Oxford University covid research

[Scrabble]

So I've spent maybe a couple of years filling in occasional questionnaires from Oxford University. Fairly long ones. About how I and my family are affected by Covid. A lot of the questions are pretty intrusive - eg asking about feelings of depression and worthlessness, whether your children are unpopular or liars and thieves, relationship and money questions, etc. I've done this (despite often not wanting to) over and over again in the interests of research. With some faith that as carried out by prestigious Oxford University they might find out something useful and make good use of it.
Received yet another questionnaire the other day, and this time they required me to tell them what my gender is. The choice was: male / female / other / prefer not to say. There was no sex question. I know that on this board male and female are supposed to relate to sex, but here they were expressly stated to be genders.
I considered not answering the questionnaire, but in the end went for female. But surely sex is very important in the context of Covid and families? And they were clearly conflating sex and gender. I feel as though the whole thing has been a waste of time, and as though I've been cheated into thinking that these were reasonable, academic people with an interest in finding out the truth. So much for fucking Oxford.

I filled in another survey yesterday, which was one of a series of national surveys and was on how I communicate with HMRC (the tax authorities). I was pleased to see that they first asked what my sex was (male or female). The next question was whether my gender identity was the same as my sex. There were 2 options - yes or no. There was no option to say that you didn't have a gender identity or didn't believe in the concept of gender identity. However, it was possible to tick the No option and then explain your answer. So I said No and then stated that I didn't understand the concept of gender identity.

The thing is if we knew who were female women and who were male women then we could analyse the data to see to what degree female women and male women shared experiences, which would be massively helpful. (Purposeful ridiculous terminology there.) In theory the Census should be able to do this this time, but I suspect the data won't be very reliable.

Their response is so depressing. It feels as if we are hurtling backwards without ever having reached equality of the sexes.

My psychological state is deeply affected by the fact I'm a woman. From the influence of my menstrual cycle, to the ongoing impact of trauma from male sexual assault, to motherhood, to low socioeconomic status and precarious employment due to maternity discrimination. The pandemic intersected with all this in various and sometimes quite unexpected ways.

But some bros at Oxford University equate identifying as a transwoman with the lived reality of being female under a patriarchy, and shoehorn their experiences in with mine so that must be OK then.

@Allthegoodnamesarechosen www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/10/its-intersex-awareness-day-here-are-5-myths-we-need-to-shatter/

Well I'd probably get my comments deleted if I wrote what I actually think about that Amnesty link. I'll just say it's untrue.

I think it's fascinating why people who claim they're the Good Guys need to obfuscate and lie so much.

ihra.org.au/16601/intersex-numbers/

Before any genuinely undecided lurkers make a decision, have a read of this:

www.realityslaststand.com/p/intersex-is-not-as-common-as-red

and wonder to yourselves why anybody honest would define Intersex so widely as “an individual who deviates from the Platonic ideal of physical dimorphism at the chromosomal, genital, gonadal, or hormonal levels” (this definition is so wide as to encompass PCOS and hypospadias) whilst relying on the average reader's assumption that Intersex means genuine ambiguity in sexual development.