Volunteer form asks if I am a woman (includes transwoman)

[Grammarnut]

I decided I'd like to volunteer with the Adult Education team in my city. I have completed the form and got to the 'diversity' section, where I was flummoxed. It asked my 'gender' and my choices were 'prefer not to say', 'woman (includes transwoman)', 'other', 'man (includes transman)', 'non-binary'. I thought about this and it seemed my only choices really were 'prefer not to say' or 'non-binary' i.e. I have no gender, only sex.
Have other MNs come across diversity questions like this? It seems to me highly dangerous, because many adults requiring Adult Education can be vulnerable (i.e. Special Needs, ESOL, refugees etc as well as having dislocated backgrounds). How does it make sense not to ask the SEX of a volunteer? They do not know who they are accepting for these voluntary posts, do they! And further down it asks about sexual orientation. This means a transwoman could list himself as a Lesbian, another safeguarding issue.
Thoughts anyone? I've decided to say 'prefer not to say' though 'non-binary' has the appearance of truth in my case, since (like most people) I have no gender ID.

I always find the "other" box and if there's an option to type, write "female"

I noticed that I could tick woman (includes TW) and then say my gender was the same as assigned at birth - a term I object to - and that would say I was a woman and not a TW (which is presumably the point?).

So you have to jump through hoops, just to get to a rough approximation of what you'd want to say? Brilliant. 🙁

If it's a paper form, I would cross out 'Gender' and write 'Sex', then write in 'female'.

If it's online, I would tick prefer not to say.

Many councils are captured and employees have EDI rammed home at every opportunity.

Unfortunately they will be using this data for analysis purposes so they will have no clue how many actual men and women are accessing their services and therefore it renders their data useless.

@oopster74

It is not only a question of whether men or women are more dangerous to women ( they are) but it is also a question about whether having a male in the class/group means the class/ group becomes inaccessible to women because of their culture/religion/ previous history. Fudging language by conflating gender/sex, woman/transwoman, man/transman is both unhelpful,deceptive and untrue.

Glad this thread has resurfaced.

No way would I tick a box that said “woman (includes TW)” because woman does not include men, ever.

I see my earlier comment mentions ticking “other” but if that isn’t available, I would 100% be writing to them and asking why they were asking questions about something that actually actively obscure a protected characteristic. If I didn’t receive a sensible reply, I think I would refuse to volunteer and tell them why.

I think JK Rowling’s recent activities have spurred me into taking a more active approach.

It would make more sense, surely, if it read
"man (includes transwomen)"?
Etc.

How does this organisation monitor and prevent sexism?

We have rights based on our sex not gender.

Transwomen have rights based on their sex (male) and their gender reassignment status.

Women have rights based on their sex (female).

It's been stated on Hansard that if we lump this altogether in the way done here that transmen would lose their maternity rights because they lose their sex based rights as a female.

This organisation isn't in line with the actual law. It's putting itself at risk and doesn't care about how this impacts female volunteers. This form is also designed to impact freedoms of speech and deter certain employees. Arguably it's discriminatory because it's more likely to put off women than men.

This isn't ok.

Is there a 'Stop this shit.Now' option?

I was asked to fill in an Equalities data form for a charity I’m going to volunteer for. It asked for my gender but didn’t give an option to add text. You cannot continue to the next page unless you pick an option. Problem is I simply don’t subscribe to the concept of gender so am not non binary nor prefer not to say as I do want to comment. So far, I haven’t been chased for it.

Unless your genitals are involved, in which case it’s a fairly unusual adult learning position, gender is more important than sex. 999/1000 women are likely to be non-trans, so it really isn’t likely to skew any statistics.

it sounds like they are collecting diversity statistics. Just put “prefer not to say” if it bothers you.

The sexual orientation of trans women (or anyone really) is not a safeguarding issue.

I’m interested in the statistics, would you have them to hand?

MN UNOFFICIAL COMMUNITY NOTE:

We have a situation where HOW MANY transwomen were on a Australian Football team?

Disproportion issues ARE happening. It ISN'T uncommon to see clustering of transwomen. Tbh, in certain situations I'd argue that its much likely.

If you get 3 or 4 transwomen enrolling on a course because they are mates or because its say a tech course this WOULD skew data and suggest that women are breaking gender stereotype barriers.

Also if there are barriers to education that womenface due to caring responsibilities any data skew would mean that wouldn't be picked up.

I make the point about how transwomen are massively over represented in LGBT organisations and in political parties and lesbians are completely self excluding. The association of eductional establishments and over representation of the T is also not uncommon. Whereas women of childbearing age are one of the most underrepresented groups in political groups.

This also has implications for funding and for potential scholarships.

If the purpose of Diversity Data Collection is to assess diversity, then it would be nice if they weren't fudging and distorting data to render it biased deliberately.

If theres not going to be a distortion of data, then there's no reason why we can't collect it accurately. Right?

Why is it ok to offend and upset women with this?

Also, I stress the point once again

Can't see sex, can't see sexism

[] Male (including trans women)
[] Female (including trans men)

There. No cosmetic surgery or pretty dress will ever adjust a person's 23rd pair of chromosomes. This form is dangerous in its approach to removing women's legally protected status.

I would raise it with the organisation (as I intend to on the inevitable occasion where I also find a form like this). Men's hurty feelings that their pretty dress doesn't give them a magic cunt will never trump women's rights and basic biological facts.

Not to women.

Sex is more important than gender every single time. Every time.

The sexual orientation of transwomen is of no relevance to this thread.

Why would a made up concept (gender) ever be more important than a biological reality (sex)?

If there's a free text box I paste this link in:
https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/publication/collecting-and-reporting-data-about-sex-and-gender-identity-in-official-statistics-a-guide-for-official-statistics-producers/pages/1/

I've started doing it every time I do a Yougov one!

rhywlodes that’s excellent!

Wondering if Dadjoke & oopstee can give a single example of where it would be important to know the number of ‘women (including transwomen)’ in an organisation? And do they understand that sex discrimination applies to…..sex

Thank you @rhywlodes that’s such a useful link (and idea)!

In your opinion but not mine.

And how reductive to says it’s about genitalia?

My identity as a woman goes way beyond that because it’s my experience as being a female that informs that. Which anyone who has lived as a male will not be able to relate to. In the same way I can’t relate to being male.
How I ‘present’ myself is based on that and not the stereotypes of manufactured gender which was imposed by…hmm…men.
So, I reject being told by penis-havers that I can’t identify by my biological sex based on misinformation, misrepresentation and misogyny.

Bollocks! Sex is way more important than gender. Indeed, many genders aren’t even visible so nobody would know that the person had that specific gender anyway.

The PC is Sex. That’s how we protect people - largely women - from sexism.

Not that you’d care as you seem to use this forum as a little hobby: sit there writing crap or lies because you’re annoyed women are daring to have opinions. I’ve no idea if you’re a Dad but you are, indeed, an utter joke.

Anyway…back to the actual topic. I try to leave such forms blank if I can’t write in Sex. Most of them are poorly written anyway and conflate sex and gender, or else miss out some of the eleventy-million genders and thus piss someone off.

When I started donating blood I saw the form said gender so I crossed that out and wrote sex. It was pre filled with F.
I’ve noticed that now it just says F so don’t know if that’s sex or gender. Will ask next time.