Fairplay for women take ONS to judicial review for redefining sex in census

[fatblackcatspaw]

fairplayforwomen.com/

What an incredible donation! Now less than £1200 to go.

Shit, srsly?

I do love the groundswell when women put their hands in their pockets and make. Shit. Happen.

yes ! realised we are nearly there.... barely a few more carrrotts needed

Seems that someone somewhere has so much influence that they can get the census launched a month early (with no publicity) to try to stop the FPFW court case.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9307405/Census-chiefs-launch-survey-month-early-sparking-fury-feminists.html?fbclid=IwAR0EZYuwwSGzjYaq5J60kvfUHq0FaZNSR1KW0nkR-fwNvTBnCuU_4Tigzew

It seems that the doughty crew at FPFW are still going ahead, aided by a large numbers of carrots. Keep digging wimbons.

What the hell?

Elsewhere in the MoS, an article that tries to paint unflattering comparisons with the Suffragettes and includes disparaging anonymous quotes from 'a woman blogger' calling FPFW "terfs".

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9307365/What-suffragettes-boycotted-1911-Census-make-women-enraged-todays-poll.html

What is going on?

If ONS can switch the census on a month early, I assume they can switch if off again too. The numbers completing it early this week are likely to have been small, so - subject to the outcome of the court case - they could contact early respondents to ask whether they would have answered the sex question differently if the guidance is changed. Sneaky bastards.

Am I reading into it too much? Are the ONS so afraid of upsetting Stonewall they have done something they’ve never done before and launched a census early? How have Stonewall become so powerful?

Fight's not over yet....

fairplayforwomen.com/census-dirty-tricks-wont-stop-us/

And this twitter thread twitter.com/fairplaywomen/status/1365925180493725697?s=20

99%

It is very interesting it turned on early. I suppose that is likely to have been planned because of covid but the traditional census is where are you on census day - that one day - who is visiting etc. It is not who is normally in your home so it must be quite hard to fill it in in advance as you are guessing who will be coming to stay as a guest that night!

Asked ONS a Q about this via the standard enquiry contact details. Below is an extract from the ONS response.

‘Census 2021 will continue to ask a binary question, with the response options female and male; this approach is unchanged since 1801.

There is also a new voluntary question on gender identity later in the questionnaire for people aged 16 and over, providing data for which there is significant user need at a national and local level.

Our design for Census 2021 will ensure that the data we collect from the sex question in Census 2021 will be of the highest quality.

Achieving the highest possible response rates both nationally and locally for the census as a whole and for each question is vitally important. This is key to ensuring we can produce the best possible statistics in our census outputs, fulfilling the needs of census data users and helping to inform decisions that will affect us all in the years ahead.

We will be providing online guidance to assist respondents in answering all questions in the census questionnaire. This includes guidance on the question on sex, although, as with previous censuses, the vast majority of people will not need help, or to reference the guidance at all, to answer this question.

We have worked closely with organisations and individuals from representative groups over the last few years on the guidance for the questions in the census, including the guidance for the question on sex. Through this engagement and our testing and research we have concluded that directing people who are considering how to answer the question on sex to use one of their legal documents, such as birth certificate, gender recognition certificate or passport, was clear and inclusive.

By referring to ‘legal documents’ the guidance makes clear we are referring to government issued documents. This is not self-identification, which was evaluated as part of a range of options but not taken forward. Both the question itself and the online guidance clearly indicate that there is a separate gender identity question for those aged 16 and over.

The final wording of this guidance and further details of the work done on it were published on 12 February in an article on the Office for National Statistics (ONS) website, available here.

www.ons.gov.uk/census/censustransformationprogramme/questiondevelopment/genderidentity/census2021finalguidanceforthequestionwhatisyoursex

I do think the census itself is fine. I read the original questions last week and it asks what I have seen on the 1841 and other census records I have spent a lot of time on with our family tree - M or F. I don't think most people will read the guidance so if that guidance is ridiculously overly woke/PC most people probably will not read it anyway.

Much later on is the question about if you regard yourself as having changed gender or something and it is a fairly reasonable question. I thought some of the questions about work etc were a bit intrusive this time but even so it has been done well and I am very very pleased unlike Scotland we are going ahead with the census this year rather than putting it off to next year as they are doing North of the border.

We certainly need to watch out for these things however otherwise women's rights (xx rights) will be damaged in so many areas.
As for those who have contributed to the fund for legal action I think the people running it should offer to return money or if contributors prefer to use it for another women's cause. I don't think the state can change the guidance wording now the census has started whereas other guidance in areas such as CV19 is changed all the time particularly when mistakes are found.

The problem with that is that it is apparently extremely easy to change the sex shown on your passport, so that's self-ID by the back door.

Original birth certificate shows what a medical professional observed when the holder was born, so that's objective evidence in all but a tiny handful of cases where the baby has a health condition making it difficult to determine sex.

GRC enables holder to get a revised birth certificate, showing the opposite of orginal certificate, but only after a panel of experts have reviewed evidence, including reports from two HCPs, one of whom confirms that applicant is suffering from gender dysphoria. Not an ideal system, as I imagine many HCPs who do these reports are largely writing down what the applicant tells them, i.e. what's needed to get the GRC, but it does provide some gatekeeping.

Am I right in thinking that the big change this time is the ONS mentioning passport as well as birth certificate and GRC?

I do think the census itself is fine. I read the original questions last week and it asks what I have seen on the 1841 and other census records I have spent a lot of time on with our family tree - M or F. I don't think most people will read the guidance so if that guidance is ridiculously overly woke/PC most people probably will not read it anyway.

Part of the problem is, people not seeing that there is a problem.

Most people: I am a woman, so Female. My gender is the same as that so Yes to the question about gender identity.

Trans person one: born male but now woman so answer female. It says so on my passport.

Trans person two: born male so answer male. It says so on my birth certificate.

Both these people have answered correctly according to the guidance.

Yes it’s the inclusion of passport as evidence of your sex - which whilst a govt issued document, allows self-identification. So it’s sex self-ID by the back door. The problem is the standard this sets for all data collection.

Many trans people will have one sex on their passport (easy to change) and the other on their birth certificate (need GRC, evidence & independent assessment to change and they haven’t done that). With the current guidance they can legitimately answer sex either way, male or female. So also messes up any attempt to cross reference the gender identity question with sex to assess size of different trans demographics for research, service planning etc.

70000 done. Amazing.

I don't like stretch targets but I can believe this case will be incredibly complex.

Downright dirty tricks by the ONS, I’ve had a leaflet thru my door and there’s and nothing on there about it being already switched on online, weeks early.

I’ve donated again - was going to get DH and DS a McDonalds breakfast this morning, but they’ll have to make to with toast instead now.

So the ONS launched the survey early, but didn't tell anyone they had launched the survey early Well that seems entirely legitimate

So also messes up any attempt to cross reference the gender identity question with sex to assess size of different trans demographics for research, service planning etc.

Which is one reason why I fail to understand why the TRA contingent aren't all over this, on the FPFW side.

Why get to the end of this, do a review and conclude that our data shows there are x number of people who don't align with their birth sex, but we have no way of knowing if these are people who were born male or born female.

I don't think most people will read the guidance so if that guidance is ridiculously overly woke/PC most people probably will not read it anyway.

No, because most people have no trouble putting their birth sex under the sex box. But those who want to out something other than the birth sex will read the guidance or - more likely - read someone in their networks telling them it's OK to put the sex they want to be there, based on that guidance and the ID they've already changed.

So no, it won't make a difference to how the vast majority of people reply to the Census but it never would have, so that's not the point.

Either accurate stats matter it they don't. The ONS had decided to go for innacurate stats to appease a vocal and well funded lobby, and this is not OK. Sex matters.

Which is one reason why I fail to understand why the TRA contingent aren't all over this, on the FPFW side.

Why get to the end of this, do a review and conclude that our data shows there are x number of people who don't align with their birth sex, but we have no way of knowing if these are people who were born male or born female

It's because the main aim here isn't to support people who ID as trans but to get rid of sex as a meaningful category. If you see it in that light, what they're arguing for starts making sense.

Because you're absolutely right, clear data on both sex and gender identity would be best for trans people, but this what the gender lobbyists are arguing against.

Yes, a lot of what they push for doesn't seem beneficial to trans people tbh. You'd think they would want accurate data and be delighted at this opportunity to gather it.

The census have brought data collection forward to try and stymie FairPlayWomen's legal challenge so they are asking for more carrotts www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9307405/Census-chiefs-launch-survey-month-early-sparking-fury-feminists.html

on twitter twitter.com/fairplaywomen/status/1365925180493725697