FairPlay for Women may take the ONS to court about the Census

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They've just tweeted:

"BREAKING: We're pleased to announce that Fair Play For Women has instructed a barrister to evaluate the lawfulness of the ONS approach regarding the definition of sex in the Census."

"If the ONS has broken the law we will hold them to account in the high court by judicial review"

This is great news! I hope they do have a case.

Although, as an aside I'm fed up that so many brilliant women are having to spend so much time, money and effort using the courts to get people who really should know better to do the basics of their jobs properly! It appears to be the only way, though. And a very effective one at that... ideology and bullying tactics don't fare so well in a court of law.

twitter.com/fairplaywomen/status/1361239632931921920

The ONS thinks its ok to guess about statistics now?

Just had a thought. Does the ONS not have sex data from birth certificates? They can then approximately work out from the census gender question how many trans people there are, though not what proportion are going which way and whether they are full trans, in the process or just self IDing. Is there someone out there who knows?

I suspect the TRA drive behind this is to make it impossible to have accurate figures of the number of trans people in the UK and whether these people were born female or male.

It is likely the figures would show small numbers of male at birth people.

If this was established as a fact it would really help women campaigning against this insanity.

It would be great to say to a company, doing X will upset 30 million women and will only please 6000 men. Which market share would you prefer?

Same occurred to me @Worrysaboutalot. The original question as planned (would have been compliant with the EQA and) would likely correspond with the number of GRCs issued, I'd have thought.

@beargrass

Same occurred to me *@Worrysaboutalot*. The original question as planned (would have been compliant with the EQA and) would likely correspond with the number of GRCs issued, I'd have thought.

No, unless I have completely misunderstood (always a possibility).

Sex = biological sex

Gender = whatever I feel like on the day of the census (nothing to do with GRC)

The number of returns might be as high as any of the various estimates from trans advocacy groups: 1/2 million, 2 million - anyone want to raise me 3 million?

I think those were all UK rather than excluding Scotland.

Estimates only...trans numbers could be as low as 5000 GRC holders only and a short lived fad in the under 18yo's.

The whole point is ONS should collect facts under the sex question, not beliefs.

Wouldn't Stonewall look stupid trying to look after 5000 men at the expense of all the lesbian, gay and bisexual people in the UK.

Worrysaboutalot I still don’t get how you are linking this to the GRA and the number of GRC holders.

Is there a suggestion somewhere that only GRC-holders are eligible to answer the “Gender Question”?

I thought the object was to invite everyone to state their “Gender Identity” in a voluntary question.

Makes it clear, doesnt it? So much has happened so quietly, out of sight, that for women it's now like trying to turn a tanker at full speed. Aided hugely by the every day unimportance of women in the UK and obliviousness to them as stakeholders in anything at all.

Absolute shocker that ONS had already introduced this tomfoolery without any consultation. I first saw 2011 but later someone reckoned 2001 so I don’t know which it is. If 2001 then - why?? The GRA was not until 2004.

@MichelleofzeResistance

Makes it clear, doesnt it? So much has happened so quietly, out of sight, that for women it's now like trying to turn a tanker at full speed. Aided hugely by the every day unimportance of women in the UK and obliviousness to them as stakeholders in anything at all.

Exactly this, @MichelleofzeResistance.

That publication on the decision-making process explicitly states that the Census 2011 data "is interpreted as self-identified sex" because of the guidance that was given to trans respondents at the time. This is the "gotcha" being used by some on Twitter shouting at academics who have spoken out against changing the sex question ("It's already been changed! Your 'concern' about this Census is just a transphobic dog whistle!" etc, etc).

And it's incredible how this document just completely hand waves away the need for data on biological sex. There is a section (from p. 12-13) where it discusses justifications for collecting data on sex registered at birth if it had not already been wiped away in the last Census.

They acknowledge "data is used for a variety of purposes, some of which relate to a person’s biology... and factors effected by both biology and culture, for example employment trajectories are impacted by cultural views on female roles, plus the impact of periods of time off to have children."

This is followed - with absolutely no justification for it - on the next page by:

"The most evidenced needs are for sex recorded on legal/official documents and sex as living / perceived."

They can't make their own points stack up because they're obviously completely illogical. Were they hoping we're all too stupid to notice or something?

@MoleSmokes

Absolute shocker that ONS had already introduced this tomfoolery without any consultation. I first saw 2011 but later someone reckoned 2001 so I don’t know which it is. If 2001 then - why?? The GRA was not until 2004.

@MoleSmokes I wondered this too and came across this from the Centre for Ageing and Demography, who are quoted in that report as saying:

"There was no written guidance for the 2001 Census [on the sex question] although we have evidence that ONS advised individual contacts that they could self-identify".

I'd like to see that evidence - as you say, this was 3 years before the GRA.

Thanks HighFemme - That’s even more astonishing since the ONS claimed in 2016 that it was not aware that the MOJ had introduced self-ID for offenders and was concerned that this conflicted with ONS practice.

I wonder if it was agreed policy within the ONS in 2001? Or just “helpful” civil servants (advised by a:Genda ?) pushing things in the desired direction of travel?

Like a pp noted, it will be possible to reverse engineer the sex or people who answer the gi question, assuming they fill in a word to describe their gi. It will be convoluted but it should be possible to piece it together. Some trans ppl won't answer that question because it's voluntary, so they will just be subsumed into the rest of the data according to the sex on their official docs.

But more importantly I think it will make it difficult to cross reference other demographics by sex. If you want to know the number of male, disabled (or anything else) ppl in their 20s, in a certain geographical area, then it will include trans men who have changed some official docs, which will make a difference to numbers. But, I have to say, nowhere near the difference that would have been the case if ONS had gone ahead with self identified sex, thanks to those who raised the issue at some cost to themselves.

I'm also not sure what grounds fpfw will find for challenging it. We'll just have to wait to see what the barrister they commission comes up with.

A really good presentation by Jane Clare Jones about how “policy capture” can happen if an institution listens to a small group and tries to accommodate their feelings without speaking to other groups is linked below. She also talks about the knot ONS has got into conflating gender and sex.

janeclarejones.com/2020/10/19/the-political-erasure-of-sex-sex-and-the-census/

Fantastic Payfrozen!

@ChakaDakotaRegina

I’ll do some digging for them.

(It feels mad that I’m having to pay for cases like this - like I'm paying a for subscription to reality)

Likewise (both).

It feels beyond Kafka-esque that ONS has been captured in the the way that JCJ describes so well.

I'm really worried about the erosion of women's financial resources during the lockdown and our ability to sustain these (and similar) actions but we must - captured organisations are plainly not considering us.

JCJ was talking about it on video yesterday:

As suggested, I emailed my MP today about this. We moved last August after 25 years in the same house, not very far, and to my shock Keir Starmer is now my MP! I thought I was a mistake. I'll have to get down to his surgery when it opens. Sorry for hijack, I'm still reeling

You know this book? (Read here by Samuel L Jackson)

JCJ's extended aside about the phallocentricity of everything from architecture (towers etc.) to armaments - anyone else seeing that as a similar style of book that would benefit by being read by her (and SLJ)?

My Mp has written to the ONS requesting a response to my questions. I am pleased he has responded and done something.

The Labour councillor did not respond or acknowledge my queries

For anyone else interested in the Ellul Propaganda piece that was discussed near the end of the JCJ video above - this has some useful quotations and discussion:

thecommonroomblog.com/2012/07/propaganda-by-ellul.html

Update just posted:

www.crowdfunder.co.uk/sexinthecensus2021/updates#start

Tomorrow is the day!

Here is the live tweeting for the court hearing. Fpfw are asking the court to make ons withdraw the guidence, and give them a full judicial review hearing on how the census collects sex data.
mobile.twitter.com/fairplaywomen/status/1369230649425596416