Job application not asking for sex, but asking if cis or trans

[JobHuntingPerson]

In the middle of applying for a job online, got to the equality and diversity section, all the usual questions about sexuality, religion ethnicity. I know a lot of people hate answering those questions but I think they can be important for companies to monitor their inclusivity.

Anyway, there was no sex question, it did not ask if I'm male or female. Instead there was a gender identity question, asking if I'm Agender, Cisgender, Trans, Queer, Intersex, Non -binary or prefer another term.

So basically, if or when the company does an equality review they will have no idea how many women they employ, no idea how to monitor or prevent any sexist culture growing in the workplace that makes life harder for female employees- or means we never get employed by them in the first place.

Has anyone else who's job seeking at the moment, or working in HR, seen anything like this. Is it becoming the norm?

I found it quite off-putting and don't know how to answer the question.

And one of the most effective ways an employer has to make sure that they do not unlawfully discriminate is by monitoring the protected characteristics of the people it employs or seeks to recruit. And a good E&D policy can help avoid unlawful discrimination in the workplace.

Can you explain that assertion?. I am interested in how a voluntary counting exercise does what you think it does?

It's over 38 years since I told an earnest young person I had no intention of providing anything about my "ethnic identity" and have continued as such ever since.

I can't help but feel if everyone had done the same, we may not have got to this stage.

If nothing else, at least I don't have to "agonise" over how I feel today.

Personally I'd skip over this bit anyway. They can't force you to answer (well not yet). If they really press the point, then just ask them what they prefer you be and see what happens.

Or do a Philip Bunce and say that it depends on the day of the week

@CharlieParley

Companies are obliged by law to monitor the protected characteristics as per the Equality Act. They may choose to monitor additional characteristics, but the EqA ones are the only ones needed.

If this is their monitoring form, I would be concerned that their policies are discriminatory, especially against those of us protected on the basis of sex. And I would certainly think twice before considering them as an employer.

If you are cis gender then you are the sex you were born with.

No, that is not what the term means nor is it what the sexologist who coined the term in 1991 intended to convey.

A person who is "cisgender" by definition embraces the sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes associated with their birth sex, performs them happily and does not feel uncomfortable with or disagrees with or rebels against those stereotypes.

That's why so may of us say we do not know a single person who is "cisgender".

There is no collective term for those of us not suffering from "gender dysphoria" (just in case that's what you were seeking to express.)

Gender, even as understood in transgender ideology, is the collective term for the sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes any given society construct around each sex and imposes on each member of that society. As society changes, so do these stereotypes. Thus, while human sex has only ever consisted of the male and female sex class since the species evolved millions of years ago, gender continually changes.

Perfect response Charlie 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Companies are obliged by law to monitor the protected characteristics as per the Equality Act.

Which rather avoids the fact that employees cannot be compelled to assist in this exercise.

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1292482665006997504.html

Did this work? Alan Hennessey has asked the same questions of many organisations. Hopefully that's the Hachette link.

Can you explain that assertion?. I am interested in how a voluntary counting exercise does what you think it does?

Monitoring protected characteristics involves more than just voluntary E&D forms like the one in the OP's post. To be clear, I think this type of tickbox exercise is of limited value, even if done right. That's because they are voluntary, so give neither a complete nor a representative picture of the workforce, nor can the veracity of any data be verified.

However, at the very least employers do know the sex and age of their employees. Keeping data on salaries, conditions, promotions etc and disaggregating this data by sex allows an employer to gain insights into whether inequalities are an issue. If they want to. Some companies do want to, especially after losing a tribunal for unlawful discrimination or if they have issues with staff retention or recruitment. Some don't.

How many employees does this employer have?

If it has 250 or more, it has to abide by The Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017. Here is a link www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2017/172/introduction/made

The regulations make it a requirement to publish six calculations of the gap between the pay of male and female employees.

How could this employer publish these figures if it doesn't know, because it doesn't ask, who of its employees are male and who are female?

How could this employer publish these figures if it doesn't know, because it doesn't ask, who of its employees are male and who are female?

Which isn't what the OP was asked.

@SerendipityJane

How could this employer publish these figures if it doesn't know, because it doesn't ask, who of its employees are male and who are female?

Which isn't what the OP was asked.

That was rather my point.

The OP wrote "Anyway, there was no sex question, it did not ask if I'm male or female."

So the company won't know who are male and who are female. And it therefore cannot collate and publish the figures required (always supposing it comes under the Regulations).

I wonder if at some point the dimwit who designed those questions will have a conversation with whichever higher up dimwit asked for it along the lines of 'ah, great, all our diversity stats.... so, how many TW do we have? What? You've only got TW+TM? '

Skyliner--Everybody is the sex they were born with. Human beings can't change their sex.

However, at the very least employers do know the sex and age of their employees.
Yes. Employers have to have this information to put you on the payroll. Plus your NI number.

Keeping data on salaries, conditions, promotions etc and disaggregating this data by sex allows an employer to gain insights into whether inequalities are an issue. If they want to.

Does it? How? What is disaggregating? What is an "issue"?

Some companies do want to, especially after losing a tribunal for unlawful discrimination or if they have issues with staff retention or recruitment. Some don't.

Eh?

But they must not unlawfully discriminate against anyone, neither in recruiting nor in employing someone.

And one of the most effective ways an employer has to make sure that they do not unlawfully discriminate is by monitoring the protected characteristics of the people it employs or seeks to recruit. And a good E&D policy can help avoid unlawful discrimination in the workplace.

How?
Why do you keep asserting than an optional counting of anything has any affect on discrimination? Please explain the reason counting the number of anything is effective at stopping discrimination? Fascinated to find out. You seem very sure.

I think there’s a lot of people who wouldn’t know what at least 2 or 3 of those terms mean. Often on forms they put gender instead of sex and then your options are male or female, which is annoying in itself but this.... I have friends who just wouldn’t have a clue what cis, non binary or queer are on a gender drop down list. They’d be looking for male or female although I understand that arc would be the correct term, not gender.

The fact that intersex is an option under gender means that I think I’d just not apply. They’re completely clueless, probably not a great place to work.

*sex not arc

There's a few things here

And I'm no expert!

As I understand it

Public sector employers have a fairly strict set of D&I stuff to record, report on etc.

The form op mentions is at application stage. So would only be of use for them to check what sort of candidates were applying, getting to interview etc.
This can be useful as some companies have realised they were using language that appealed to some types of candidates and put others off.
On the whole I'd imagine it's a box ticking thing and most don't do much with it.

Larger employers have to report on gender pay gap. This is for employees rather than people applying, and would be based on hr records.

In this case the inclusion of Intersex is really iffy.
And not asking sex as well as gender is standard now it seems. I think companies and TBH pretty much everyone is relying on the fact that gender usurped sex lots of stuff years ago, as a synonym for sex.

So they think (if they think at all) that most people when asked gender will say their sex, and a small number of people will select a gender different to their sex.

That's not how data gathering should work at all. But. Police, NHS etc have taken this route.

And they are relying on most people assuming it means sex. But it doesn't.

In a few years stats will be fucked. The rape stats already in the UK show this up, only because we define it in a certain way.

To the poster who asks 'What is disaggregating?'. Google is really good for questions like that. The internet has an enormous amount of info. I advise my children to not believe everything they read and to check multiple sources. However when it comes to definitions like the one you are asking about, wiki or similar is usually pretty solid. I hope that helps.

I have friends who just wouldn’t have a clue what cis, non binary or queer are on a gender drop down list.
And that's probably the point. They can hardly say in their job spec, 'The successful applicant will have blue hair and ideally a degree from Goldsmiths' but this works nearly as well. It's kind of like a dog whistle although obviously it can't be cos only people on the wrong side of history do that.

I would run for the hills. It's sad to see publishing in this state though.

And apologies for my lazy blue hair stereotyping. I actually wanted blue hair when I was a child.

Why do you keep asserting than an optional counting of anything has any affect on discrimination?

I didn't say anything of the kind. In fact, I explicitly said that a tickbox exercise like the OP's potential employer's form is of limited value.

Please explain the reason counting the number of anything is effective at stopping discrimination? Fascinated to find out. You seem very sure.

Again, that is not what I said. Just as counting crime does nothing at all to stop crime, collecting data about your workforce does nothing at all to stop discrimination.

Before you can address discrimination, you must show it happens. In order to show that (or find out whether) discrimination happens in a workplace, you need information about its workforce. That information is then categorized and analysed.

If the analysis shows that employees with certain characteristics (such as female staff) are treated less favourably than others not sharing those characteristics (such as male staff), this suggests that they are discriminated against on the basis of those characteristics (here it would be on the basis of sex). Employers, unions, staff or legislators can then take actions to remedy this.

That is the motivation behind data collection forms like the equality and diversity form the OP was asked to fill in. However, as I said earlier that way of data collection and monitoring is of little value.

In contrast, over the last few decades, the collection of comprehensive and complete workforce statistics has allowed us to see whether and where discrimination based on certain characteristics of an employee happens. Especially in the public sector, where monitoring of a limited number of characteristics is mandatory.

The two main ones are age and sex, followed by education, ethnicity, race, religion, sexuality and class. (Marital status once was an important category, but does not seem to matter now). Apart from the first two, however, employers today do not have the legal right to demand that an employee share that information with them.

Pregnancy and maternity are special categories as women are specifically protected from discrimination while pregnant and/or on maternity leave.

As for your question about what issues there may be with discrimination at work and why data collection matters, I can recommend Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez who not only shows why data collection is important, but also what happens when you don't.

Omfg, they can't ask somebody if they're intersex. Wtf are they thinking?

In contrast, over the last few decades, the collection of comprehensive and complete workforce statistics has allowed us to see whether and where discrimination based on certain characteristics of an employee happens.

And then ignored.

Or do said statistics show a decrease in discrimination year on year ? And when do we reach zero ?

That way they can keep the glass ceiling and pretend that they are inclusive.

Or do said statistics show a decrease in discrimination year on year ? And when do we reach zero ?

I recently saw an estimate that if progress proceeds at the same rate as now, the motherhood penalty (as the "pay gap" should be called) will be abolished in just 200 short years.

@CharlieParley

Or do said statistics show a decrease in discrimination year on year ? And when do we reach zero ?

I recently saw an estimate that if progress proceeds at the same rate as now, the motherhood penalty (as the "pay gap" should be called) will be abolished in just 200 short years.

The cynic in me thinks that's probably too soon for some.