Who would be able to review research design from a GC perspective?

[SoManyQuestionsHere]

Basically, exactly as stated in the title:

Anyone willing to give me a (very anonymous, can handle via DM on here) review on research design re. "I&D".

I am looking to try and ...

A) distinguish between gender identity and bio sex, and ...
B) not raise any unnecessary red flags

Help much appreciated!

If the purpose is equality monitoring you would be on firm ground using language from the equality act.

Explain why you need the info, bit also that it's optional and anonymous.

Sex (equality act wording for clarity) registered on you birth cert when you were born. None of this ID as or assigned nonsense.
Options: female, male, prefer not to say

And then, does the ptotected characteristic of gender reassignment apply to you? Gender reassignment is xyz
Options: y, n, prefer not to say

If the survey is anomonous you risk GC people deleting and moving on due to believing that the organisation is looking for a bix ticking exercise that does not consider that gender is imposed on women who are not and will not be given an effective voice.

What is your birth sex?
Female
Male

Do you have a gender reassigment certificate? Yes / No

Do you identify with a specifoc gender?
Yes / No

If yes.. is that gender
Male
Female
Other - specify if you would so wish
See note 2 below (if you want to expand or provide options... bearing in mind that you get what you ask for.. if you mention cis.. people may select that, even if they do not actively buy into gender ideology.

Do you have any disabilities as defined by the Equality Act (see note 1 below)

You could also ask a question about each of the other Equality Act categories...

If it was equality monitoring, then:

You don’t have to track how many job applications you receive from different groups of people, or the characteristics of the people working for you.

From www.gov.uk/employers-responsibilities-equality-monitoring

So again it comes back to why is it being asked. If it just goes into a spreadsheet and a file then it is pointless. So ask meaningful questions and you might get meaningful answers.

I've been fighting a similar battle to get demographic questions on a large public survey changed to ask about sex as well as gender identity. Some of the articles below include info on how to ask about gender identity and what options to include.

If it's something that might be published, you can argue that Nature Portfolio journals recommend authors to follow the ‘Sex and Gender Equity in Research – SAGER – guidelines’ - ease.org.uk/communities/gender-policy-committee/the-sager-guidelines/.

As a general principle, the SAGER guidelines recommend careful use of the words sex and gender in order to avoid confusing both terms. The use of common definitions will improve the ability to conduct meta-analyses of published and archived data. The term sex should be used as a classification of male or female based on biological distinction to the extent that this is possible to confirm. The first principle is that: Authors should use the terms sex and gender carefully in order to avoid confusing both terms.

You can also argue that in qualitative research involving gender minority populations, participants preferred a two-step question approach which asked for sex and gender identity.

What Sexual and Gender Minority People Want Researchers to Know About Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Questions: A Qualitative Study - link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-020-01810-y

GENDERED INNOVATIONS 2: How Inclusive Analysis Contributes to Research and Innovation - ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/research_and_innovation/strategy_on_research_and_innovation/documents/ki0320108enn_final.pdf - see page 192

Why sex and gender matter in implementation research - www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5084413/

A Two-Question Method for Assessing Gender Categories in the Social and Medical Sciences - doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2012.690110

Accounting for sex and gender makes for better science - www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03459-y

An analysis of neuroscience and psychiatry papers published from 2009 and 2019 outlines opportunities for increasing discovery of sex differences - www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9018784/

Transgender-inclusive measures of sex/gender for population surveys: Mixed-methods evaluation and recommendations - journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0178043#abstract0

The Utility of the Two-Step Gender Measure Within Trans and Cis Populations - link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-016-0220-6#Sec8

Sorry for the info dump, but I'm a researcher and I've been trying to argue the case with some higher ups who have been Stonewalled. I've got a few higher ups on my side, but it's still an on-going battle.

@GingerPCatt, do not apologise! The info dump is quite spectacularly helpful for my purposes!

For the sake of clarity: again, the goal is to be able to demonstrate, quantitatively, what we all actually know already: that there is a brutally obvious inversely linear correlation between "being female" and "rank". In other words: the only woman in leadership in this part of the organisation is ... yours truly!

I've been promised funds for a women's leadership program - but only if I can quantify the issue of us having zero diversity.

If this is your aim.. you need to make dam sure that your data cannot be misinterpreted in the future if and when males identify as female and then start demanding disproportionate presence and share of resources.

One of the points that I have made repeatedly is that sex and gender are different. In theory everyone should be able to agree on that.

Having ‘sex’ as a clear category also makes any comparison or meta analysis possible. I think that was one of the main points that Nature publishing made.

Im still battling this but fortunately one of the big guns is on my side. Not sure if he’s GC but as a scientist, the accuracy of data is very important to him. And being able to publish!