Suggestion that census could ask “do you menstruate?” instead of asking sex.

[broccolibush]

Telegraph article

So apparently it could be more inclusive and more precise to ask do you menstruate instead of asking for your sex. Which makes no sense at all to me. It would mean that pregnant women, menopausal women, women who have had hysterectomies, women on hormonal contraception, anorexic women, pre-pubescent girls and many others aren’t female. Surely this is beyond stupid?

More concerningly the article refers to “soft decertification” and “slow law” as a way to describe softly-softly pushing through change to erase women from womanhood.

These people need to grow up. And then fuck off.

Yep

Asking the right question to get the relevant information for particular purposes makes sense.
So, in a medical context sometimes it might be :
Sex - male or female

Then if F - do you menstruate, or is there any possibility of you becoming pregnant.

But in many contexts that level of specificity isn't needed. In a general population census, the proportion of M to F needs tracking because if it deviates very far from natural levels it signifies something odd happening at a population level.

The 'normative body' thing is a bit silly. Humans are dimorphic but of course there are outliers. A female may be tall, muscular and slim-hipped, a man may be short and more rounded. Trans people generally have bodies pretty much in the normal ranges but with modifications.... but their sex hasn't changed.

What's needed is for people to stop gratuitously trying to alter the meanings of words necessary for meaningful communication. Trans people may not like the sex they were born with and still are, but they know what it is. A lot of people don't much like their age, but lying about it on a census helps no one.

This type of silly stunts doesn't help promoting diversity as it just achieve the opposite because people are rightly annoyed by the stupidity of it all...

Yes, one wonders what they are actually trying to do here, as they must realise that female specific health care and facilities are not only needed by women who menstruate.

They are kidding, that would be crazy

Full report on which the article is based for anyone who wants to read it:

www.kcl.ac.uk/law/research/future-of-legal-gender-abolishing-legal-sex-status-full-report.pdf

I always thought that forms were gradually replacing the word sex with the word gender to stop silly people writing 'yes please' next to it. Fastforward a few decades and here we are with this new dawn of idiocy.

Sounds like bullshit to me.

I'm 55 and I think just about through the menopause (thankfully). I haven't "menstruated" for around a year now. I am 100% still a woman.

My mother is in her eighties and long past the age of menstruation. She is also still a woman.

Are people really paid to think up this bollocks?

Are people really paid to think up this bollocks?

Over half a million quid of public money. It's not all their report says but I challenge you to find anything remotely useful in it, after 4 years in production.

So now forms are mostly online with defined dropdown choices where there are limited possibilities (for sex M or F; in some contexts can add 'prefer not to say' or maybe 'intersex' ) they should stop using 'gender' as its now not just a euphemism for sex but can be interpreted as whatever you want.
A medical form which currently asks for 'gender' with the choices male or female, which then discloses an additional question about the possibility of being pregnant clearly ought to be using 'sex'.

I agree.

It just reflects what a mess authorities are in at the moment. One one hand they are convinced that only relatively few people need or want to change their 'sex', yet on the other, they are planning what to do in the event that so many people will register as the opposite sex or as neither, making the data collection meaningless.

In one breath they are saying sex is complicated and not relevant in the majority of situations, yet need to know quiet specific personal biology on census forms. There's lots of reasons why someone may or may not have a period, but the question on it's own won't show that.

Unless the authorities do want a list of women who could become pregnant.😮

I worked with two ladies who did not menstruate. One with PCOS and the other as an effect of severe eating disorder. I am sure purely from a mental health stand point that bothe individuals who identified as women would be thrilled to know they lost the right to call themselves this on top of what they were already going through. Ridiculous. As someone with severe endo who has just had to have her periods temporarily stopped for her own health can't say I am particularly impressed with this as a choice either....

Sounds a really stupid question to ask. Unless they are planning free sanitary wear for all and want to know how much they need.

Seconded.

interestingly of all the females I know who don’t menstruate, because of age or medical condition or pregnancy, none have produced sperm. It’s like there is an important biological difference between males (or ejaculators) and females.

I had a contraceptive implant, didn't have a period in two years. Did I not exist during that time or was I male? If I was male, then I didn't need the implant so why didn't my doctor remove it I wonder.

I have not read the full thread so forgive me if someone else has mentioned this already, but apart from the “Do you mentstruate?” suggestion is this appalling proposal:

Where law mentions gendered physical processes, the researchers suggested it could say “gestational or birth parent rather than mother or woman – this recognises that people other than women also become pregnant”.

No one other than a woman can become pregnant.

This really is an attempt to erase the very idea of what a woman is. It is like Russian State propaganda at work.

I think there will be so many women/people/whatever in the same boat. Its a stupid idea.

I dare say there are a significant number of women who either have learning difficulties or have English as a second language who may not even understand the question.
This is such a stupid idea.

this recognises that people other than women also become pregnant”.

Is this a clumsy way of trying to appeal to transmen? If they can become pregnant they are women.

Thanks for the Telegraph link — that ‘Future of legal gender’ project is even more insane than I thought.

the researchers said: “In some contexts, more precise questions may help to avoid distortions or inaccuracies, for example, ‘do you menstruate?’ or ‘are you perceived or treated as a man at work?’ rather than, or in addition to, ‘are you male or female?’.”

I’ve been treated like a man, with respect, when someone presumed my signature (initial and surname only) must be male. But treated as a woman when male colleagues contradicted something I’d written that happened to be correct, or talked over me at a meeting.

What gender should I put?

And who authorised hall a million pounds of taxpayers’ money to be spent on this bollox?

I don’t understand how you can be “treated as a man at work” - or “perceived as a man”. How would you prove this?

Agree - it’s absolutely bollox.

And who authorised hall a million pounds of taxpayers’ money to be spent on this bollox?

ESRC.

For sure. It’s only really comprehensible to a very niche minority.

Yes 🤦‍♀️