I know Priti Patel has announced that there will be new guidance on recording crimes by sex and not gender, but until this is actually confirmed, I feel it's important to continue to make our voices heard on this. Sorry if this has already been covered, but I figure if one extra person finds out about it, it's worth it.
For those who haven't signed yet, there's a petition on recording crimes by sex and not gender, to which the government wrote an initial response last week (as it reached 10,000 signatures).
What's also very interesting about the official government's response (from 14 Oct 2021) is how mechanically and openly it parrots Stonewall's mad idea that biological sex is a mystery to all and transplaining that there's actually no reliable way to know someone's sex (because, you know, that would be as absurd as having separate men's prisons and women's prisons, which could never happen). The madness of the government response on this needs more light, as they sound insane.
Highlights from their response (quotes in bold):
The Government does not plan to require biological sex to be recorded across the criminal justice system
N.B. This was before Priti's climbdown this week, but the story is just as much about the illogical Stonewall language being used by the government as it is about the crime stats issue.
Currently, the Home Office does not centrally mandate how an offender’s sex or gender identity must be recorded by police. It is for each individual police force to decide what information to record.
N.B. The Home Office and most police forces pay Stonewall to review their policies so biological sex doesn't exist as far as they're concerned.
Officials have noted that ‘biological sex’ has not been defined in the petition. If ‘biological sex’ is defined in terms of anatomy, or chromosomes, then there would be both ethical and logistical challenges for the police or the HMPPS in determining this for every arrested suspect or prisoner. For instance, it would not be appropriate for the police or HMPPS to physically examine every suspect/prisoner in order to determine ‘biological sex’ if it had one of these meanings.
Interesting that they manage to determine biological sex for the purpose of determining whether or not it matches someone's gender (and presumably for healthcare provision?), but are apparently completely stumped when it comes to recording that same information for crime statistics. How do they know to drive people to the men's prison or the women's prison?
Also, in the MOJ/Prison Service's transgender policy document (included in their response), their risk assessment for women's safety includes consideration of physical size and genitals, but these same factors can't be used as indicators of biological sex for statistical purposes. Which also begs the question: are they actually even doing the risk assessments they say they're doing, if it's too mean to check prisoners' anatomy in the first place?
The trans policy document is also an interesting read in its own right - one of the criteria that provides "strong evidence" that the person is transgender is that they consistently use "gendered spaces", for example. And page 32 instructs prisons to use gendered mannerisms as a clue to what gender someone really is deep down - so HM Prison Service actually believes that if you sit with your legs crossed and can pull off a high-pitched giggle, that's evidence that you are a woman. The fact no-one seems to have noticed how utterly sexist this is (even outside of the obvious safety issues and lack of logical thought) is astounding.
Although the government appear to have changed their minds in the last week (presumably due to Nolan investigates), IMO it's still worth signing the petition while it's open, especially with all the flip-flopping going on and the assertions by Stonewall et al that most people don't care about biology and the women who object are only a tiny minority of bigots. This is an opportunity to show the government that's not the case and that this is a serious problem.
I'd also suggest writing to the Home Office and the police forces who are tied into the Stonewall definition of sex=gender to request they ditch Stonewall. The relevant police forces are listed on the Sex Matters website. The government needs to stop paying Stonewall to lobby them into this madness.