FPFW: ONS concede defeat!

[PandorasMailbox]

"We did it. We won. ONS have conceded defeat and will pay our legal costs.The High Court has now sealed the court order that sex in census cannot be self-identified.

Please share the news!"

fairplayforwomen.com/fair-play-for-women-wins-high-court-challenge-against-ons-census/?fbclid=IwAR0tJbErXe1wtBvuwZeNfyqs71OGlGvXQIoERD5FeBGyzoWmCz7DpkbXlT0

Fantastic news

[quote DoctorW]Hi everyone - Nicola Williams from Fair Play For Women here. Thank you for all your lovely comments and your support. I know many of you here will have donated to our legal crowdfunder. So thank you!

Here's a peek behind the scenes at ONS showing how Stonewall squashed stakeholder debate and who supported them.

fairplayforwomen.com/whos-behind-the-government-losing-sight-of-reality/[/quote]
Jesus Mary and Joseph - the census win was important, but for many people it is too much of a nuanced argument to really understand what is at stake.
But, this detailed blow by blow account of how Stonewall inveigeled themselves across government institutions and created an environment that systematically wiped out any opportunity for dissent.
I have been really struggling with my growing understanding that this is all part of a highly orchestrated conspiracy - because it makes me sound like a crazy woman - but there it is laid out in black and white - how to capture a government.

Thank fuck for FoI - they will be coming for that next I bet.

So... now that it's been established that sex means sex (or GRC) for statistical purposes - when will the police start recording crimes correctly? Who else has been erroneously collecting incorrect data?

Or am I getting a bit too eager?

DoctorW -

Thank you!

Regarding the FOI reply
B) The ONS last made a submission to the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index during 2018. We do not hold a record of the submission due to staff changes since then.

I cannot believe that of a public body. All public bodies will have team folders to save data to which are backed up every night. Noone is encouraged to save to their personal drive or the computer drive. Emails will have to be saved in a system like ERMS? to ensure they are held securely for auditing and FOIs. So the nation's data collector does not know how to store data?

Fabulous news 🎊🎉🎈

Brilliant news! Thank you Doctor Nic and FPFW.

@FemaleAndLearning

Regarding the FOI reply B) The ONS last made a submission to the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index during 2018. We do not hold a record of the submission due to staff changes since then.

I cannot believe that of a public body. All public bodies will have team folders to save data to which are backed up every night. Noone is encouraged to save to their personal drive or the computer drive. Emails will have to be saved in a system like ERMS? to ensure they are held securely for auditing and FOIs. So the nation's data collector does not know how to store data?

If you look at the response given to the FOI to Edinburgh Uni which is reviewed in the Legal Feminist's article, you will see that the submission to Stonewall's WEI runs to well over 100 pages.

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/674096/response/1667284/attach/3/ReviewResponseAndEnclosure20201030.pdf

It seems vanishingly unlikely that a) a single member of staff was involved in compiling the data or b) that a single member of staff held the only copy of the submission

But at a roundtable meeting of stakeholders on 24th June attended by Fair Play For Women the Head of Research at EHRC said that “the guidance accompanying the sex question should allow people to self-identify their gender and should not be based on someone’s legal sex status”.

I will never stop seeing this as lunacy.

Can I understand someone really wanting to be the opposite sex? Yes.

Can I understand anyone saying it's actually true?

God no. It's barking.

B) The ONS last made a submission to the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index during 2018. We do not hold a record of the submission due to staff changes since then

Has anyone asked stonewall in a foi what the submission says?

You should not feel pressured to give an answer that you know to be false.

mermaidsuk.org.uk/news/clarifying-census-2021-guidance/

Oh my God, I agree with Mermaids.

Except I don't think they are saying what they think they are.

Clymene
Exactly, a report or document of any size will need sign off at various levels before it can be published. I think there is a lot more to come out yet.
Just so pleased we have women like Dr Nic Williams and the team at FPFW.

Individuals must answer to the best of their knowledge and belief.

Belief is relevant to the gender and religion questions. Anyone sufficiently compos mentis to be filling in the census surely knows what sex they are, even if they wish it was otherwise.

Has anyone asked stonewall in a foi what the submission says?

Do Stonewall have to respond to FOI requests? That would be very interesting if so. Mermaids, too.

Just so pleased we have women like Dr Nic Williams and the team at FPFW

Absolutely - British Feminists are absolutely doing themselves proud!

Stonewall are a charity and not a Public Body and not coveted by FOI

I think charities receiving significant government funding should have to comply with FOI for the portion of their activities funded by that money

The judgement today gave me the courage to challenge a document at work where sexuality had been used rather than sex as a protected characteristic. I referred to the ONS decision today and management agreed to change the wording.

Well done @Coffeeandcocopops

I think charities receiving significant government funding should have to comply with FOI for the portion of their activities funded by that money

Especially when they're trying to have such a pervasive influence! There really should be more monitoring of charity activity all round. It's anti-democratic for a special interest group, supported by huge amounts of public money, to go about changing legislation (that severely impacts half the population) by stealth.

I’ve seen lots of trans people on social media saying they’re going to answer the sex question on the Census based on self ID anyway - so has the legal case actually changed anything?

There’s a gender question too, so I guess if trans people complete that, there will still be data on how many trans people there are?

There’s something called ‘Digital Preservation’ and EVERY organisation should have a Digital Preservation Policy. Many institutions have them such as the Parliamentary Archives, The National Archives, The National Records of Scotland, The Public Records Office of Northern Ireland plus many U.K. Universities (including Warwick, Glasgow, Durham, Cambridge) Banks, Libraries etc...

It’s not just about having ‘back-ups’ it’s about preserving an organisation’s digitally created documentation so that it can be located, retrieved, accessed and preserved for future use. One of the main reasons for having a robust Digital Preservation Policy is that an institution can be accountable and protect itself from reputational damage should anyone challenge them on details of policy implementation, finance etc... It’s just basic house-keeping and means nobody can just pop stuff in the shredder and go ooops! we’ve lost that vital document. I’m beyond shocked that an organisation as important as the ONS has put up such a feeble excuse as ‘staff changes’ to explain why they don’t have this critically important documentation.

As someone has said, if they are paying third parties for services out of the public purse then there should be complete transparency. Where is their accountability in this?

A state body has agreed in a court order that a reference to sex in legislation means either birth certificate or grc. You can’t alter what people do on the Census but it will be harder for any department to introduce self id by stealth again.

Thing is TRA are putting themselves at a disadvantage. If we know how many people have a different gender identity from their sex we’ll know how many trans people there are and that can be used ti plan better healthcare & support for trans people. You know the support they’re always claiming there isn’t enough of!

But if a TW puts female as sex and as gender identity it’ll look like there are lots more women and so money will be allocated on health services such as maternity, cervical screening, mammograms etc which is great for women but not so much for TW

I do not understand why they don’t want accurate data about numbers. It’s like a bunch of teenagers thinking they are sticking it to The Man 🤦🏻‍♀️

@gardenbird48

SUCH great news!! What idiots they were but so glad they’ve been forced to correct this.

Last night Mermaids was still advising people to complete it in the way that suits them best and suggesting that it wasn’t compulsory to read the guidance - the government need to make it an offence to deliberately distribute false information/encourage lying in this way.

And on a similar note it appears Twitter have banned someone for correctly stating the law as now accepted by the ONS

twitter.com/fairplaywomen/status/1372259391458705409

so much for flagging up fake news - they're deleting the actual law.

Whilst the key thing is that the ONS have had to bow to the law and biology, it as @gardenbird48 says, infuriating that people are allowed to continue to passing on incorrect advice, recommending flouting the law or flaunting their own law-breaking with no hint of any repercussion.

And on a similar note it appears Twitter have banned someone for correctly stating the law as now accepted by the ONS
…
so much for flagging up fake news - they're deleting the actual law.

Thank goodness there isn't a war on women or a mass of pressing political and social dangers around misinformation and disinformation or this suppression would be very disturbing.

Just adding this from Sarah Phillimore via twitter showing shot of Census 2021 employee training materials that misrepresent the Equality Act - I wonder if they have changed their materials or flagged their error up to the thousands of census employees who they have just taken on?!!

twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/1372176750369726465