How should I fill in my employer's "Self-ID" questionnaire?

[OneInAGoogol]

My employer has asked employees to fill in a “self-identification” form, choosing fields that best reflect how we would like to be represented in the company’s demographic reporting, apparently to inform their diversity and inclusion efforts. I started losing hope a few words into the identity-centric preamble, but the last sliver disappeared once I got to the “Gender and Sex” section.

Please, oh wise ones, tell me how I should answer the following question (online, with no free-text fields), bearing in mind that I am female, and have no “gender identity” that I’m aware of. I thought I’d seen it all with these sorts of questions, but they’ve gone and achieved a whole new level of conflation:

————————————

People whose gender / sex is not male or female use many different terms to describe themselves. For the purposes here, “nonbinary” is an umbrella term to describe the experience of gender that is not male or female. While some transgender people are nonbinary, other transgender people have a gender identity that is either male or female.

Gender / Sex (select all that apply)

• Prefer not to answer
• Man
• Nonbinary
• Woman
• None of the options apply to me

Do you consider yourself transgender? (select one)

• Prefer not to answer
• No
• Yes
• None of the options apply to me

————————————

Note that if I check “Prefer not to answer” or “None of the options apply to me”, I can’t check any of the other options, so putting both “None of the options apply to me” and “Woman” is not possible (unfortunately, as that would probably be the most appropriate answer if I’m supposed to select my “gender / sex” as requested).

I’m considering putting “Nonbinary” and “Woman”, but I don’t know if there’s any risk of this sort of thing backfiring. For example, the company might look at the data to discover there are more “nonbinary” people than they realised, and decide they need to introduce a whole host of new measures to be inclusive of people who fit their preconceived idea of what it means to be “nonbinary” (which I presume involves being very woke and very navel-gazing). This would probably not be a desirable outcome.

If you must fill it out, then none of the options apply.

With an email attachment to whomever is in charge of it politely explaining that there was no box for sex-female.

Are you in the UK? Is the questionnaire anonymous? Is there space in the form to add further text?

I anonymously filled in a work questionnaire and in the space to describe 'Other' type of gender identity, I stated that I do not have a gender identity but my sex is female. I also entered in a space for comments about getting the protected characteristics right according to the UK Equality Act etc.

@BlackWaveComing

If you must fill it out, then none of the options apply.

With an email attachment to whomever is in charge of it politely explaining that there was no box for sex-female.

I agree. Under these circumstances, I would be doing the same.

I would also point out that the questionnaire is most likely in breach of the GDPR regulations that stipulate the collection of such personal data must be for a defined, specific purpose, while this just looks like a general throwing out a net to see what you catch kind of thing.

Depending on standing and level of job security, I would probably also add that they must comply with the Equality Act, even as a private enterprise, and if anyone ever brings a claim for discrimination under the EqA, a tribunal will look very closely at their Equality and Diversity policies and monitoring and if they find that the protected characteristic under which the staff member is claiming unlawful discrimination is missing or misrepresented, it will count against them.

To be honest, this form in my view is already discriminatory, because it forces those who identify as trans to out themselves (this question should never be mandatory), it alters what should be the protected characteristic of sex to sex/gender and because it discriminates against those who do not espouse a belief in gender ideology.

What happens if you don't complete it? If you get chased up for it, would you feel able to express your concerns and reasons as to why you cannot complete it? I think that's the approach I would take.

@BlackWaveComing Good point — "woman" is not a sex, so I shall not be selecting that. "None of the options apply" it is, then.

@NonnyMouse1337 Yes, I'm in the UK (though the company is headquartered in the US, and the vendor that provides the software they use to collect the data is also US-based). The form is not entirely anonymous, in the sense that the data will be linked to my work profile; though apparently it is effectively anonymous, as the few people who are able to access the raw data for aggregation purposes will not be able to see the names corresponding to each data point. There is no space in the form to add further text.

I was thinking of emailing someone about this, but haven't decided exactly what to say (there are so many things wrong with this question that the thought of trying to articulate it all is draining enough). Would you recommend keeping it very simple, or would you go into some detail about why it's important they collect actual sex data?

Just don't bother completing it at all.

@Escapeplanning

Just don't bother completing it at all.

^^ This.

I can't see how this is enforceable or mandatory in any way.

Or 'prefer not to answer' is always one of my favourite get out options.

I would love to understand more about what you are all saying... are there any good websites/articles or anything you could point me in the right direction to, to read up? Thanks!

Email them and explain your struggling to complete it. You understand that they can ask about the protected characteristics of sex, disability, gender reassignment, race but your confused as there’s nowhere to state female sex. Also you don’t have a gender identity and don’t give thought to gender stereotypes

They have no right asking this - it is against GDPR rules and therefore probably illegal. They have no right asking staff if they are transgender or not as that is outing.

They are allowed to ask - sex - male / female
Gender reassignment - yes/no.

There are probably other threads with more information/advice

ThinEndoftheWedge - do you know that for a fact and can you point me to it anywhere? I am having this battle and need the legal facts to make my case.

Is there the option of scoring out gender on the gender/sex and then choosing woman?

@OverTheRainbow88 what exactly do you want to know more about?

Just ignore it, they can’t MAKE you fill it out, surely?

As there isn't a "fuck you" option, I would ignore it.

I'd ignore it and if pressed, say I was uncomfortable filling this out for personal reasons.

ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/lawful-basis-for-processing/

Hope this helps.

Effectively employers can’t ask for any personal information that they want to, they need a legal basis - I am assuming Stonewall et al told them it was legal and ‘best practice’.

They are only allowed to gather information for legal purposes - ie equality monitoring - sex and gender reassignment.

I would suggest a quick email to ask what basis under GDPR do they have to collect this data and point out that even if they do have that they need to collect data under protected characteristics separately so sex and gender reassignment should be separate and their should be an option for prefer not to say

As dragon says

Q should be:

Sex f/m (?prefer not to say)
GR y/n/prefer not to say

Would you recommend keeping it very simple, or would you go into some detail about why it's important they collect actual sex data?

I would keep it simple - the questionnaire breaches GDPR guidelines, if the company is intending to write an Equality and Diversity policy, its provisions must be based on the protected characteristics because that's what discrimination claims will be based on.

My friend's experience with their US employer is that the HR people were profoundly ignorant of the protections that exist for staff across Europe. My friend did try to warn them about certain German worker protections but because the employer honestly believed they could be circumvented, ridden roughshod over or plain ignored they did what they wanted, thinking they could hire and fire at will. It cost them dearly.

So it is possible that you will be ignored, because they might genuinely not know the laws that protect workers from discrimination here.

In the end, as such forms cannot be mandatory, I'm thinking you could just ignore it if needed.

I've included a screenshot of what data an employer can keep about you with and without your permission (since you said the form will be linked to you, even if the people accessing the form won't know it's yours). What the form is asking about is data you decide whether you want to give them. And if you don't that's the end of your involvement.

The UK Government page on the data is here.

Can’t you put ‘feminist’ in every single open text box?

Thanks all for the the resources and suggestions.

Something I'm unclear on: do the strict GDPR rules about what data can be collected still apply if the employee has given permission for other data (such as this nonsensical "gender / sex" hybrid) to be collected? My impression from the GDPR pages linked by @CharlieParley and @ThinEndOfTheWedge is that the company can collect other data if given permission by the employee. But I'm not clear on whether, in this case, the requirement for a "specific purpose" would prevent this condition from being satisfied.

The link from ThinEndOfTheWedge says "The lawful bases for processing are set out in Article 6 of the GDPR. At least one of these must apply whenever you process personal data: ...", with the first one being "Consent: the individual has given clear consent for you to process their personal data for a specific purpose." If the consent requirement is satisfied, I suppose the question then becomes "what is the specific purpose?". Would the argument here be that there is no specific purpose for which this "gender / sex" data could be useful, since it is so muddled in what it is asking for? Could they argue that it enables them to fulfil some overall diversity-related objective that isn't directly linked to individual protected characteristics in isolation?

This is interesting. My university (of which I'm a student not an employee) changed their registration questions this year to ask what is your gender and do you identify as the gender you were assigned at birth. Do the same rules apply for student's data as they do employees?

Re permission. The employer can collect info with staff permission- I.e everyone’s birthdays written in the boss’s diary and not just confidentially held with HR.

But there is a clear lack of requirement - no legal basis for this information to be collected. Only in the format as already stated above. In fact it will probably make the employer vulnerable to employment claims as they won’t be able to demonstrate equal opportunity compliance.

You haven’t provided consent for such questions. They haven’t asked for it - and if consent was asked - it would be discriminatory - we are not required by law (yet) to have a gender identity Yes I don’t have one either or- conversely out ourselves as GC if we chose not to.

They don’t need the information aside from what has been discussed up thread.

I assume that this would be the same for univeristies...But I don’t know.