I complained to CQC, here's their response (I'm not impressed)

[Leafstamp]

I complained about their post-hospital stay questionnaire for children, which asked for my DC's gender. It did not ask for their sex.

I cited EA 2010 terminolgoy, the ONS case and the fact the census did not ask for children's gender and general chat about gender referring to unhelpful/harmful stereotypes.

This is what CQC have said:

The terms Gender and Sex are often used interchangeably. For example, we have the Gender Pay Gap not the Sex Pay Gap.

The Equality Act 2010 uses different descriptors to describe a protected characteristic. For example, for Race we can use ethnicity or culture etc. There is nothing in Act that says that we need to use a specific word to describe a protected characteristic.

What is most important is what actions we are taking to protect people and how we are demonstrating our public sector equality duty towards any of the protected characteristics:

- Eliminating unlawful Discrimination
- Advancing equality of opportunity
- Promoting good relations

When we use gender as a descriptor of one of the protected characteristics (as we do in the equality monitoring form), there is no evidence to show that we are excluding anyone because everyone that is covered under the term ‘Sex’ is included in the term ‘Gender’, (whereas some people may feel excluded by the use of the term Sex).

Therefore, the use of Gender is a more inclusive term and at CQC we are comfortable that we are complying with the Equality Act 2010.

I am pretty fuming about this. I'd appreciate your help in unpicking their reply and formulating a response.

How can they say people feel excluded by 'Sex'? Everyone has a sex, not everyone has a gender. FFS!

Well write and say you feel excluded by the use of gender and would like to know why it's ok to exclude some people but not others?

I filled out the same hospital form and crossed out gender and put sex, so at least they know it is more than one of us!
I'd suggest that people in the health service should be aware of the importance of technical, accurate language.

@midgedude

Well write and say you feel excluded by the use of gender and would like to know why it's ok to exclude some people but not others?

Yep, that's on my list already!

And I also made comment on the form, then followed it up with this complaint. @SunnydaleClassProtector99 - why don't you do an email as well. I used this:

surveys.cqc.org.uk/contactus.aspx

www.cqc.org.uk/about-us/jobs/working-cqc-our-commitment-equality

CQC are a Stonewall diversity champion so, presumably because of this, they erroneously replace the protected characteristic of Sex with Gender in the list.

It’s not up to them to rewrite the protected characteristics in the Equality Act 2010.

I will do when baby's in bed.
Whatever information you glean from here I will nick it and reword it.

The BMJ is goodon this

www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n735/rr-0

This is the Equality Act list of protected characteristics.
Age
Disability
Gender reassignment
Marriage and civil partnership
Pregnancy and maternity
Race
Religion or belief
Sex
Sexual orientation

Sex, not gender.
Everyone has a sex. Inclusive.

Not everyone has a gender. Exclusive.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/4

@SunnydaleClassProtector99

I will do when baby's in bed. Whatever information you glean from here I will nick it and reword it.

Excellent. Thanks. The more voices the better on everything like this I think.

As you say - you should have plenty of fodder here to use so hopefully not too taxing on the brain

Funny how they used the 'Gender Pay Gap' as an example to bolster their case, perhaps throw sex discrimination back at them because it is SEX discrimination not gender discrimination.

The Gender Pay Gap annoys me it should be Sex Pay Gap the reason it isn't worded like that is because some people come over all embarrassed by the word sex.

That response doesn't even make sense.

The terms Gender and Sex are often used interchangeably.

There is nothing in Act that says that we need to use a specific word to describe a protected characteristic.

Here they are saying that gender and sex are synonymous so they can use either and it means the same. But then later they say they actually have different meanings.

When we use gender as a descriptor of one of the protected characteristics (as we do in the equality monitoring form), there is no evidence to show that we are excluding anyone because everyone that is covered under the term ‘Sex’ is included in the term ‘Gender’, (whereas some people may feel excluded by the use of the term Sex).

Therefore, the use of Gender is a more inclusive term

So according to them 'gender' means the same as sex, but it also has a different meaning, since they think some people are 'excluded' by the use of sex, but not by the use of gender. (I actually think they have that the wrong way round, since everyone has a sex.)

But if they both mean the same, then how could anyone be excluded by one and not the other?

This is the point that comes to my mind:

If you want data specifically on the experiences and needs of biologically female people, for example, then you actively want and need to exclude biologically male people.

If you erroneously include some males where they shouldn’t be, by opening it up to those who identify their “gender” as female but whose sex is male, you dilute and skew the data so that it’s not fit for purpose.

Given that the world is primarily arranged around the needs of biologically male people already (eg medical trials with male as default) and there is still a lot of work to be done in combating that, compromising the data on the needs and experiences of biologically female people in this way is further entrenching that existing inequality. It excludes girls from being centred in their own data. It’s therefore the opposite of inclusive and equitable.

But if they both mean the same, then how could anyone be excluded by one and not the other?

The miracle of doublethink!

@OldCrone

That response doesn't even make sense.

The terms Gender and Sex are often used interchangeably.

There is nothing in Act that says that we need to use a specific word to describe a protected characteristic.

Here they are saying that gender and sex are synonymous so they can use either and it means the same. But then later they say they actually have different meanings.

When we use gender as a descriptor of one of the protected characteristics (as we do in the equality monitoring form), there is no evidence to show that we are excluding anyone because everyone that is covered under the term ‘Sex’ is included in the term ‘Gender’, (whereas some people may feel excluded by the use of the term Sex).

Therefore, the use of Gender is a more inclusive term

So according to them 'gender' means the same as sex, but it also has a different meaning, since they think some people are 'excluded' by the use of sex, but not by the use of gender. (I actually think they have that the wrong way round, since everyone has a sex.)

But if they both mean the same, then how could anyone be excluded by one and not the other?

You're right, another example of lack of critical thinking skills by the people who think they can change words and language.

Just stick to the words in the legislation!

They may not be in breach of the EA, but they might be in breach of GDPR depending on how they’re using data they’ve collected. It’s supposed to be accurate, the minimum amount collected, and procedures in place to correct inaccurate data.
Wonder if this is an avenue worth pursuing. Alan Hennessy tweets a lot about this.

@MolyHolyGuacamole I did see your comment (it wasn't me who reported it btw), I don't mind if you think that, in fact I can see why you might think that if you are not familiar with why this is an important issue.

I mean this in good faith, if you're not sure why I (and others) complain about the conflation of sex and gender, there is more information here: sex-matters.org/

The people you see as "exhausting" are those who are working hard to uphold safeguarding for children and vulnerable people and to keep single sex spaces like women's refuges and prisons so that they are not forced to share intimate spaces with males.

I work with the cqc and its pronouns ahoy in all their emails

You could complain to the chair
www.cqc.org.uk/news/stories/peter-wyman-re-appointed-chair-cqc

I simply don’t understand how organisations think it’s ok to rewrite legislation! Given they are responsible for enforcing the cqc standards I doubt they’d be thrilled if the organisations they inspect rewrote the cqc standards because they preferred other words

Gender and sex shouldn’t be used interchangeably. Just because it’s a common mistake doesn’t make it correct. CQC should know better

@RedDogsBeg

Funny how they used the 'Gender Pay Gap' as an example to bolster their case, perhaps throw sex discrimination back at them because it is SEX discrimination not gender discrimination.

The Gender Pay Gap annoys me it should be Sex Pay Gap the reason it isn't worded like that is because some people come over all embarrassed by the word sex.

You would need to double check, but as far as I remember the gender pay gap legislation uses the words male and female, which are sex terms throughout and “gender” not at all (the title does not form part of the legislation). So while it is called the gender pay gap, legally it is all about sex (not that you’d know it from the government guidelines about how to report it).

You would need to double check, but as far as I remember the gender pay gap legislation uses the words male and female, which are sex terms throughout and “gender” not at all (the title does not form part of the legislation). So while it is called the gender pay gap, legally it is all about sex (not that you’d know it from the government guidelines about how to report it).

I am sure it is PaleBlueMoonlight, why it is always referred to as the Gender Pay Gap bemuses me when people are paid less because of their SEX, gender has bugger all to do with it, someone somewhere obviously thought sex was a bad word to use when talking about it. Seriously people should just grow up and say what they mean.

Definitely from Stonewall training. We've seen almost exact same response from other organisations.

It's bullshit.

You could go all "Invisible Women" on them and use some good examples from Caroline Criado Perez on the default male and data gap, to show they should really be collecting sex disaggregated data. Which they can't do if they collect "gender" data.

Or ask them what they mean by "gender" because if, unlike sex, it includes everyone, then it's not synonymous with sex. And as sex is defined in the EA but gender isn't they should really be defining gender. And explaining why they need to collect gender data. And explaining why they don't need to collect sex data.

God it is just so incompetent.

OP, you will tie them in knots. Be sure to let us know what you say and how they respond. I'll get my popcorn ready.

The level of ignorance combined with arrogance is enraging. We can mangle words because we feel like it, change the law because we're scared of intimidating lobby groups and throw women under the bus because we have a streak of misogyny running through the organisation like a bloody stock of rock.

Prats - the whole lot of them.

stick of rock