Urgent help please

[Pinniepotter]

I've been tasked with creating a form to capture EDI details of staff for an event (race, ethnicity, religion etc.)

Work is fairly captured but there is a growing awareness of the issues with stonewall and gender ID.

So how do I include trans and non binary without sending everyone nuts.

Was thinking:

What is your sex:

Male
Female
Other (trans / non binary)

Or

What is your sex

Male
female
Other (I identify as a gender that does not correlate with my birth sex or non gendered)

Any thoughts?

Please don't conflate sex and gender identity. That's the root of all this trouble.

I'd go with what lanadelgrey suggests.

But I don't 'identify'.

Agree with all of this.

Absolutely do not confuse sex with gender identity!

sex-matters.org/your-rights-at-work/

Always worth a look, too.

I'd go with your sex recorded at birth m/f/ prefer not to say and do you have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment yes/no/prefer not to say.

What are you planning on doing with the information?

Is this event really going to be looking at who they are discriminating against at one event?

What will they do if everyone is a white male?

This blanket approach is part of the problem. What are you trying to actually achieve?

I would keep it simple.

Sex:
Female
Male

Gender Identity:
Female
Male
Non Binary
Prefer Not To Say

What do you actually hope to achieve from the data? Make the case for why people should tell you this information otherwise it just looks like box ticking.

I'd be tempted to use the census wording for the sex question

What is your sex?

Male

Female

They gave no other option such as "prefer not to say" which I think sets a reassuringly no-nonsense tone from the start. As an aside, I did like the phrase "sex registered at birth" they used elsewhere.

For the gender reassignment question I would use the Equality Act wording of the protected characteristic and steer clear of all 'identity' talk because the Act's wording (opaque though it is) represents the legal framework we are supposed to be operating in rather than Stonewall law.

Are you "proposing to undergo, undergoing or have undergone a process (or part of a process) to reassign your sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex"?
Yes
No

Where "No" comfortably includes those who think sex is immutable anyway and "Yes" picks up those who actually need the protection of the Act...

Unless, that is, you think that you need to know how many Demi-bois/cloud gender people are at the event , in which case a free text box might be useful...

Agree with this. ONS have clear published guidance explaining the user testing they did and the questions they've landed on as the best available at the present time. (Also worth deferring to this for how you capture ethnicity data etc.)

It does ask specifically for sex, which I think is (rightly) your priority.

And it's very easily justified, whereas designing your own thing and talking about birth certificates and whatnot leaves you very personally responsible for any wording which is (perceived to be) insensitive.

Also, have they talked you through what data they actually NEED and why? Thinking GDPR here. How long are they going to keep it? What are they going to do with it? Will it be anonymous and, even so, who will be able to access it and why?

It's one thing to say, "what race are you? What is your sexuality?" and have someone fill in a form to say, yeah actually you DO have at least one gay employee... quite another to have a database somewhere that allows someone to work out that the one black employee in the place is gay!
Does that make sense?

I say all that because if you're not sure what to ask, that makes me wonder if the original request hasn't properly been thought through. And in extremis this personal information can be seriously misused. It doesn't matter that 99% of the time nobody cares, if the other 1% of the time someone suffers extremely serious adverse consequences.

Gender Identity doesn't exist and isn't a protected characteristic. So no point.

What is your sex?
Female
Male

End of question.

I agree with the person who said look it from a GDPR perspective:

Does the company have a valid reason for collecting this information?
Will the information be linked to individuals?
How will the information be used?

Only ask questions that are relevant and where the options for answer are clear and not open to differences in interpretation.

Nails it.

Exactly, @BobBobBobbing
We don't accept that everybody has one.

Are you "proposing to undergo, undergoing or have undergone a process (or part of a process) to reassign your sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex"?

That's a touch invasive for an event? Glass of champagne, h'ors d'oeuvre, any sex change surgery planned this year?

This is so out of hand. Work out what it is you are trying to achieve and then decide whether you even need to ask.

It it heavy. However it nails it in terms of being the exact wording of the EqA to qualify for that legal protection. Which is all that is relevant.

It's no different to being asked, 'do you have a condition that significantly impacts upon your ability to carry out day to day activities that will last/has lasted longer than a year?' to ascertain if you qualify for legal protection for disability. You do not have to 'identify' as disabled: merely state whether or not you fit that criteria for legal protection. (And disabled people would be expected to back this up with evidence if invoking that protection to defend rights. Actual evidence, thoroughly tested. Emotively describing 'deeply held feelings' would make no bloody odds whatsoever, and how stressed you got/the impact on you emotionally equally makes no difference at all.)

Identity has no place in any of this. We might as well have questions asking for star sign, political affiliation, favourite colour or preferred Strictly champion. All that is relevant in collecting this info is general numbers of population groups for needs being met, and ensuring legal compliance with protected characteristics. That's it. That's all. No exciting avatars needed, no Dungeons and Dragons games, no status badges to collect.

Incidentally I have previously hesitated to 'out' myself as disabled to an employer: not least that you then have a target put on your back as 'risk' and get intensively studied for whether you're not up to the job in ways no able bodied employees match.

But if I wanted to access legal protections specifically for disabled people to correct inequalities, dealing with situations that able bodied people do not have to deal with, so they cannot be 'for all', I did have to share information and do the work to invoke those protections. I would not expect special treatment, I just have under law the ability to insist on equal treatment. Anyone wishing to invoke a protected characteristic's protection is going to have to be prepared to share information and be able to evidence it.

Thanks all. It had to be right but can't raise flags that we are not trans inclusive. I think census approach is good - so sex and then separate gender ID qs. @HarvestThyme version looks ideal to me.