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!

@Defaultname

The BBC have "They argued this could potentially have the effect of "distorting" the data gathered in the census." though I don't see what purpose the inverted commas serve.

Yes the inverted commas around 'distorting' stood out to me too, why are they needed??

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.

So the EHCR are asking for 'lived sex', what's that? The sex you are or the sex you'd like to be? Seems to me this is indeed Self-ID by they back door. Gender identity will morph into 'lived sex / legal sex' then the men will be women and they'll have been shoved into our single sex spaces, sports and services.

Surely you are living as the sex you are, irrespective of how you identify. You can only be the sex that you are, so what else can you do?

@Leafstamp

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’m going to email my MP regarding this point, listing all the cases bring brought against institutions and ask her to raise this issue in Parliament.

@Xpectations great work. Do you have a source for the cases? I'd like to email my MP too but am lacking knowledge on the cases to reference.

I’ll post email here when I’ve written it, in case anyone wants to crib.

Thank you. I'd like to write to my MP as well.

Yes please, I’d like to email my MP about it too (although I don’t have much hope that she will do anything, she is typically useless on this issue).

[quote GAHgamel]**@DisillusionedTech* and @EmbarrassingAdmissions* you might want to take that archer_rs twitter thread with a pinch of salt:
twitter.com/cloudtrapeze/status/1369383322200203277[/quote]
Thanks for flagging!
Will do ffs fiction doesn’t help anyone

I thought that RS Archer guy was a writer? Embellishing a true story to increase its appeal, about Brexit? As entertainment.

@Datun

'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.

The case raises a number of interesting questions about accountability and decision making in govt on a cross-cutting social policy issue like this.

Firstly, the UK Statistics Authority (of which ONS is the executive office) is a non-ministerial department, meaning that ministers don't play a role in its decision making. UKSA is only accountable to Parliament. This places a huge responsibility on civil servants as they are solely responsible for the policy decisions that are made, some of which, such as this, clearly have political consequences. This is different to a ministerial dept where decisions are made by ministers who are accountable to Parliament AND voters. It means that adherence to the Civil Service Code is all the more important. It also means that Parliament has a particular duty to scrutinise because there is no ministerial layer of scrutiny - so where is Parliament on this issue? The last time UKSA gave evidence to Parliament on sex in the Census was in 2019 I think, and the Parliamentary debate on the Census order last year (right in the middle of the first wave of the pandemic) didn't explore what the sex question meant (more time was spent discussing Cornish national identity). The meaning of the sex question did not crystallise until the guidance was published.

Secondly it highlights the difficulty of bringing together a coherent policy position across govt on a cross-cutting issue like this where there are multiple policy domains in which self-ID policy can be set by stealth via operational decisions that are not governed by statute. Having finally staked out a position on legal sex self-ID, Liz Truss is in a pretty difficult position because she doesn't have direct levers over the departments where decisions to adopt or endorse sex self-ID for operational purposes take place. If her ministerial colleagues responsible for those departments don't agree with her on this and don't set clear direction for their departments I think her avenues to get a coherent approach across departments are pretty limited.

In which case, feminists are right to adopt a legal strategy, as it seems that the courts are currently the most effective way to scrutinise decision making. Although fighting this case by case is piecemeal, slow and expensive.

@Datun

I thought that RS Archer guy was a writer? Embellishing a true story to increase its appeal, about Brexit? As entertainment.

I too thought this.

A popular story teller on twitter. Does it diminish his message?

Apologies for resurrecting a very time-specific thread, but I have just come across this from the LibDEm LGBT+ group:

3. THE "SEX" QUESTION ON THE CENSUS IS NOT A "SEX ASSIGNED AT BIRTH" QUESTION (BUT IT IS BINARY).

One of the questions on the form is "what is your sex?". This question is not asking about your sex assigned at birth, but rather your current "official" sex, as recorded on "your birth certificate or Gender Recognition Certificate". In this respect it is less inclusive than the sex question asked in 2011. Whilst the insistence on an answer of either "male" or "female" makes the form difficult for non-binary people to complete, we would still urge all LGBT+ people to complete the form as best they can. The separate "gender identity" question later in the form ("Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?") will still allow you to make your true identity known.

1. As best they can. Do some people genuinely not know what sex they were born?

1. The timing of this post: March 9, 2021 5:58 PM

The FPFW ONS court case was decided in the morning. So this was published after that decision had been made.

lgbt.libdems.org.uk/en/article/2021/1397065/3-things-you-should-know-about-the-2021-uk-census