'There are only two genders', Scottish Government says

[fromorbit]

Scots wondering which of the new 24 or 27 official genders they are can stop. The SNP have reverse ferreted in quick order and have now said there are only two genders.

'There are only two genders', Scottish Government says
The Scottish Government denies reports it had claimed there were 24 different genders.
Equalities Minister Kaukab Stewart said the Government’s position is there are only two genders - male and female - in line with Scottish law. This comes after the Government issued guidance to statisticians collating data from the 2022 Census.

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/there-are-only-two-genders-scottish-government-says-4847717

So why were women being persecuted for saying this not so long ago exactly? When is the official apology?

“This framework shouldn’t be interpreted to mean there is a particular number of genders - it is only a guide to classify responses to the trans status question.”

Fair enough. But what are they going to do with the information?

Surely it would have been far more helpful to state that there are two sexes and any number of different genders - and that they now have a way of classifying the different genders into groups..... because it helps to....... what?

I can see that it could be helpful if they wanted to see where to spend money e.g. they could look at the percentage of people who have a gender identity that differs from their sex, the percentage who are disabled etc etc and make decisions based on proportional need. But equally, classifying the groups the way that they have doesn't really achieve anything.

Well it took about 400 years to get an apology for the Witch Trials and 200 odd Scottish women died so I wouldn't be expecting an apology anytime soon.

I wonder if they'll about turn again once the complaints flow in.

JKR is loving this. The whole thing is absurd:

I'd be celebrating if they finally acknowledged there are only 2 sexes.
The word gender is unhelpful, unscientific and ultimately dangerous to women and girls. It should only be used in terms of a social construct relating to stereotypes.

And if the acknowledged no one can change sex

Have name changed as I'm on this board a lot and don't want to have my work identified. I have some slight good news on a statistics front as well. I work in the public sector in Scotland; it's the research side of things and it's been soul destroying trying to gently push back on the nonsense we were being told to ask in surveys and qual research etc.

The number of complaints we were getting from respondents wasn't great either.

The gender question was: how would you describe your gender identity? The answers to choose from were: male, female, prefer not to say or described in another way (please specify if you so wish, which was an open text box).

Basically in the coding part of the project I was having to filter through tons of "this is a crap question" in the open box and of course it skewed the data and meant in the graphs it looked like we had 4% of people (for eg) describing themselves in another way when in fact they were just annoyed at the question.

We have just received new guidance from the government which says that the question will be:

What is your sex?
Male, female or prefer not to say. Then there's now an additional question which is do you have a trans history? If yes, please specify (with the option to do so). In the explainer for the trans history question it says this is a trans history that differs from your sex registered at birth.

I feel like this is clearer and will keep everyone happy as it records sex accurately, records trans identity accurately and means there is no confusion or data being skewed.

Yes, this.

Absolutely agree. The word gender is a man-made concept,there are (normally) 2 sexes born. I get fed up with the "gender reveal parties". By the time I had my last DD,there were scans, the hospital, midwives, friends, would all say "what are you having"? I would reply "a baby". To me, you miss the absolutely magical moment,by knowing "oh,yes,it's a girl,well, I already knew that", Don even get me started on"gender disappointment ".

Thanks @AstonsGerbil I agree that this new guidance sounds a lot more sensible:

We have just received new guidance from the government which says that the question will be:
What is your sex?
Male, female or prefer not to say. Then there's now an additional question which is do you have a trans history? If yes, please specify (with the option to do so). In the explainer for the trans history question it says this is a trans history that differs from your sex registered at birth.

Yes!

The backtrack is still stuck in the mindset of validation/no validation being the issue, as opposed to the usefulness and purpose of the information gathered.

I do feel joy in these small changes back to the world of actual sense

but the battle is so far from won I still get really depressed about it. Sport, changing rooms, prisons, refuges. We need lines drawn and held firm again without any negotiation.

It doesn't matter what they say until they categorically state that sex is real, there are only two, and that gender is a belief that some people subscribe to although there is no proof that it exists.
It also doesn't stop men identifying as the opposite gender and obtaining a piece of legal fiction to gain access to female spaces, so quite frankly, they are talking out of their arseholes.

@AstonsGerbil thanks for sharing that it’s brought me some hope

Does that mean that those answering yes to ‘a trans history’ question will then have their data effectively removed because the sex information might have a high level of inaccuracy?

Thanks @AstonsGerbil really encouraging (as is the high number of people criticising the question). Hopefully you have clear and separate coding for detransitioners and desisters who would also be captured by your trans history question (interesting that Apple spell check is telling me those words don't exist).

That's a good question. If I'm brave enough I will ask this of our equalities representative. They are v much a he/him though so I'm reluctant to put myself in the firing line of his displeasure. I actually think he must be fizzing at this new guidance. Thankfully in a different department to me but when the guidance came through I'd have loved to have been a fly on the wall at their team meeting.

I might maybe email one of the managers who deals with data, there's a few statistics teams for different areas of the business and ask that. For reference and coming from a data collection point of view.

I see this as another brick crumbling before our eyes fromorbit.

So now the official government line is there are only two genders. And if there is not 130+, and there is not 26, and there is no non-binary, then all we are left with is doubt there are any ‘genders’, just some people’s belief in a concept that should be considered as irrelevant as any other belief when it comes to sex based issues. And largely irrelevant to life in general outside the life of the person holding that belief, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone.

That sounds like a bit of an improvement.

But if the first question doesn't specify sex registered at birth you won't know whether anyone ticking 'trans history' used actual sex or 'current self perception of sex' to answer it.

And the second question lumps together those who are currently trans and the rapidly growing groip of detransitioners.

So the data will still be a mess.

I can imagine that for most of your purposes, that inaccuracy is irrelevant. But obviously there will be projects where it is more important.

We saw in the census that male people deliberately and proudly gave inaccurate information. If the data cannot be trusted, why include it? I must admit, I would struggle with this if it was my role.

I'm not sure that a "true" trans would even answer a "sex at birth" question accurately to be honest. I've heard a fair few of them saying they have "always been" their "true" sex and were just mis-identified, or in the wrong body, or some such crap.
For people who say sex doesn't matter, they sure think sex matters when it comes to being perceived as their preferred one.

Come to think of it, should the question about sex refer to sex "registered at birth" or at least shouldn't the explainer mention "registered at birth" for this question as well?

Otherwise I do know some people who could twist into a right old pretzel about whether their "sex" is "really" male or female.

Equalities Minister Kaukab Stewart said the Government’s position is there are only two genders - male and female - in line with Scottish law.

I don't care how many genders people claim there are, I care about the fact that there are only two sexes.
'Male' and 'female' are not genders, they are sexes, but we know only too well that the Minister's statement will be interpreted by trans-identifying men as
'I was assigned male at birth but I've now changed my gender and I'm a woman.'

The word 'gender' is not doing us any favours in statements like this, we need to bring it back to accurate, clearly-defined, male=male biological sex and female=female biological sex. 'Gender' is so waffly and ill-defined it will get interpreted in favour of TRAs every time.

What is your sex?
Male, female or prefer not to say. Then there's now an additional question which is do you have a trans history? If yes, please specify (with the option to do so). In the explainer for the trans history question it says this is a trans history that differs from your sex registered at birth.

Unfortunately, if this replicates the situation with the census then the sex question is entirely a matter of of self-identification. This in turn makes the answers to the trans question undecipherable. If someone says they are female and ticks the box to say they have a trans history, we have no idea what sex they really are.

The trouble is that gender still has connotations of fluidity. So saying there are only two genders could imply that there are two but if you prefer you can choose which one you want to be this week. So much stronger to say there are only two sexes, but they knew that when they decided to use gender not sex. Sigh.