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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

How would you describe your gender identity?

69 replies

ChimChimeny · 30/06/2022 07:55

Work are requesting us to complete a diversity questionnaire and this is one question. The options are: Woman/man/non-binary/prefer not to say/other

I think I've read stuff on here before saying choose other and state "I don't have a gender identity" but would that skew the results? Or could I complain about the question?

I was a bit concerned it would be all about gender bollocks but there are also questions about sexual orientation and disabilities.

OP posts:
Braggiography · 30/06/2022 09:57

I've stopped answering all questions on race/religion/sexuality etc. Far too intrusive.

Braggiography · 30/06/2022 09:58

Some cynics might say this is a strategy to undermine D&I - if you have a survey with 50 questions that are personal and intrusive, and optional, many people will just start ignoring them. Which means the company has done its duty by asking, but there will be no actual effect or impact, rendering the whole exercise totally pointless.

bellinisurge · 30/06/2022 10:03

@ChagSameachDoreen , drives me nuts. I'm
mixed with a British Jewish Dad and an Irish mum. My daughter obviously has my ethnicity plus her Dad's which is English/ Irish.
Her cousins (via my brother) have a Jewish Mum .
There's never a way to record it accurately. I generally go for Mixed Other. No idea what my niece and nephew do.
All I know is that, for the purposes of ethnic monitoring- which is what this shit is supposed to be about-, we are effectively erased.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 30/06/2022 10:14

Some cynics might say this is a strategy to undermine D&I - if you have a survey with 50 questions that are personal and intrusive, and optional, many people will just start ignoring them. Which means the company has done its duty by asking, but there will be no actual effect or impact, rendering the whole exercise totally pointless.

YY.

MagpiePi · 30/06/2022 10:30

I have stopped filling in my employer's annual staff survey because you can't get past the first page (it is online) without stating whether you identify as male/female/non-binary/other. There are also other protected characterstic questions about age, disability and religion on this page which give a 'none' option.
I emailed HR to say this was innacurate - they should be asking about sex, not gender identity and was told the 'Pride group' had input on the questions and had wanted it and there were a limitied number of questions so they couldn't add one about sex.

It is a bit like being asked about religion without there being a 'none' option.
(Are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?)

The staff survey is shit anyway because it basically has multiple choice answers so you get asked 'how good is it to work for us?' and the possible answers are amazing; fantastic; brilliant

BootsAndRoots · 30/06/2022 10:46

N/A.

MiniTheMinx · 30/06/2022 11:21

Gender: Woman. I do not self identify as anything.

I've been assigned girl, and woman, child and adult,.....these descriptors assigned to me based upon 1)biology 2)assumption 3)social expectations benign 4)through a social process much less benign.

Objectively I'm a woman. In some cases it's a helpful short cut.

I identify as a woman, even if I secretly wished to be a sea lion.

Whilst it might be 'nice' to self identify as anything I like, I'm not so self entitled, victim hood clutching and narcissistic to think others should accept my chosen self identity over years of quite pragmatic identification.

I always tick woman. Proud to be one, we have earned this over a millennia of struggle. I am not about to concede the identity to a bunch of individuals who are by any rational measure not biologically female, not recognisably woman on any pragmatic or scientific basis, and by any rational measure significantly impaired in their ability to apprehend reality.

Of course it would be better to rub some noses and stick to the facts: Female.

In some respects the empty category without signifiers has been established, where once a simple word conveyed a simple direct relation between another
Female - woman. At some point the category 'woman' was given a bunch of signifiers, and the simple direct relation between the word woman and female was replaced with too much emphasis on signifiers such as,......walk this way, talk this way,....the emphasis shifted from empirically derived facts and lived shared experience to the more culturally focused things such as how we behave, what we do, how we modify ourselves (I blame foucault at this point).

Then along came.......a bunch of women feminist scholars who lost their way and opened a Pandora's box of horrors. "let's talk about Gender" (if only Foucault had kept his musings to himself). It was a wrong turn.

I can not not be a woman simply because some gay guy, and some trans person decided to break the original clear descriptive relationship between my sex and and a simple word used to describe me and others like me. Much less am I prepared to be given ciss to distinguish between myself and others choosing to self identify as like me.

They believe by having filled the category with cultural ideologically created phantom signifiers, they then get to empty it, not just of its philosophical contents, but of me. Because one can not claim to be both trans and a woman all at the same time. They know it, I know it.
You give a description to something, then try to justify why you fit the description, then fail to fit that description so you then nihilisticically kill the very thing you aspire to be. Sick init!

skinhappy · 30/06/2022 11:27

donquixotedelamancha · 30/06/2022 07:57

I got one of these. I complained that they weren't collecting data in line with the PCs from the EA2010.

I would write a note on to this effect too. Point out that sex and gender identity are different. Point out that they are not collecting data on sex, which is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act. Point out that their question on gender identify does not provide a response option for those who do not believe in/ consider themselves to have a of gender identity, and that, if they want to ask that question, they should have a filter ( do you consider yourself to have a gender identity? *Yes /no. If yes, is your gender identity to be...)

This needs to be challenged every time.

ChimChimeny · 30/06/2022 11:43

SingingSands · 30/06/2022 09:51

Do you HAVE to complete the survey? I've started deleting all survey requests. I was chased yesterday and replied "no thank you" and didn't hear back. I was slightly concerned though because the chasing email was addressed to me directly (FIRST NAME/SURNAME) then went on to say how important it was to their data blah blah bad and that all responses are anonymous. Well if it's anonymous then how did they know I hadn't responded? Confused

No I don't, and if they don't reply to my email in a satisfactory manner then I won't.

We have to put in our staff number so they will know who has/hasn't filled it in. I assume the anonymous bit is the people collating the answers either don't see the staff numbers or because it's only a number they don't know who we are

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JacquelinePot · 30/06/2022 12:06

If organisations genuinely want to monitor equality they should outline all the Protected Characteristics, one by one, and ask which apply, and what your experience has been like (at the org) in relation to the PC.

If they want to monitor other things it should be in addition, not instead, and (under GDPR) they should be able to clearly articulate why they need the data, and how it will be used.

They should not be taking instructions from special interest groups (whether that's Stonewall or a group of activist employees) that have a detriment to other employees

queenmabb · 30/06/2022 14:25

I'd either leave that part blank or if it's online and you can't progress wouldn't fill it in. When questioned I would say I did not understand the question and would fill it in upon receipt of an explanation.

Stopsnowing · 30/06/2022 22:03

I would say I haven’t one.

TheBiologyStupid · 30/06/2022 22:26

Non-existent. (Sorry, for once I haven't read the thread - but what else is there to say!)

Cattenberg · 30/06/2022 23:31

bellinisurge · 30/06/2022 08:10

To be fair, these things are shit on many levels. They don't record Jewish as an ethnicity and they should

Wouldn’t many Jewish people feel uncomfortable about being recorded as Jewish on government records? The historical connotations are so horrifying.

My maternal grandfather was a Sephardic/Berber Jew, so I see myself as having some Jewish heritage, BTW.

ChimChimeny · 01/07/2022 08:43

So I got a reply to my email, and it has made me even more annoyed! Copied and pasted as it is:

We don’t ask about ‘biological’ sex in our diversity questionnaire because we already collect team members legal sex data (sex assigned at birth) via our standard recruitment processes and HR systems and indeed use this to
report on such things as the Gender Pay Gap. The reason we ask about gender identity specifically, is because not everyone’s gender identity is consistent with their legal sex and we don’t capture this information anywhere else.
Whilst we appreciate you don’t feel the question is applicable to you, there’s a ‘prefer not to say’ and a free text ‘other’ option for the question for those who don’t wish to answer or for whom the response options aren’t applicable.

WTF with the 'biological' sex and sex assigned at birth 😡

They use our staff number to basically track other questionnaires/surveys, and could link it to HR records in the future so I don't think I'm even going to fill it in.

OP posts:
xeyages · 01/07/2022 11:59

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

Tiphaine · 01/07/2022 13:04

ChimChimeny · 01/07/2022 08:43

So I got a reply to my email, and it has made me even more annoyed! Copied and pasted as it is:

We don’t ask about ‘biological’ sex in our diversity questionnaire because we already collect team members legal sex data (sex assigned at birth) via our standard recruitment processes and HR systems and indeed use this to
report on such things as the Gender Pay Gap. The reason we ask about gender identity specifically, is because not everyone’s gender identity is consistent with their legal sex and we don’t capture this information anywhere else.
Whilst we appreciate you don’t feel the question is applicable to you, there’s a ‘prefer not to say’ and a free text ‘other’ option for the question for those who don’t wish to answer or for whom the response options aren’t applicable.

WTF with the 'biological' sex and sex assigned at birth 😡

They use our staff number to basically track other questionnaires/surveys, and could link it to HR records in the future so I don't think I'm even going to fill it in.

Have they explained what their legal basis for collecting this data about staff gender identities is?

ChimChimeny · 01/07/2022 13:51

@Tiphaine "because not everyone’s gender identity is consistent with their legal sex and we don’t capture this information anywhere else"

The T&Cs linked to the survey say that the data is used:
o to produce summary reports by which we can monitor workforce numbers across different demographic groups.
o inform baselines and subsequent targeted action plans to address areas of under-representation.
o prepare for possible future ethnicity/disability pay gap reporting requirements.
o be transparent with our team members and/or customers on the current state & our commitments to improve our diversity.
o link to other people data to track representation and people moves by demographic (E.g. Promotions, leavers, representation by level etc).
o link to engagement survey data, totrack engagement & feedback by demographic and further refine DEI strategies.

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NahNoWay · 01/07/2022 13:53

I do not have a gender identity. I have a biological sex and a personality that is not based on my sex or outdated gender stereotypes.

Tiphaine · 01/07/2022 16:52

I'm not convinced that's enough. 'Because we want to' isn't usually a legal basis for collecting, processing, or storing data.

Metabigot · 01/07/2022 17:39

I wish there was an option for 'person'

Why can't I just 'identify as' a person?

Oh but that's far too old fashioned and boring these days isn't it.

TheBeardedVulture · 01/07/2022 18:29

I don’t believe in gender identity.

my sex is female.

myuterusistryingtokillme · 01/07/2022 18:39

TheBeardedVulture · 01/07/2022 18:29

I don’t believe in gender identity.

my sex is female.

Absolutely this

dropthevipers · 01/07/2022 18:45

I identify as an world class concert pianist. The fact that I just about scraped through Grade 8 is neither here nor there. Anyone pointing out the difference between reality and what goes on in my head is guilty of hate crime. So there.

onlywhenidream · 01/07/2022 18:45

I'd say grade 8 Is as near world class as makes no odds