Oh look. The census data about trans people is deeply flawed.

[Citrusandginger]

As we big bad terfs may have pointed out at the time.

Census data on number of trans people in Britain is ‘deeply flawed’

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/05f7ca79-be9f-47ec-9e82-7e6bf41bf863?shareToken=9879f52b6564237d8918ba035cd22c89

It's worse, they deliberately wanted to inflate numbers.

Something about trans people outnumbering ginger-haired people, or something

But there’s no gingers question on the Census. 🙃

Gingerphobia.

I’d offer to throw sunlight on the levels of gingerphobia shown by the ONS, but I’m not sure ginger people would thank me for that (unless it comes with SPF50).

Well, colour me sho....nope, I just can't be arsed.

Reeling from shock…

I am so shocked - it's baffling

Journal paper journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00380385241240441

Absolutely. And/or, I don't believe in this gender bollix. I'm sure that would have got a few ticks.

Question 20 (tick all that apply):

Are you, or do you consider yourself to be,

◻Trans

◻I don't believe in gender ideology

◻I don't understand the question

◻Hadaway an' shite

◻Other (please give reasons in text box below, for research purposes only)

Lifted this quote from the ONS quoted by The Times.
“The gender identity question went through a testing process which involved trans and non-trans people and, through the 2019 census rehearsal, people who did not have English as their main language before the final wording was confirmed through legislation.’

Was the test group was their pet cat and its friends? Clearly not anyone with basic understanding of survey designs. 😳 And I have been asked my cat’s gender before. She declined to answer.

Bottom line is, the testing process was crap. The question was crap. The outputs are crap. Fin.

Slow hand clap for the ONS.

There's a suggestion - in this Times article and elsewhere - the flawed statistic was caused by respondents whose first language isn't English.

However, we may recall, there is another cohort who also may wrongly have been counted as trans.

The question asked was, "Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?". This question must take 'gender' to mean something other than 'sex' in order to make sense. So those who do not identify with any gender - not knowing wtf gender is in this sense, or denying there's any such thing, or perhaps just out of laziness - were constrained to answer, "No".

I suspect the census wrongly counted me and others as trans because we (correctly) answered "No" to the question, "Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?" on the basis we don't identify with a gender.

Be that as it may. We can but hope the ONS will stop being so silly in future.

interesting ONS said about the difficulties wording a question for a concept not understood by everyone.

Why is the ONS even asking questions about concepts it’s bizarre.

I suspect the census wrongly counted me and others as trans because we (correctly) answered "No" to the question, "Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?" on the basis we don't identify with a gender.

I can't remember for sure how I answered that, but I remember thinking that both Yes or No were plausible replies. Which is just about the epitome of bad question design!

Senior members of staff with special personalities.

But the ONS said its all fine because they coded peoples answers and its all fine

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4831426-update-on-research-into-gender-identity-data-in-census-2021-ons-says-no-issues-found

They had an enquiry. Lessons were learned.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4904189-census-hugely-overstated-trans-population-telegraph-article

To see why "No" is the answer, consider, for instance, a similar question, "Is your paranormal aura the same colour as your t-shirt?" (Answer "Yes" or "No".)

You can't correctly answer, "Yes it is," unless (1) you have a paranormal aura; (2) it's the same colour as your t-shirt. Of course you'd like to say you reject the question. But of the two answers allowed, "No" is forced if you don't have an aura.

Or, again, it's like the old, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" ("Yes" or "No".) ... If he hadn't ever beaten her, the answer he should give is, "No". (To answer "Yes" would be to allow that he had started beating her; you can't stop something un-started.) But that might lead people wrongly to think he was beating his wife, just as ONS thought people like me are trans.

Your description "... the epitome of bad question design" is wholly apt.

It's kind of sickening ONS (ONS!) got itself so captured as to offer a new paradigm for an illegitimate leading question, "Is the gender you identity as the same as your sex registered at birth?" to take the place of, "Have you stopped beating your wife?"

This has been mentioned on FWR before by wiser women than me, but this reminds me again of the good old days when "identify" was a transitive verb that a person did to someone/thing else. Similar to the word "recognise".

Eg "identify the thief in this line-up". "Can you identify your aunt in this old picture".

It wasn't a reflexive word. It didn't used to be followed by the word "as" or "with".

It should be perfectly acceptable not to "identify as/with" anything, least of all "a gender".

Also, it baffles me why a census would bother about this stuff, as if it's a quiz in a young adult magazine, it's like asking "what animal are you" or "which Friends character are you like"

I do NoT Know How th1s Had HAPpened and am So shocked I’m shaKinG!!!!

😂