Minor victories

[Binglebong]

Where I work gathers equality monitoring and I was delighted recently changed from "gender" to "sex" and separately "is your gender the same as your sex". It is far more informative that way.

I had mentioned the original inaccuracy to someone and I assumed I was responsible for the change but I've since been told there is another change made that was requested by our funders. So either I was responsible; in which case I'm smug, or funders are catching on which would be even better!

I guess what I'm saying is that baby steps are working. It is so important that we get accurate information so that we can find out how to get everyone properly informed of things that are available for them. I'm delighted to see it is slowly happening.

That's good to hear, either way!

That was my conclusion. I find it encouraging whenever I hear these snippets of sense.

Brilliant news! Well done - this approach is now backed by the Endocrine Society - see the other thread and they emphasise how important it is to not conflate sex and gender.

Obviously they are talking in a medical sense but I don't really see how you can realistically separate it out so I think we can take it to mean in all situations.

That’s good to hear. I am ever hopeful that it will be that organisations will wake up and it will have a snowball effect.

So brilliant

drinking a toast to you ... and have one yourself

These small steps forward are all deeply encouraging and I love celebrating them on here

I saw that thread - fantastic news. Now we just need it in an easy article we can point people to.

@Binglebong, either way, good job :)

We had a short talk at work from a representative of the equality and diversity committee where they listed protected characteristics and included gender but not sex. I wondered if I should email and say something but chickened out.

However later the E&D rep emailed everyone to say that someone had pointed out it should be sex not gender and they had corrected it. So then I thought I'd back up that anonymous person and emailed the rep to say I agreed and thanks for amending. It's good when you realise others are bothered about this too!

(Having said that I'd happily respect a colleague's gender identity and pronouns - I just think sex is really important too!)

Seems like people are waking up and saying ‘Jesus what’s this nonsense???’...

@toffeebutterpopcorn

Seems like people are waking up and saying ‘Jesus what’s this nonsense???’...

It does.

When the medical establishment and science says sex not gender, people have to listen however, I have noticed the BBC over-using 'gender'. It's almost as though someone is writing stuff so that the term can be used more often (perhaps just oversensitive)

I have noticed the BBC over-using 'gender'

Before covid, we were seeing a lot of 'stage to screen' productions. The Shakespeare ones always had some degree of cross-sex casting. The intro or interval waffle would then always refer to 'gender' in a special sort of tone like this was something new and exciting. But often as not, there wasn't really much if any 'gender' change in the interpretation as a result.

OP I’m wondering whether the news about the census may have played a part?

Great news well done OP
Great about the funder too. Funders expecting accurate sex-based data will stop woke institutions masking sexism AND issues affecting against trans people. Institutions shouldn’t be creating their own uninterpretable ‘gender’ statistics which are useless to answer both sex-based and gender-based questions.

Good to ask the question ‘is your gender different from your sex’. The existence of the GRA confuses the sex question though, and government want these to become accessible more easily so if they’re expected to become more widely used, there could be a third optional question in future: ‘is your legal sex different from your birth sex’?

@ErrolTheDragon

I have noticed the BBC over-using 'gender'

Before covid, we were seeing a lot of 'stage to screen' productions. The Shakespeare ones always had some degree of cross-sex casting. The intro or interval waffle would then always refer to 'gender' in a special sort of tone like this was something new and exciting. But often as not, there wasn't really much if any 'gender' change in the interpretation as a result.

I remember watching a midsummer's night dream and not being able to watch more than 20 minutes because it got so confusing and unwatchable with all the changes.

Fabulous news, Binglebong. Regardless of whether you were directly responsible in this case, it's people like you who are making others notice the problems. Hooray for baby steps and minor victories!

(also, thank you for giving me the opportunity to write the word "binglebong).