Census ‘hugely overstated’ trans population - Telegraph article

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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)

🤣

I seem to remember someone on this board using the figure from the census plus the known number of trans sex-offenders in prison, and using it to produce a guestimate for the percentage of transpeople who are convicted sex offenders which was significantly higher than that of the adult male population as a whole.

If the number of trans people in the population is significantly lower than the census records, then that percentage would be alarmingly higher.

For clarity, that of course does not mean that any individual transwoman is a predator. Most, of course, are not. But it is worrisome.

Here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4732695-tw-are-5-times-more-likely-than-other-men-to-commit-sexual-offences

the other interesting thing to take from this is that, even if the census was correct, the figures are vastly lower than the various charities/even government were estimating before then - e.g. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/721642/GEO-LGBT-factsheet.pdf
published before the census suggests a tentative figure of between 200,000-500,000 trans people, whereas the census result for people specifically identifying as a trans man or woman (rather than non binary or something else, which is probably where the majority of the 'error' came from) is 96,000. That's a huge difference, and does raise concerns about the proportionality of spending so much time/money/effort on such a tiny part (0.2%) of the population.

As a comparison, 4 times as many respondents (0.8%) identified their religion as Jedi on the previous census...

Joan Smith has written about it in Unherd.

https://unherd.com/thepost/what-lessons-will-the-ons-learn-from-its-trans-census/

"does raise concerns about the proportionality of spending so much time/money/effort on such a tiny part (0.2%) of the population."

By contrast, 1/3 (over 30%) of men in the community in the UK "have engaged in voyeurism without consent"

The Prevalence of Voyeurism Amongst Men in the UK
2019
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342923980_The_Prevalence_of_Voyeurism_Amongst_Men_in_the_UK

and 2-4% are "flashers"

"Exhibitionistic Disorder is thought to affect approximately 2-4 percent of the male population. The condition is less common in females, although prevalence estimates are unknown."

Flashing, Indecent Exposure and Sex Acts in public – what are your legal remedies?

https://www.emmottsnell.co.uk/blog/flashing-indecent-exposure-legal-remedies

More Than a Nuisance: The Prevalence and Consequences of Frotteurism and Exhibitionism
2014

Abstract
Despite indications that acts of frotteurism and exhibitionism are frequent occurrences, these sexual paraphilias have received little empirical attention.

To address this gap in our knowledge about these paraphilias, 459 undergraduate students in a major metropolitan city completed a self-report measure designed to investigate the frequency and correlates of frotteurism and exhibitionism.

Results indicate a high rate of victimization among female college students for both paraphilias.

Furthermore, acts of frotteurism and exhibitionism most often occurred in places related to public transportation (e.g., subway trains or platforms) in this urban setting.

In addition, victims reported a number of negative outcomes as a consequence of victimization, including feelings of violation, changes in behavior, and even long-term psychological distress.

Older females were the most likely to be victimized.

These findings are discussed as they pertain to the prevention and deterrence of paraphilic sexual acts.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1079063214525643

Indecent exposure: a serious 'nuisance' offence
2021

Abstract

Indecent exposure is arguably the most under-researched of all sexual offences and is seen as a trivial offence within British society. This is despite academic evidence and the recent murder in London of Sarah Everard, which both demonstrate that the offence can be a pre-cursor to more serious offending.

This viewpoint reviews relevant literature on indecent exposure and introduces small-scale research undertaken by the author. It critically explores the prevalence of indecent exposure and the impact this offence has on the victim. The risk of re-offending and escalation for relevant men is also considered, alongside motivations for this type of offending.

Ultimately, it is suggested that indecent exposure being viewed as a ‘nuisance’ by society and the criminal justice system is problematic. Increased prosecutions, monitoring and treatment of relevant men could further support the reduction of violence against women and girls.

https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/en/publications/indecent-exposure-a-serious-nuisance-offence

Download full paper:
https://pure.port.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/48928302/POST_PRINT_VERSION_Article_Viewpoint_on_indecent_exposure.pdf

Might explain why so many men are keen "trans allies", determined to force women to endure mixed-sex intimate spaces.

We told them this would happen. Can anyone really be surprised?

It was a voluntary question. We skipped it for our whole family.

Interesting article in the Telegraph (archive link)

https://archive.ph/H3ThD/again?url=www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/09/25/trans-rights-accuracy-census-office-of-national-statistics/

Pulls a few threads together.

Like we all said at the time. Ridiculous questions on sex and gender produced garbage cencus data. No surprise at all what also doesnt surprise me is learning about the proclivities of the person who oversaw it, explains a lot.

Same. (But then I remembers why 🙄)

Thanks for the Telegraph link. But I found it only worked with the first bit ie just copy and paste up to but not including /againetc,etc.

And yes, FWR should be the first port of call for journalists, including the Guardian!

Unfortunately like so much else the smear of being Karens, Terfs, right wing neonazi, means many will not allow their computer to be tainted by entering the link!

Have just had a brainwave. A bit like the Glinner weekly round up, we should have a weekly round up of more imformative threads - and I suppose the lets show we have a sense of humour nomination for best cake thread.

I eventually had to change it quite a bit so it was more general but still have all the research and am thinking of doing something with it some day.

Please do! I'm intrigued by the summary that you've given.

I don't know what happened with those links but this separates them so they both should work:

The trans debate is too important for the census to be wrong
Any skewing of figures from the Office of National Statistics, accidental or not, will only make a controversial topic more divisive

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/09/25/trans-rights-accuracy-census-office-of-national-statistics/

archived: https://archive.ph/H3ThD

Good grief! More examples of absurd questions in the article!

English is my first language, yet when I was about to donate blood last week I was confused by an online questionnaire I found asking whether I was “a person who menstruates”. My 82-year-old father-in-law is confused by the way his local hospital repeatedly refers to him as “they.” So when academics looking into these statistics found that those who speak English poorly were five times more likely to be transgender, shouldn’t the natural response by anyone seeking accuracy have been to question those figures?

Is the Blood Transfusion Service recording post-menopausal women as men??

does https://web.archive.org/ block in the same way?

I wonder if any of this money will go towards untangling the census sex/gender mess?

UK census 2021/2 data opportunity: invite-only full stage

Total fund: £2,400,000
Award range: £150,000 - £500,000
Opening date: 13 September 2023
Closing date: 7 November 2023 4:00pm UK time

Invite-only opportunity, offering funding for tools, services and activities that enable researchers to find, use and analyse data from the 2021 and 2022 UK censuses for social science-led research.

You must be based at a UK research organisation eligible for Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funding.

The full economic cost of your project can be up to £500,000. ESRC will fund 80% of the full economic cost.

This opportunity uses a two-stage approach. We are now at stage two: invited full proposals. See ‘How to apply’ for details.

Funding is available until March 2026.

This is an invite-only funding opportunity. For previously published information about eligibility, see the listing of the outline stage opportunity (PDF, 248KB).

Analysis of census data will not be funded unless this work is solely focused on finding practical solutions to challenges in processing census data so that it can be used for research.

Loads more info:

This really makes me annoyed. We all told them, here and on twitter, that the ridiculous woke style questions would lead to mass confusion and unusable data. And now it has, it's our tax money needed to find a big project to untangle it and sort it out. Infuriating.

What was the nonsense again between the 2 gender and sex questions that you had to answer in a really careful and considered way to say that you were a woman, had always been a female and were perfectly happy with the above? I bet that pair caused chaos.and made lots of women look trans.

If the funding is from ESRC I would question the outcomes. They are the main funders of gender ideology research. They aren't interested in facts.

See https://www.mumsnet.com/search/advanced?allTopics=false&query=ESRC&topics[0]=Feminism%3A+Sex+%26+gender+discussions

Crikey! It's always worse than you think! I wonder how and when things changed at the ESRC? I imagine very early on as they would be funding "Gender Studies" and other identity politics research mills?

I wonder how and when things changed at the ESRC?

I must admit I didn't really know much about them until (of course) some of those threads on FWR pointing out such overt slanting of survey questions.

And once you see it you can unsee it.

The Times has dropped another article

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/census-trans-question-under-scrutiny-for-confusion-w07c05hpl

It has been archived. The ONS seems very complacent.

So the article doesn't seem to suggest anything new had happened.

So is the Times just trying to keep the issue alive.

(I was able to read it via https://archive.ph

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.

It may also have confused people like me who know what their sex is but who consider gender a load of made up bollocks. I have no idea what my gender is.
I can't remember what I answered, but it could well have been "no".

It could also confuse those people who know that sex and gender are different things and only a transphobe would claim 'female' and 'woman' (for example) "match" in any way...

Wonder how the question was worded.