended for "Blind", "Deaf", etc) with the word "Unenfranchised".

Of course on a paper form this is easy. I don't know if they're going electronic this time, but even if they do it there must be some free text boxes.

If it's a paper form I'm inclined to amend it to read "biological sex" and truthfully add "I do not identify with any gender stereotype."

What would absolutely force the issue, though, would be to give two answers, eg "biological sex: female; nearest gender stereotype: man".

They have to decide why they wanted the information, to decide which to take. Eg is this for cancer screening programmes and actuarial projections?

The guidance for the sex question says you should answer based on your gender ID, and this is the same across the whole UK.

Not completing the census is illegal. And you won’t be able to skip the sex question online.

So! The only solution is for lots of us to request paper copies and select F but write on the margin that it must be recorded as our biological sex.

People did this last time to protest Lockheed Martin getting the contract.

This will piss off the ONS etc because they want 80% of people to complete online (cheaper).

THIS is what we need to build a campaign to do!!!

The only solution is for lots of us to request paper copies and select F but write on the margin that it must be recorded as our biological sex.
GOOD CALL

@Letsnotdothisplease

The guidance for the sex question says you should answer based on your gender ID, and this is the same across the whole UK.

Not completing the census is illegal. And you won’t be able to skip the sex question online.

So! The only solution is for lots of us to request paper copies and select F but write on the margin that it must be recorded as our biological sex.

People did this last time to protest Lockheed Martin getting the contract.

This will piss off the ONS etc because they want 80% of people to complete online (cheaper).

THIS is what we need to build a campaign to do!!!

This seems like the best approach.

Or identify as a squirrel or something?

Surely if the census is going to ask about 'gender identity' then there will be trans women who will answer female. Women could answer female in the knowledge that funding allocation will therefore assume there are more women in the population. Alternatively, women could identify as male to balance out the trans women answering 'female' meaning no loss of funding to women's services. Or have I missed something? I guess there's no way of really knowing how many trans women there are and whether or not they'll answer the census as female.

Which days of the week is Philip Bunce male ?
What day of the week is the census on ?

Which days of the week is Philip Bunce male
What day of the week is the census on

Ooh if theres a free text box we could all be different every day of the week and gender free every third Sunday and non binary every 7th Tuesday.

I started another thread to see how many people would request a paper copy in order to record their objection to the sex question guidance

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3977110-Respond-here-if-you-d-request-paper-copy-of-census-to-object-to-sex-question-guidance?watched=1

also can we get some cleaver stickers to 'improve' our submissions?

can we be kept updated on when the paper form is offered?

Further thoughts, identify as every choice on the question, all the genders all of the time.

Bump

Thanks LetsNotDoThis. That’s a great suggestion. I hope there’s a massive uptake.

I'm sorry, could you clarify? Is this just in Scotland or is it England, Wales, and NI too?

Just jumping on thi thread feeling apoplectic - so basic info needed - how and when do we request paper forms?

stumbledin, that MurrayBlackburnMackenzie article is excellent and summarises the data issues well. A useful article for explaining to other people, I think.