What sex were you assigned at birth asks Covid Symptom Study

[Areyouactuallyseriousrightnow]

The Covid Symptom Study, developed by health science company Zoe, with data being analysed by Kings College London, and endorsed by various large public bodies, asks participants to confirm the sex they were ‘assigned’ at birth.
It doesn’t appear to even be conflating this with gender as gender is a separate question.
If a major health science company is using biologically impossible terminology, what hope is there?
If I can figure out how to question this with them, I will.

I got an invitation to take part in the ONS/Oxford University COVID Infection Study and it says that I will be asked about my gender. So potentially lots of money being thrown at a study which produces meaningless data.

I KNOW most people will read it as meaning sex, but knowing what I know, I can't let it lie and will be calling and emailling to ask some questions. I know that this is ultimately pointless, but personally I think that this creeping change of language needs addressing every single time.

At least they are making it clear that the information that want is biological sex not gender or how one feels inside

Oh, that’s disappointing to say the least! I signed up to be contactable for covid vaccine studies the other day via NHS website - I thought these phrasings of the sex & gender questions were quite good - I think both us gender criticals & die-hard genderists could answer these truthfully and they still get meaningful info.

Maybe they feel they have to use that ridiculous term to avoid a few people giving inaccurate information. There are a few TW who assert they are female, and quite possibly would say they've always been so because "ladybrain" trumps actual sex in their dogma.

Xpost - Sex registered at birth is a much better solution to that qualm than 'assigned'. It's neutral and factual.

@Cwenthryth

Oh, that’s disappointing to say the least! I signed up to be contactable for covid vaccine studies the other day via NHS website - I thought these phrasings of the sex & gender questions were quite good - I think both us gender criticals & die-hard genderists could answer these truthfully and they still get meaningful info.

I signed up for this too and thought they'd come up with as good a wording as they could.

Not good for health stats at all, what's the actual point?

My brother just told me he got his 11 year old sons club membership soccer form to fill out and instead of the usual sex (or gender) section it asked "What gender does your child identify As" (I'm in Ireland)

I like 'registered at birth', makes it more obvious your sex is already set, just someone happens to notice it, I didn't get 'assigned' a sex from the magic book of gender snowflakes.

Yeah, I remember discussing this earlier in the year. The Zoe study had started by asking very clearly for sex - male or female - then there was a bit of a backlas from genderists, and they introduced various odd questions about HRT and gender etc.

'registered' at birth is good, I think. Takes the heat out of it. It's a neutral, factual term.

It's not difficult. Sex assinged at birth = sex assumed by the midwife from a quick glance between the legs. It is also recorded on your birth cerificate in the box labelled "sex".
Of course unless your bc has been corrected at any time...

I saw this too! I was filling out on behalf of my husband, I selected male for 'assigned at birth' and then 'other' for gender and just wrote 'i was observed to be a biological male at birth' (I wrote a longer diatribe but it was character limited!)

Because I selected 'other' under gender the next page asked about his menstrual cycle. I went back and changed gender to male and it no longer asked about his menstrual cycle. So the menstrual cycle question was linked to the gender answer not the sex answer. Which makes no sense.

Sex is often observed in utero.

Because I selected 'other' under gender the next page asked about his menstrual cycle. I went back and changed gender to male and it no longer asked about his menstrual cycle. So the menstrual cycle question was linked to the gender answer not the sex answer. Which makes no sense.

That's worth an email, presumably, as it could screw up their results. (Sounds like a coding error with the form design - the follow-up question is linked to the wrong field.)

Is there not an option for ‘I can’t remember, I was very young at the time’?

@Gottalife

It's not difficult. Sex assinged at birth = sex assumed by the midwife from a quick glance between the legs. It is also recorded on your birth cerificate in the box labelled "sex". Of course unless your bc has been corrected at any time...

But that us not 'assigning', that is observing sex so it is a lie to say you were assigned sex.

@AryaStarkWolf

Not good for health stats at all, what's the actual point?

My brother just told me he got his 11 year old sons club membership soccer form to fill out and instead of the usual sex (or gender) section it asked "What gender does your child identify As" (I'm in Ireland)

Oh dear lord. The old Irish retort 'Ask me bollix' just sprang into my mind unbidden. Should this prove impossible just assume I'm a female

Assigned gives the notion that it is debatable or arbitrary. You have been assigned seat 4 on row 10. You have been assigned ..... female. Could you say you weren't assigned any or that it was hotly contested as all quota of male places had already been assigned for that day and they had run out?

There needs to be a PI or CI (chief investigator) for the study, and it will have been through a Research Ethics Committee. It will therefore have pretty good governance and once you figure out who the PI or contact is it should be easy to make a complaint.

@Abhannmor

If anyone is complaining, maybe suggest the NHS wording as being much clearer and unambiguous.

Even "registered at birth" isn't particularly good. What if that was actually wrong, due to an intersex condition, or if your sex wasn't registered at birth at all? They surely want to know what sex you actually are, but that wording suggests that somehow the paperwork is more important.

Anyway, who's actually checked their birth certificate? I'm far more certain of what my sex is than what my birth certificate may or may not say... I assume it's probably correct, but what if there was some clerical error like in the film Brazil? Am I consigned to incorrect medical treatment forever more?

I agree that it’s a small consolation that sex has at least been identified as separate to gender identity but the term assigned is just factually incorrect and I am incredulous at seeing its use in a huge scale scientific study.

I do agree the NHS wording is at least technically correct and also seems unlikely that it could cause ‘offence’ and therefore would be a suitably accurate alternative.
Thanks for the additional info @LoeliaPonsonby I will try to look into it further.
(But why has it ended up being our responsibility to have to police language in relation to basic biology)

Yep @NecessaryScene1 it does still seem to imply that your biology is an administrative state rather than, you know, what’s within every cell of your very being.

Honestly, as someone who has analysed survey data in the past, I suspect any data analysis will basically screen out anyone who doesn't answer male/male or female/female for the two questions.

If there's enough trans / non-binary participants, they might analyse them as a separate group, but I suspect the sample size will be very small.

Annoying that the menstrual cycle question is linked to gender. It sounds like this is because the survey originally asked about sex, then switched to gender, and now adds an extra question to disambiguate the two. It's going to add significant pain to the data processing to have these changes in the data definitions though