Tiny wins

[BackLashStarts]

This year’s civil service wide people survey has...separated sex and gender! Presumably enough complained in previous years.

A very small win. The second question forces a declaration of gender without an opt out.

Considering how woke the civil service has been, thats a medium sized win imo.

Splendid

This makes me very happy! Thank you to all who complained!

Well done civil servants! That is an achievement. Maybe next year they can tweak the wording again if people write in?

If they actually need to record people's sex (as in, there's an actual purpose the information will be put to), why is there a "prefer not to say" option?
That's before you even get to the whole "gender you identify as" thing.

I can't see the relevance of that at all.
Still, it is better than conflating the two, I agree.

Well done civil complainers! Excellent work on this :-))
I guess the survey writers didn’t take into account the fact that it forces ‘outing’ of people who may not wish that (as well as forcing others to participate in gender identity ideology whether they want to or not) but that may be a smaller mountain to climb?

And isn’t there a GDPR issue with holding non essential info? Moving in the right direction though :-))

As its the Civil Service think it is far more than a tiny win.

But well done to everyone who got them to recognise that monitoring needs to include the sex of the respondent.

And even if it was tiny, we just need to think of all the other tiny wins coming together to make a patchwork of wins!

I think this is a medium-sized win. It's the Civil Service!

I also like the specificity of "sex registered at birth". Registered, not "Assigned", by the magic sorting hat.

@VaggieMight

A very small win. The second question forces a declaration of gender without an opt out.

But the No box has a free text space to tell them you don’t have a gender identity - or anything else you want to tell them about gender.

The second question forces a declaration of gender without an opt out.

Surely the opt out is to select no and write 'none'?

My star sign, religion and spirit animal are also not the same as my sex so would get a similar answer.

As long as they want to know how many people believe they have a GI and what that is (which is potentially useful info) then I think that phrasing is as good as it gets an we should hold it up as best practice- along with encouraging people to write 'none'.

That’s not a small win, that’s a huge win. Just so long as they don’t capitulate to the TRAs/MRAs who for a ‘vulnerable group’, seem to get everyone, besides Mumsnet (thank you) to totally bend to their will.

But the No box has a free text space to tell them you don’t have a gender identity - or anything else you want to tell them about gender.

Perhaps, but the options to the absolutely ridiculous question being asked is yes or no. The comment box requests more details about your gender identity. Usually there's a prefer not to say option for diversity questions. Prefer not to say gives the option of not answering the question. For people not wishing to out themselves as GC there's no neutral option. I agree it's a small win, it's great that there is a sex based question but I think we're being grateful for crumbs. Also, a free comments box is unlikely to gain much useful data.

Brilliant

It’s important to gather the sex data as the CS looks diverse but when you take grade and pay into account it’s still men on top and when you look at harassment it’s still directed at women. Glad to see this change!

I was one of the ones who complained last year and was really pleased to see it had changed this year! I got what I thought at the time was a pretty dismissive response so was definitely surprised they listened and changed it.

Regarding GDPR, you don’t put your name on and so it is anonymous. I understand it is analysed by an external organisation, so the civil service doesn’t hold details on any individuals’ answers and the organisation doing analysis doesn’t report findings for groups of less than 10 people to ensure that anonymity isn’t compromised.

Also, a free comments box is unlikely to gain much useful data.

Indeed, which means the relevant data being analysed is sex- great. You have to have a box for GI or some of the Genderists will lie on the sex question.

Wouldn't it be great if the most common GI was 'none'.

That’s a whole lot bigger than you might think.

The free text box allowed me to say ‘my sex is female, I don’t have a gender identity’. Maybe if enough people write similar things, there will be a ‘none’ box next year.

I only wrote that as it’s completely anonymous and externally administered. I sincerely hope it doesn’t come back to bite me.

Excellent! I would tick 'female' for the first question and state that I don't have a gender identity for the second.

The follow up question though - just why is this one thing about the whole human experience so very very important?

I complained last year too, and found out (I have a role that lets me see free text comments) in was the only one out of 900 that did. But yayyy us! Very good to see someone took the point about reflecting the PCs accurately. This year I had a bit of a go in the ‘other’ gender box. I have said (in the ‘what could improve your experience of this survey?’ Question, right at the end, that they should have free text next to ‘prefer not to say’. I will wait to see if our captured (‘identifying as intersex’ ffs) staff reps get in a tizz

Sorry - meant I added my comments in the ‘no’ gender identity box like Didgeridont did

I have just done this survey and as well as yes, no (with text box) there was a "prefer not to say" option. I came here to start a thread but glad I checked this subtly titled one!

There were also all the other usual E&D monitoring questions like ethnicity, religion, caring responsibilities, and a whole series on social mobility. I could not screen shot because my organisation's policies mean that would be a security breach.