What's the difference between gender and gender identity? (Stonewall related)

[Rickpulltop]

Stonewall have taken hold at work...

our HR records have been changed to include gender identity and pronouns. Fair enough if there is a sex field too but there isn't.

I thought I'd have a look at my record and my gender identity has been filled in for me but we now have 2 fields, gender and gender identity. the gender field is compulsory and surely should be sex?

I set my gender identity to 'prefer not to say' and left my gender as female (has to be filled in) but I struggle to understand what the difference is between gender and gender identity? is there a difference? surely if gender is whatever you feel then that is your gender identity?

Thanks for this Rick

We all need to look into what information our employers hold on us.

I thought I'd have a look at my record and my gender identity has been filled in for me

Are you UK?

Do a GDPR/SA request.

Subject Access Request

yes uk. I think (but not certain) the original gender/ sex field (can't remember how it was labelled before) had been renamed to gender identity and the gender field is a new one. Hence why the gender identity field was already populated. I'll see if I can find out

I think a lot of us are going to be making these requests.

Good luck.

To the question in your title, I think this is a long term project, and that the eventual aims are:

1. that sex is replaced by gender in all instances

and

2. that the terms gender and gender identity become wholly interchangeable

@AnyOldPrion it seems that way. I wasn't sure if I was misunderstanding something but I don't get the point of the 2 fields.

Surely any transwomen or transmen would tick the same option for both so what value is it actually adding?

The gender options are only male and female so I guess non binary people would have to pick a side. Whereas gender identity has non binary etc as an option.

If I was non binary I wouldn't be happy at having to declare a gender of male/female because surely their gender is 'non-binary'?

Sex on the other hand would make more sense combined with a Gender Identity box.

I personally think its confusing language.

The problem is Stonewall have their foot well and truly in the door. I have ambitions and I really don't want to jeopardise those so how do I raise the point safely?

If you want firm grounds on which to request that they hold personal information about you which is accurate, have a look here:

ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/right-to-rectification/

Is your organisation in the public or private sector? Public sector bodies have a duty to record sex

www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/psed_essential_guide_-_guidance_for_english_public_bodies.pdf

At its most basic, I'd say that someone's "gender identity" is the degree to which they feel themselves to be masculine or feminine or a mixture of both. If you think that your feelings in this respect or not fixed for how you lead your life but are, for example, context dependent, you can say that it would be more accurate for your gender identity to be "none".

There's also the political dimension but you'd be going up against HR and they might freak out at that. If you're not interested in having a massive fight, present an argument that they can more easily nod along to.

Rick, I don't know if it will be of any assistance in your situation, but in the last few days there's been a court case with the ONS where the ONS has accepted that sex and gender are different things and that when they ask people to record their sex they mean their sex on their birth certificate or their Gender Recognition Certificate, not a sex of their choosing.

Here's a link to the outcome of the case.

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

Maybe it's worthwhile contacting the HR department of your company and saying that in the light of the ONS ruling they might need to record sex properly, as per the census, and then offer people a choice of gender identity. After all, how can a company plan ahead if it doesn't know how many female employees it has, who may require maternity leave? How can it monitor its equalities policies if it's not clear how many males and how many females it's employing?

Contact HR.
I think HMRC only accept male or female - so that will be the 'gender' option ie, sex.
If everyone starts querying things like this they will start making things clearer because they will end up spending too much time answering queries otherwise.

Shedbuilder

"Maybe it's worthwhile contacting the HR department of your company and saying that in the light of the ONS ruling they might need to record sex properly, as per the census, and then offer people a choice of gender identity."

I wonder if a precedent has been set, where all companies may have to record it in the way you have set out. It would be far more logical and less ambiguous.

I’ve just looked at mine and ours is the same.
Gender has been filled in as female, with male as the other option and it’s an optional field.
Gender identity is a compulsory field and has also been filled in with female (other options are male, transgender female, transgender male, gender divider, prefer not to say, and “my gender identity is not listed here”).
Given that the Green Party just suspended a member for querying whether transwomen are female, I actually don’t know whether transwomen should select “transgender female” or “transgender male”.

*gender diverse, not divider

It is private sector.

I wonder if we're in the same company Christina

I don't see how this is doing anyone any favours, trans or otherwise.

The things is @nauticant I've become increasingly more angry recently seeing how women are treated (not work, just in general) so I don't want to let it drop but I also know how something I think is a reasonable question could be used against me.

I'm not really worried about what info the company got on me, I am in area where I can see all of that so not sure what a subject access request would achieve. or am I looking at this the wrong way?

ah, I've just found the helpful included Stonewall guide which explains gender and gender identity. I still think both are not needed and it should be sex and gender identity.

"Gender - often expressed in terms of masculinity and femininity, gender is largely culturally determined and is assumed from the sex assigned at birth"

so why not just say sex? I don't conform to gender norms so by rights maybe my gender should be male in the system... doesn't stop me being descriminated against for very inconveniently being able to conceive and give birth (for which I have been treated unfavourably many times)

By tracking both gender and gender identity they are tracking nothing. Anyone trans is going to put their gender, not their sex, which will align with their identity, therefore erasing their trans status and messing up the company's diversity figures.

That's my thoughts too Doyoumind

@Doyoumind same as the census!

"Gender - often expressed in terms of masculinity and femininity, gender is largely culturally determined and is assumed from the sex assigned at birth"

Um, that didn't help. Does it mean "what gender identity other people think you have"? "What sex other people think you have"?

I get the feeling no-one in the organisation will ever what they mean to the extent they could distinguish between the two fields "gender" and "gender identity" sufficiently to feel confident in giving a different answer to them.

Nor is it clear which one they would look at when trying to answer a question about sex equality.

And it's clear there is confusion between the two organisations -

Org A: Gender is compulsory, they've prefilled both based on (presumably) sex.
Org B: Gender identity is compulsory, they've prefilled both based on (presumably) sex.

The fact they've prefilled both suggests they're not sure what the difference is either.

I imagine each company would base "sex" data on the one they've decided is compulsory, so A would use "gender" and B would use "gender identity".

Trying to not out myself but I am in a position where I can look into what is used for sex equality and I will bring up my concerns

This made me curious about what information my employer collects. They have two fields:
Sex identifier: Man / Non-binary / Other preferred description / Prefer not to disclose / Woman
Gender reassignment: Y / N / prefer not to disclose.

Sex is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010. How can the company satisfy itself that no discrimination on the basis of sex is taking place if they are not collecting the data. If they are collecting data on other protected characteristics but not sex it may be possible to argue this is indirect discrimination against females as they are the class of people most likely to face sex discrimination. i.e. they are not collecting data that would allow for proper identification of sex discrimination but are collecting data relating to other PC.

It may be the payroll system the company are using?

I have a small business and use a payroll software by a company called moneysoft. A couple of years ago they updated sex to gender in the employee details, I emailed them at the time and told them about the equality act 2010 but got fobbed off. I wonder if I should write to them again?

nope my company has control over the fields.