Self ID on forms (census etc)

[Brefugee]

As i understand for when some data is collected (I think for the census in Scotland?) and maybe in medical situations, there is sometimes a check box for "Sex" which is sometimes labelled as "Gender" and sometimes there are both.

So for Sex a trans person should pick their biological sex, but for gender they can self ID (so they may check female sex but male gender). But where it's only sex or gender they are likely to pick male for both.

so if everyone just checks their Gender ID instead of their biological sex, it immediately erases all trans people, and therefore they can't be identified as such. Which in many many respects is total bullshit.

But. Since there are no trans people - they don't need any special funding or treatment. It seems a bit of an own-goal to me.

Don't ever make the mistake of looking for logic, Brefugee.

Doh, yes. Sorry. //slaps self//

On the most recent census I ticked "perfect not to say" (or perhaps "other" ) because it asked for gender with no mention of sex.

For the last Scottish census (March 2022) the questions were:

What is your sex? M, F

and Do you consider yourself to be trans, or have a trans history? N, Y with freeform field to clarify, if you check yes.

The sex question is self-ID, but you'd have to dig through separate guidance to find that out. The consider yourself trans? question is optional, for 16+ only.

If you simply sit down and fill out the form, there's a good chance you'd do so in a way that yields good data. (An improvement, purely in terms of eliciting useful data, would be to put "recorded at birth" in parentheses next to the sex field with an explanatory note).

it does require everyone to complete the form in good faith though