Census ‘hugely overstated’ trans population - Telegraph article

[xxyzz]

Census 'hugely overstated' trans population (telegraph.co.uk)

or

Census 'hugely overstated' trans population (archive.ph)

The Office for National Statistics “hugely overestimated” the number of transgender people in the UK, Whitehall sources have claimed, as the body admitted it could have carried out “additional probing” before releasing the controversial data.

An official inquiry by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) into the census finding that 260,000 people identified as transgender has drawn up several “lessons learned” from the way the data was handled by the ONS.
 
They include a conclusion the ONS should do more to communicate “uncertainty” about the data and should have sought external “quality assurance”.

Twitter thread here: Professor Alice Sullivan on X: ""The Office for National Statistics “hugely overestimated” the number of transgender people in the UK, Whitehall sources have claimed, as the body admitted it could have carried out “additional probing” before releasing the controversial data" t.co/kNtOqExFSq" / X (twitter.com)

[CelestialSausage]

cant read it

[JaneJeffer]

additional probing
snort

[xxyzz]

@CelestialSausage

cant read it

I included the archive link - does that not work?

[IwantToRetire]

Just copy the Telegraph web link https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/09/23/census-hugely-overstated-trans-population/ into https://archive.ph and you can read the whole thing.

But surely this isn't news? There was an uproar about this a few months ago and at least one if not more threads on FWR.

[IwantToRetire]

So it seems the story has been resurrected because the ONS also failed to report that the UK economy had recovered to pre-pandemic levels and Ministers are pissed off this hasn't been reported (and celebrated).

The inquiry’s findings are likely to exacerbate tensions between ministers and the ONS after the body admitted earlier this month it had underestimated the size of the economy by nearly 2 per cent as of the end of 2021 – meaning Britain recovered to its pre-pandemic level almost two years ago.

[Helleofabore]

Thanks xx. That archive link works for me.

[Froodwithatowel]

Census was an unholy mess that produced a whole lot of useless bollocks that can't be used as basis for any planning, but was a hugely expensive virtue signal. There's another waste of my taxes that I'm extremely annoyed about.

[highame]

I just love this. The ONS, yet another government service that doesn't service the government or the public. Unfortunately the original errors stand because the big splash made at the time has been absorbed by many people.

I get the impression that many of these organisations really don't care when they make major errors

[nauticant]

Does anyone else have archive.ph blocked by their device? I can't access it on any browser from my laptop but can if I browse via a VPN. It's not a service provider block because my phone can access the website when connected via my home WiFi. Odd and annoying.

[ResisterRex]

Here

Census ‘hugely overstated’ trans population

digitaleditions.telegraph.co.uk/data/1435/reader/reader.html?social#!preferred/0/package/1435/pub/1435/page/31/article/NaN

And some background on Diamond

www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/education/higher-education/2752462/sir-ian-diamond-aberdeen/

[NitroNine]

The census estimates on gender identity remain the best available. They are broadly consistent with NHS data collected in the same year and other countries’ comparable data.

Have they considered that’s because everyone’s making an utter hames of it, I wonder 🤔

[Froodwithatowel]

@highame

I just love this. The ONS, yet another government service that doesn't service the government or the public. Unfortunately the original errors stand because the big splash made at the time has been absorbed by many people.

I get the impression that many of these organisations really don't care when they make major errors

Particularly when the errors are quite politically useful, and you're more interested in creating nice impressions that boost your personal agendas than you are in objective reality and planning services with actual integrity.

[IcakethereforeIam]

I did a quick Google and found this pdf, it's by Michael Biggs at Oxford. I've only had a chance to glance at it, it seems fairly scathing.

1 Gender Identity in the 2021 Census of England and Wales: What Went Wrong? Michael Biggs, Department of Sociology and St Cross - OSF https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/yw45p/download

Hope the link works, it will download a document.

I think iirc there is, or was, a tw working quite high up in the ONS.

[Waitwhat23]

@Froodwithatowel

Census was an unholy mess that produced a whole lot of useless bollocks that can't be used as basis for any planning, but was a hugely expensive virtue signal. There's another waste of my taxes that I'm extremely annoyed about.

Edited

The Scottish census even more so. Absolutely useless data, low rates of return and an extraordinary amount of tax payers money spent on it.

news.stv.tv/scotland/census-lessons-must-be-learned-after-significantly-low-return-rate-says-auditor-general-of-scotland

What a waste of time.

[popebishop]

"The source said it was now clear the 2021 figures on gender, released in January, “hugely overestimated” the number of transgender people – a view they said was shared by multiple ministers.

The inquiry into the findings was sparked after academics warned the wording of the census question, “is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?” may have skewed the answers for respondents whose first language is not English, or who are less familiar with the language of gender identity.
Earlier this year, academics found those who speak English poorly were five times more likely to be transgender.

Michael Biggs, a professor of sociology at the University of Oxford, claimed that confusion over the question may explain why the London boroughs of Newham and Brent, which have a significant percentage of residents who speak English as a second language, recorded the highest proportion of transgender people in the UK.
Ed Humpherson, the head of the OSR, has written to the ONS setting out its initial observations. 
His letter said the ONS team that carried out the “quality assurance” of the data “agreed that, with more time to look at all combinations of variables, for example looking at gender identity and ethnicity, it may have identified areas for additional probing and analysis.”"

There were threads on here discussing this both before and after the data were released.

[Justme56]

Recently there was a thread about Bristol and their consultation on trans inclusion. These were the figures they used from the census. What is interesting is that over 1000 people said that their sex was was different from their GI but didn’t identify as TW, TM, NB or give other GI’s. It makes you wonder if they struggled to understand what they were being asked. Them made up nearly a third of the trans population in the census in Bristol.

[Froodwithatowel]

Also no way of knowing who thought -

• I didn't HAVE a gender identity at birth and am not agreeing to the first one because it states me as holding a belief that I don't.
• I have no idea what those phrases mean or what information is wanted because I'm not reddit-soaked, I'm of a generation with any idea what this is supposed to mean, and/or my first language is not English
• I have an exciting identity that is not one of those listed

All this was extensively pointed out at the time. The answer was that it didn't matter. Well if accurate data doesn't matter, stop wasting millions on it and just get David Walliams to write the fiction for you.

[AlisonDonut]

Every time I read these government funded investigations I wonder why they don't just all read Mumsnet FWR where the investigation has already been done, for free.

[jellyfrizz]

There isn’t a clear definition of ‘gender’ so how could people know what they are being asked?

I said no to this question as I see gender as sex role stereotypes and no, I don’t identify with those. I don’t identify as being transgender but that’s not what they asked.

If they wanted to know how many transgender people there are they should ask ‘Do you identify as transgender?’

[molotovcupcakes]

It served the purpose of justifying a lot more funding on LGBT projects to the detriment of other communities, by how much we will never know.
Someone at ONS should be fired, someone should be accountable, they had one job.

[Froodwithatowel]

Exactly this. It served the agenda's purpose to fudge things up.

Likewise, the possibility of a self identified TW at a high level should be completely irrelevant - save for pattern recognition and bitter experience of conflict of interest, and people from this political agenda intentionally inserting them into positions of power to abuse their position to benefit themselves and their political movement. Corruption in other words. It's very sad that this has to be thought of, but it's happened too many times now, and it is not a definition of diversity, it is a definition of extreme political bias that sees its aims as above morals, ethics, other people's rights and law.

[Baldieheid]

I ordered a paper copy of the scottish census and I wrote ALL over that bloody thing, making it perfectly clear what I thought of their shitty gender identity questions and what SEX myself and my family members were.

I also gave them a bit of a lecture about how sodding useless gender identities were when it came to deciding what services the population would need in the future, considering that many of those are SEX dependent.

It was one giant useless virtue signal from beginning to end and whilst I returned it, I doubt they'd have enjoyed my answers. Lowest rate of return ever in Scotland, I believe, under 80%.

[Waitwhat23]

@Baldieheid

I ordered a paper copy of the scottish census and I wrote ALL over that bloody thing, making it perfectly clear what I thought of their shitty gender identity questions and what SEX myself and my family members were.

I also gave them a bit of a lecture about how sodding useless gender identities were when it came to deciding what services the population would need in the future, considering that many of those are SEX dependent.

It was one giant useless virtue signal from beginning to end and whilst I returned it, I doubt they'd have enjoyed my answers. Lowest rate of return ever in Scotland, I believe, under 80%.

I'm looking forward to finding out exactly how many people wrote 'believer in biology' in the religion section. One researcher has done one small scale poll which indicated a few hundred but I suspect it's much, much more.

[Heliotroper]

“is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?”

does this make any sense as a question?

We hear from all sides in this debate that sex is different from gender.

I know what sex I was registered at birth. I know what sex I am now but if gender is different to sex does it have the same categories?

[Boiledbeetle]

ONS stands by dataThe ONS stood by its data, insisting: “The census estimates on gender identity remain the best available. They are broadly consistent with NHS data collected in the same year and other countries’ comparable data".


“The new, voluntary question went through rigorous development and testing involving trans and non-trans people and, through the census rehearsal, people who did not have English as their main language, before being finalised through legislation. "

hmmm. I'm having difficulty believing the above!