Yougov

[musicalfrog]

Very often in their surveys I get asked what gender I am. Today's offering suggested 'Gender non-conforming' as an option. 🤦🏻‍♀️

I always click on prefer not to say, but I always comment at the end. I do not have a gender identity and I would like the option to say so. I believe the data they are harvesting from this question is useless.

🙄 so much data from this period is going to be useless/need significant work to clean it up.

Surely 'gender non-conforming' - by definition - cannot be a gender.

I've got a survey from them in my inbox. Thanks for the heads up,I shall answer accordingly.

Presumably they don't also ask your sex?

They rarely ask your sex.
I always comment at the end too.

It's such load of nonsense! It's embarrassing.

So if I identified as a transman, but presented exactly like a woman, would I be called gender non-conforming??

If anyone ever does Prolific surveys, I get rage at this there too. These are meant to be proper research surveys, so it baffles me how they can collect meaningful info when they are only asking about gender feels. I'm quite amused by the ones that just have "male, female, other" as the option. Just what data they can gather from people ticking "other" I do not know.

Having worked with YouGov, they generally have to do what the paying client wants.

This came out when I flagged up to them the results of a survey weren't very useful as some of the questions had been nobbled. Which they were aware of (and advised the client) but the client wasn't interested in replies which they "couldn't use".

Once you know this, you realise "surveys" are useless unless you know who paid for them.

I did a passport service survey today and was pleasantly surprised to be asked my sex (and then it was clarified it meant was I male or female on my ID) and then whether it was the same as sex at birth. I felt like they were possibly collecting actual meaningful data. Which was nice.

I do think they should feed back to their clients that this data is meaningless though.

I hope more people will make comments on the surveys because it doesn't feel like anything much is changing yet.

The team I met said they did feed back to clients. However it should come as no surprise to you that some clients don't want "the truth". They want something which either supports their agenda.

You can see this most obviously in questions that can't capture an objective reality.. The most egregious is when then ask "who would make the best prime minister" with a list of names and no "none" option. You are forced to select someone to progress.

Many years ago I was co-opted onto a management-employee panel. We weere tasked with discussing ways to improve working conditions. 95% of the workforce when I canvassed them wanted some form of flextime. The committee was specifically instructed not to discuss it, so it turned out in management-land most employees wanted a better drinks machine. A management style pioneered by Admiral Lord Nelson, I believe.

I’ve been asked for my sex on YouGov before, but the options included “trans woman” and “trans man”. Not sure if they were actually being categorised separately or if the answers from trans men were being categorised as camel sex and vice versa. Very confusing either way.

I wonder if it’s options the organisation paying for the research select?

I've been adding comments like yours for years OP.

As well as trying to tell them that I don't have regular conversations with friends or family about which random company I feel positive about.

oh god yes, and which company you would be 'proud to work for'