BBC More Or Less address the census… kind of

[Sazzasez]

Worth a listen; www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_fourfm?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile More or Less on the flawed census stats , 13 mins in.

I’m glad they’ve addressed this, but will complain to the BBC about their bias here.

They introduced Michael Biggs (a sociologist at Oxford Uni) & then made an apologetic disclaimer statement about his “gender critical beliefs”.

They did not similarly mention the beliefs of the ONS interviewee.

If it’s relevant, why mention it for one but not the other?

If not relevant, why mention it at all?

It’s analogous to having a discussion about race & only mentioning the race of the people who aren’t white, or about religion & only mention the religions of participants who aren’t Christian.

More: GC beliefs are a protected characteristic in law. Beliefs humans can change sex, or that gender identity trumps sex, or that sex is not salient have not been tested in law, & may not meet Grainger criteria. But here they’re being treated as the default.

I think it’s worth picking up on, even though the programme wasn’t too bad, because the reason the programme felt they needed to make this mealy-mouthed disclaimer is pretty much the same reason the ONS got itself into that very expensive pickle: fear of the TRAs overriding the desire to do their jobs properly.

No not More or Less to 😱, the list of podcasts I listen to on BBC Sounds has got less and less because of the BBC forcing the barn pot ideology into everything, More or Less was the only one that didn't, don't say that's going the way of the cuckoo too.

I haven't listen to this weeks episode yet, I'm hoping the 'apologetic disclaimer' was tongue in cheek. 🤞

I heard this too. Even after allowing for the points made by Sazzasez above, it was still very damning. Any 'ordinary' listener would wonder about the levels of comprehension needed to understand the questions in the Scottish and English questions and would be completely unsurprised that the answers were not accurate. This whole debacle has really affected the ONS's reputation, including their initial response to Michael Biggs' criticism.

'Next, in an item about prevalence of membership of the Flat Earth Society, I'll be talking to Professor Brian Cox, who believes that the Earth is a rotating oblate sphere, the massive gravitational pull of which creates our perception of up and down.'

It's both irrelevant and a category error (although it didn't sound either apologetic or tongue-in-cheek to me). The two census questions are as understandable to GC people as anyone else: we do believe that trans people exist - who think they have a (sex-incongruent) gender identity.

There was no evidence of the ONS spokeswoman being actuated by genderology. She was defensive (at length) but I would put that - and their earlier failure to sort this out - down to institutional inertia and unwillingness to admit error.

What I really wanted to know was what a TRA would think of the two questions, and exactly how the ONS came up with the dud one. They must surely brainstorm the questions at length, and I would have liked to be a fly on the wall for that.

What I really wanted to know was what a TRA would think of the two questions, and exactly how the ONS came up with the dud one. They must surely brainstorm the questions at length, and I would have liked to be a fly on the wall for that.

Left it to late to edit. Now realise there's an earlier thread about this which I will now have to read. And yes, it looks like Press for Change were involved.

More or Less has avoided the transgender issue over the years, this bias does not surprise me in the least.

They stick to bite-sized statistical issues. Genderology wouldn't fit. Panorama, on the other hand.....

For completeness, Biggs's research article:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00380385241240441

It would make a great R4 programme!

I listened and I thought it was bang on, very well balanced and very fair - keep this podcast top of your list they have done A LOT for scientific support of binary sex and backing up the Cass report

they really have not - they did a 20m special on the Cass report and how it's research was well founded

They could have addressed something - the trans suicide statistics, the sudden increase in girls identifying as trans, trans identified male criminality patterns....but I really am not surprised that a radio 4 programme didn't go there.

X posted! I am delighted to hear it.

More or Less did a good podcast earlier this year on the quality of evidence used in the Cass report. It was presented by Kate Lamble. She had worked for the BBC on More or Less for years but was made redundant a few weeks ago.

They also did a good episode a year or two back debunking the 'intersex is as common as red hair' myth.

This is why I often disagree with how much gender critical "beliefs" are used as quite frankly it's just bloody common sense.

It gives the impression to those outwith 'the know' that Biggs is somehow a bit different to everyone else whereas we of course know it was the minority who went off on a tangent trying to be all inclusive.

I haven't listened to it yet but the stance more or less take described here sounds rather like DARVO.

I haven’t listened to this yet but usually ONS employees aren’t allowed to make their own views on this or any issue clear as they are (sort of) civil servants.

I listened to it and was ready to be annoyed by it after the apologetic intro about the man critiquing the stats being GC. However after the whole item, I thought anyone listening would come away thinking that the high stats for trans people in England were definitely bullshit so overall it was a good item.

She was an absolute gem. Staggering the BBC keeps losing all their good journalists. The BBC needs disbanding permanently they are disgraceful

https://x.com/katelamble/status/1831943018037047778

huge loss.

More or Less also did a great episode a few years ago about the myth of trans murder stats - it was there I learned that the numbers are hugely skewed by Brazilian trans sex workers, and completely unreflective of the general population. I also notice that MoL almost always seem to have women’s voices on when they have experts if they possibly can.

Gutted about Kate Lamble, she’s brilliant.