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!

women who are trying to keep their whereabouts secret for safety reasons

census data returned is extremely confidential and it's a criminal offence to disclose individual private data. the data is used in aggregrate (mass data not individuals) and ONS must never disclose individuals private data.

Claimant sent pre-action letter on the 19th February. But Census went 'live' on 22nd. Judge questions how people know they can submit as off 22nd Feb. JC explains how people are guided to fill on Census day (21st March) /10

Judge surprised that Census website went live a month before Census day. JC explains that people have to change any early submissions if things change before census day. Judge says "if there's a problem with withdrawing Guidance now it's one of the ONS's own making" /11

sorry, I don't mean to derail the court reporting.

That's why there's always a big fanfare when the individual census returns are released one century after the census and ppl doing family history can get stuck in.

Judge surprised

Oh dear. I have learned that judges don't like being surprised...

Judge says "if there's a problem with withdrawing Guidance now it's one of the ONS's own making"
Admittedly too early to call, but that sounds promising...

Defendant claims we delayed bringing the case - we should have known they would bring this guidance - this is despite the head of ONS saying it would be legal sex at start of Feb. /12

Here's the link to the live tweeting.
mobile.twitter.com/fairplaywomen/status/1369230649425596416

Unsurprisingly the judge does not seem impressed with the census going live when proceedings were already threatened.

I would read that “problem of their own making” to be a warning that the “it’s too late now” argument won’t work.

Judge surprised

I fucking love judges.

ONS must never disclose individuals private data.

Isn't personal census info made available in 100 years? Not sure how much that's limited though.

I wonder if the judge can smell a rat

JC explains Census Order states that one of the 'demographic particulars' that must be asked is 'sex' with options of either male or female. It is a crime not to provide an answer. This is a factual question not one of 'what best describes your sex' /13

I see it's under Justice Swift. I believe that's the same judge who has the prison judicial review?

Yes sorry Necessary - they can in 100 years but ONS do take individual privacy extremely seriously, so this whole mess is not about 'misgendering' or any other nonsense. the data can only be used in aggregate IF, and only IF it does not risk revealing individual identities.

Is Linehan turning up as himself or his alter ego? His photo!

And this is another problem with their approach, the claim is that they can reverse engineer sex from the two questions but the published tables may not do this because of small cell sizes

@FindTheTruth

Yes sorry Necessary - they can in 100 years but ONS do take individual privacy extremely seriously, so this whole mess is not about 'misgendering' or any other nonsense. the data can only be used in aggregate IF, and only IF it does not risk revealing individual identities.

And if I recall correctly, you have the option to do an individual online return for yourself that supersedes your household return, so you do not need to out yourself as gay or trans if you aren't out to the people that you live with.

correct GAHgamel

Judge says "ONS doesn't get to choose what sex is". ONS must simply do as its required to by the Census Order. JC says: The question must be "what IS your sex" /14

And you can't reverse engineer unless you know roughly how different sorts of people will answer the two questions. (Ironically if the census would be a good source of this info)

Judge says "ONS doesn't get to choose what sex is". ONS must simply do as its required to by the Census Order. JC says: The question must be "what IS your sex" /14

@FindTheTruth

Yes sorry Necessary - they can in 100 years but ONS do take individual privacy extremely seriously, so this whole mess is not about 'misgendering' or any other nonsense. the data can only be used in aggregate IF, and only IF it does not risk revealing individual identities.

So I really don’t understand the argument for not requiring people to put their birth sex. I saw various activists complaining that it puts them in danger to let the government have a list of trans people and their addresses . I’m not aware of an actual reason being given for doing this other than it has been demanded by Stonewall etc.

It would be great for someone with some legal knowledge to give us a translation of judgespeak - ie

‘surprised’ = jfc what were you thinking??

The Guidance allows a choice of correct answers - sex on birth certificate can be different to sex on passport. This must be wrong because there can only be one right answer. /15

Mimmymum:
FPFW have just started live-tweeting their @ONS legal case.

I’d encourage all trans people to complete their #census2021 TODAY while your passport is currently considered a ‘legal document’ re the sex marker.

Just in case the Judge sides with FPFW 🙄