Winchester Science Centre asks DD if she is non-binary

[Ingenieur]

I took my two DDs to Winchester Science Centre yesterday. One of the exhibitions was a psychology research quiz involving empathy expressed towards real pets vs robot pets and was run alongside the University of Portsmouth. During the quiz, one of the researchers asked my (young) DD if she is non-binary. Other kids were there, ranging in age from 3 to 12 or so, so all basically primary school age.

I moved the conversation quickly on at the time, but it really left me shocked as it seemed like a total non-sequitur. It really isn't the place to be discussing gender ideology and undermines the credibility of the Centre to offer scientific education to young kids. It's disappointing to see the capture of so many institutions and the fact that we can't escape the indoctrination in completely unrelated spaces you'd expect to be safe from unscientific ideas.

Sorry if it's been a bit of a rant!

In this context "sorry, not familiar, is that a scientific term?"
would be a good response.

Love the idea of asking if it's a scientific term.
Even the royal society of chemistry offered gender tick boxes in it's membership forms when I last looked. Unscientific bollocks, or pseudo-bollocks if you prefer.

If it was part of the research then all the questions asked should have gone through a prior ethical approval process. Asking children that kind of question and using the answers for research would count as sensitive personal information about a child and would have to be justified.

And if it wasn't part of the research then yes, the organisers need to tell the students that it's rude and intrusive to ask adults what sex or gender they are and equally rude to ask a young child.

You can complain either way.

Absolutely this.

It's 'special category' data and there are very strict rules about its collection:

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/lawful-basis/a-guide-to-lawful-basis/lawful-basis-for-processing/special-category-data/

'The UK GDPR defines special category data as:

• personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin;
• personal data revealing political opinions;
• personal data revealing religious or philosophical beliefs;
• personal data revealing trade union membership;
• genetic data;
• biometric data (where used for identification purposes);
• data concerning health;
• data concerning a person’s sex life; and
• data concerning a person’s sexual orientation.

'

OP- I know this is post from a year ago. Not sure if you've made a complaint or not, but I would say, as Science Centre lover (we go there with DD, from London, 5 times a year), that quite a few of the people working there are on the spectrum. They are all really lovely but some of them do occasionally ask inappropriate questions and it's really not meant to be rude. Please don't take it personally. We love that place and everyone is ever so helpful and lovely and the people running the Science Live and the Planetarium in particular are very smart.

that quite a few of the people working there are on the spectrum. They are all really lovely but some of them do occasionally ask inappropriate questions and it's really not meant to be rude.

Even if they are on the spectrum any employee interacting with children, should be well trained and therefore should know not to ask such questions.

I agree they should and hope OP did make a complaint, but just saying that I think it wasn't meant to offend.

Hi @Limeric, I didn't make a complaint in the end, life just got in the way.

The interaction my daughter and I had was with a university student undertaking research on a psychology degree, it wasn't a member of WSC staff. The actual staff were all lovely.