The Cabinet Office are TERFS

[Motorina]

I’m applying for a role via the cabinet office public appointments site. I was delighted to see this in the equality information section.

I’m sure this has changed since last time I applied. If there’s a mumsnetter involved then well done!

It’s sensible, and much better than something I’ve just dealt with. I’m a Brit living in the US, applied for a U.S. passport for my DD.

No sex, just gender on the form, options are F/M/X, and there is also an option to change the gender on a renewal passport application.

FOR A CHILD. Batshit crazy.

I'm actually wondering what trans people do with these forms. Given the vehemence with which some transwomen assert that they really, truly are women, do any of them fill in the first question (sex at birth) as female?

I would also prefer "what is your sex?" as the first question. I really don't like the pandering to the idea that sex is something other than a a basic reality (and, even more pedantically, if someone has a DSD there is a chance that the sex that was registered at birth is incorrect).

Do they have questions relating to all of the nine protected characteristics?

A simple "Do you believe in gender identity?" would suffice, but be entirely unnecessary. It would be a v-e-r y l-o-n-g form if they were to include all unevidenced belief systems. "Do you believe that the Earth is round?"...

Excellent suggestion there: 'not applicable' nails it.

I don’t think this is any evidence of TERFery, sorry.
Theyre collecting information unnecessarily about something that isn’t a protected characteristic. Why does an employer need to know this?

Why not ask about something that is actually known to affect life chances? Like poverty. How about asking ‘did you have free school meals as a child’? Or is that too awkward?

Better to ask meaninglessly ‘inclusive’ entirely internal ‘identity’ political questions and worse, to ask them in a way that assumes that these political beliefs are more real and valid than religion… which would at least give a ‘no religion’ option to tick.

Just for clarity, as it's come up - they do ask (extensive...) information about all the protected characteristics. I just screenshotted the one relevant for this board.

I for one am delighted to see a form that recognises that:
a. I have a sex rather than a gender
b. Binary options to describe it (and not the mismash of sex and gender terms I so often see)
c. That sex was registered (rather than assigned) at birth.

You could also argue that in asking this nonsense question, they are pushing their luck under GDPR. What is the data they are collecting, why and how are they processing it?

Excellent and very pertinent point Jacqueline. It’s this sort of thing which will ultimately stop the madness, not any care by a government for women’s rights, so let’s use the legal tools that we already have now and start to ask the government bodies these questions.

The short answer is it’s an vacuous ‘inclusive’ virtue signal

I agree OP this is clear and significant progress.
Im not sure however that capturing people whose gender identity is different to their sex is in fact identifying people with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.
They are also actually capturing a group of people who are not covered by equality legislation (are they?) but who wish they were, and I’m not entirely happy with this legitimisation or moving of boundaries when it isn’t supported by the law.

What is your sex (as registered at birth)?

• Male
• Female

All that's needed on an application form.

Absolutely.

The protected characteristics are sex and gender reassignment.

So the only questions needed are:

What is your sex (as registered at birth)?

• Male
• Female

Do you have a Gender Recognition Certificate? No

If we are using the EQ act then why dont we have questions about, religion, disability etc, you know those other protected characteristics?

If we are completely ignoring those other protected characteristics, then we can easily ignore this one and only have sex.
If we are including this protected characteristic then we should really be using them all.

This is iirc the same question that ended up on the census. It didnt go well for the census, it'll mean bugger all here.
And then we get to why are they asking, what will they do with the information?

If it’s a job application for a public appointment they will definitely be including race and disability in the equality monitoring section of the form (which is generally kept separate and anonymised). I’m not sure about religion, tbh. My guess is they wouldn’t ask about marriage/civil partnership and probably not about pregnancy.

They might ask about additional factors (going beyond EA2010) such as questions related to social mobility.

Motorina will be able to confirm as she filled in the form.

And then we get to why are they asking, what will they do with the information?

The anonymised data from the various recruitment exercises will be analysed to check whether there are groups which do better / worse at various stages in the process: proportion of applications submitted; sift; interview; final outcome.

If you found that women were getting through the sift but not the interview, you’d look at the questions asked in interview and consider whether they favoured men in some way.

If you found that women weren’t even applying in the first place you’d think about what outreach you could do to attract more female applicants.

Good to see "sex registered at birth"
Rather than "assigned " 👏👏👏

I mean sex and gender are different things anyway right? Surely there isn't a debate about this? Maybe i've missed something these past few years

theDudesmummy · Yesterday 16:11

The second question is like asking "Is the god you believe in the same as the one your family believes in?". It assumes you believe in a god and there is no way to indicate that you do not.

Oh, I like that and may use it myself!

but if you don't think you have a gender identity at all, and that biological male or female is the end of the questioning, then the 2nd question definitely needs a "this is tosh" (politer) answer to select.