Tuesday 9th March - could be a big day

[Xanthangum]

1. Helen Staniland and Glinner giving evidence to the Commons

1. Fair Play For Women VS UK Statistics Authority at Royal Courts of Justice at 10am

1. The Court of Appeal and Harry/ We Are Fair Cop - The Court of Appeal will examine the validity of the College of Police Hate Crimes Guidance

I wanted to start a thread where any major decisions or outcomes and links to anyone live tweeting or online footage. See you back here tomorrow!

Floisme, interesting that the state was not neutral but I suppose it would stand by what it had drafted. Does anyone agree with me that this was the initial hearing for the interim injunction which was granted and that it moves to a fuller hearing with more time for both sides' arguments hereafter (although the state may choose just to give in I suppose which is common once an emergency injunction is granted - except here as we tax payers are footing the state's legal bill I suppose it can fight on and on).

FPFW:
'The government was in court backing@aons. The@cabinetofficeukminister was an interested party and submitted papers saying they opposed granting the JR and interim order. Their barrister was in court on their behalf'

A generous interpretation would be that the cabinet office were just concerned this might delay the census and create additional cost.

However the cabinet office are also part of the stonewall champions scheme, so I'm less inclined to be generous.

And the EHRC was an official stakeholder on the sex question and RECOMMENDED they ask for lived sex. Literally everyone has abandoned sex as a material reality.

Our institutions have jumped the shark. Making changes that will skew the allocation of services paid for the tax payer without widespread agreement?! Really is time for a pause - if only the Women & Equalities Committee could hold the decision makers to account for this absurd behaviour 🤔

As it was asked earlier in the thread, I set up a small monthly standing order to FPFW through their website last year to help fund their work. Having regular money is always useful as well as the specific crowdfunders. I have channelled money that I have always given to charity into women's rights charities now, as most of the previous charities I had regularly donated to over the years (Amnesty, Oxfam, FoE amongst others) have shown what they really think of women...

I can understand a government representative attending as an observer but to actually take part in the proceedings and oppose the ruling? To my legally untrained mind that sounds dodgy as fuck.

Upon hearing that the government was in court backing the ONS etc, Alison Bailey says: "Well, we’re well & truly beyond salvaging reputations & well into public inquiry territory & misconduct in public office"

I couldn't agree more and I hope she's right.

I just don't understand why. Why does a government department want information on 'something that says it is sex but isn't'? They have a question on gender identity. Why do they not want to know sex? It is just baffling.

The only possible answer I can come up with is 'We think this will not change the data to a meaningful extent and it will make some people happy'. But facts should be neutral. There will be lots of aspects of filling in the census that will not make people happy.

The guidance boiled down to:
If you don't know how to answer, a sex you have on an official document is fine.

But there are only two documents that show your legal sex (birth cert/GRC). So the ONLY people this guidance could apply to are those that have a birth certificate in one sex and another legal document in another.

In law you have only one legal sex. So what the guidance boils down to is:
If you are unhappy with your legal sex, and you have managed to obtain a passport in the other sex, you may use that if you wish.

Why would anyone want to argue that that is a good basis for collecting data??

I think the underlying motivation is clear: to introduce self-ID by the back door. I think that’s the only explanation of why this is so important to some people that this is being fought so hard, even to the point of pulling dodgy stunts like changing the dates of the online census. And why they’re continuing to throw money at this in defiance of all reason instead of just taking the L.

What I would like to know is how the influence is being wielded. I understand that some people are deeply invested in abolishing women’s rights. I don’t get how they’re getting the ONS and the Cabinet Office to do their bidding. Even after the actual head of the ONS had previously announced a different and more logical policy! Who leant on them and how? I don’t believe that being a Stonewall Diversity Champion can possibly be more important to the decision makers of the ONS than the actual mission of the organisation. There must be other avenues of influence.

There must be other avenues of influence.

"The people opposing this are bigots. You're not a bigot are you?"

I think it's not much more complicated than that. It's a social dynamic.

Fair Cop, Court of Appeal, Day 2 link: www.judiciary.uk/you-and-the-judiciary/going-to-court/court-of-appeal-home/the-court-of-appeal-civil-division-live-streaming-of-court-hearings/

"The people opposing this are bigots. You're not a bigot are you?"

It's true that is an extremely effective manipulation strategy but it didn't work on the judge, did it? It doesn't work on us. Why did it work on the statisticians? You'd expect people heading up the ONS to have a capacity for clearheaded reasoning and a commitment to data integrity that could withstand blunt-instrument manipulation of that sort. They're behaving irrationally on a level that requires further explanation, IMO.

"The people opposing this are bigots. You're not a bigot are you?"

There is a huge difference between some random twitter person saying this, and your boss, or some other senior person with power over promotions, pay etc - asking you in all seriousness to go along with it

"Well, we’re well & truly beyond salvaging reputations & well into public inquiry territory & misconduct in public office"

Isn't that the truth.

I did, on the webchat with the minister for safeguarding, ask how depts own safeguarding practice protected them against capture by lobby groups. I was deleted.

Not mentioning it really doesn't make it go away, or stop it being a massive failure across government that will eventually have to be faced upto?

There is a huge difference between some random twitter person saying this, and your boss, or some other senior person with power over promotions, pay etc - asking you in all seriousness to go along with it

Yes - I am wondering how the senior people are being influenced.

Yes - I am wondering how the senior people are being influenced

They are terrified of being named and shamed by the likes of stonewall. Mud sticks, whether it's based on the truth or not.

However case by case there is now legal judgment that can be used to help push back.

This is the ONS leadership team

www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/leadershipteam

They're nearly all career civil servants or from local authorities - public bodies that were stonewalled ages ago. I expect that they were exposed to the Stonewall champions programme at a time when no one questioned any of it and since then have just continued to work on the basis that if Stonewall is telling them something it must be right

'The government was in court backing @aons. The @cabinetofficeuk minister was an interested party and submitted papers saying they opposed granting the JR and interim order. Their barrister was in court on their behalf'

And further downthread:
'And the EHRC was an official stakeholder on the sex question and RECOMMENDED they ask for lived sex.'

Worth reading in full:
twitter.com/BluskyeAllison/status/1369560032585605123

What!!

A cabinet minister was pushing for illegal self ID? And we all know the EHRC is captured but clearly the prospect of Anne Sinnot's case hasn't dampened their determination to push for it either.

Dear lord.

Doing some urgent digging now.

I know someone very senior at the ONS and am not a bit surprised. The last time I saw him, the first thing he said to me was “I hear you hate trans people now, Sophocles”. Based, I kid you not, solely on the fact that a mutual friend had gone nuclear over the solitary comment that I’d made at that time on my social media in my own name on the topic which was “I don’t like the word T*RF”. Denunciation followed, and this guy decided without having heard anything from me that this was sufficient evidence of my bigotry.

He is your typical lefty bro. Alive to any social injustice with a massive blind spot for misogyny. He’s by no means rare. There’s also the concept of the “fachidiot”, which is someone who is an absolute expert in their chosen field, but who lacks any breadth of knowledge, so completely clueless across other domains. Some data people are interested in the data in terms of the purity and beauty of manipulating it (weird, but horses for courses ). Others are very interested in using it to present points of view, and to advance particular agendas, and from what I’ve seen you’ll find as many of them in the ONS as the first type.

So I have no difficulty at all in believing that this goes to the top and all the way through.

Seeing the new official government 2021 census ad poster which says ‘it’s all about healthcare’ as it’s strapline wasn’t good for my blood pressure.
If it was all about healthcare they’d be trying to collect accurate statistics not self identifying validatory ones.

I think its a mixture of things. First a text book case in institutionalised sexism so no one spoke up when ONS agreed to a set of policies around data collection (if that happened - emails have been lost ). Second an understandable wish to double down rather than admit you are wrong; this leads to campaigners against self id being treated as trouble makers to be ignored rather than people with a point. Last is that the language needed to express the points clearly was treated as transphobic, so making the points was hard

I did, on the webchat with the minister for safeguarding, ask how depts own safeguarding practice protected them against capture by lobby groups. I was deleted.

Really, Michelle?
What a shame, I think Victoria Atkins would have appreciated your question.
Policy capture is a recognised problem in all kinds of public bodies and policy areas, it's not a conspiracy theory.

The MN webchats with politicians are such a wasted opportunity.

One of the covid 19 sets of regulations used parent rather than mother in legislation about being present at births I remember from a month or two back. I can see why they do it as some people change their gender by law to male but give birth but the state does need to be careful to consider pros and cons of some of these things.

@MichelleofzeResistance

"Well, we’re well & truly beyond salvaging reputations & well into public inquiry territory & misconduct in public office"

Isn't that the truth.

I did, on the webchat with the minister for safeguarding, ask how depts own safeguarding practice protected them against capture by lobby groups. I was deleted.

Not mentioning it really doesn't make it go away, or stop it being a massive failure across government that will eventually have to be faced upto?

I also asked on that webchat why organisations were allowed to tell schools they could breach safeguarding guidance and alienate children from their parents. Quoted the Cornwall Guidelines which the DfE openly recommended to schools. My question remained but wasn't answered. I can't decide whether the minister approves of parental rights being removed by schools or (hopefully more likely) that answering it was just too terrifying.

The Trans support group Chrysalis posted this on the 23rd Feb, they were given a "Special briefing" on the changes. Wonder if those on the ONS list of their special groups they only communicate with have been told the info in the brief has been deemed illegal?

Isn't this a basic admission that the ONS have a political bias with preferential treatment to their chosen political groups?

Is this just ok now?