Woman (including trans woman) option

[SurreyWifi]

I’m going to raise a complaint to a ‘body’ I’m involved with which has 30k members.
They are collecting demographic data and want me to choose from the following for my ‘gender’ (in this order):

Man (including trans man)
Non binary
Prefer not to say
Prefer to self describe
Woman (including trans woman)

I chose ‘prefer not to say’ as I refuse to be categorised with the opposite sex. Please help me write a strongly worded, evidence-based complaint about this categorisation. I’m (reasonably) happy if they ask me if I identify as ‘transgender’, but putting me in a group with ‘transwomen’, ie men, is offensive and wrong.

I would chose prefer to self describe and usually there is a Freeform box where I enter I do not have a gender my sex is female.

To help you write I would send them this link https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/our-work-on-data-about-sex-and-gender-identity/ to the Office of Statistics Regulation guidance. It is about being clear when writing questions like this.

I would ask them why are they capturing this information and what exactly are they attempting to capture. Gender is not a PC. What about people who do not have a gender.

Surely, for meaningful data it should be:
Man (including Transwoman)
Non Binary ?????
Woman (including Transman)
Prefer not to say
Self describe

Although man/woman/prefer not to say probably covers it (depending what the data is needed for).

Depending on what they're collecting the data for this may render it pointless.

Thank you for your intelligent responses. This institution is totally captured and I want to take some time writing my complaint. @Harassedevictee that is so helpful, thank you. I looked on the Sex Matters website but couldn’t see anything that covered this particular issue, so that it so helpful!

@lcakethereforeIam absolutely, pointless, tick boxing exercise.

@SurreyWifi if they are captured my advice is to focus on data collection accuracy.

For example -
I know data collection is a complex area and even the experts can get it wrong. You are probably aware the Office for National Statistics made a fundamental mistake when adding a new section to the 2021 census. This was embarrassing as they had to downgrade the quality of the data they collected, limiting its usefulness.

As a result of this the Office for Statistical Regulation developed good practice data collection guidance which can be found here.
(insert link). I noticed that you conflated sex and gender on the demographic data collection form and thought you might find the guidance helpful for future data collection exercises.

HTH

This is good advice.
Until you mentioned that the organisation is 'captured', SurreyWifi, I wondered if they were just as confused as the majority of the population about what 'trans woman' or a trans man' means - i.e. 'a woman who is trans and presents as a male' or 'a man who is trans and presents as a woman' is how a lot of people understand the terms.

But given that their choice of terminology is intentional, I'd go with Harassedevictee's suggestion. I think that a short, factual and unemotional challenge based on official sources is the best way to tackle entrenched organisational genderwoo.
Good luck!✊

Very Pedantic correction

Sorry @Harassedevictee (🙈 cant help myself😬) its a super sharp on point message.

I noticed that you conflated
["combined" is not imo "correct" as the PC are Sex and Gender Reassignment ]

I have noticed you have used the term gender on the demographic data collection form. You appear to be conflating two protected characteristics, Sex and Gender Reassignment, during the demographic data collection process and thought you might find the guidance helpful for future data collection exercises.

OP always leave room for them to be "correct" as they may have decided to collect a stupid data point which they need to justify under the DPA 👀 ( as its not possible to use gender for PC compliance the DP policy of "by permission" is not likely to cover the collection processing or storage 🤷‍♀️ ) and once the issue is raised they are making a specific choice.

What is the purpose of collecting the data?

Why do they need to know gender as opposed to sex?

You are only supposed to collect necessary and appropriate personal data for specific reasons.

Given these are not legal categories I wonder if theres a problem because of the way the data is being processed.

Personal data has higher requirements for storage and processing under GDPR.

@AnSolas I appreciate the correction but I was very deliberate in my words to ensure the focus was on accurate data collection.

Understanding how to achieve things using influence and persuasion often means you soft soap what you are saying meaning it may not be perfect.

I will leave it up to the op to decide what, if anything, she says.

Very good questions.
I imaging this is a basic periodic data collection where no one has actually thought what they want and how we use it.

Historically they used gender instead of sex to be polite and the options were male or female. Then Stonewall et al captured the organisation and added to the list to get a ✅ No one actually questions it and just copies it from the previous survey and suddenly you are capturing garbage and wonder why you can’t get accurate stats.

If they don't know what they want from that data they shouldn't be collecting it under GDPR. You cant legally collect more data than you need under the law. You have to have a specific reason to collect any data, even more so for anything that falls under personal data.

If they are collecting it to measure sex discrimination / equality purposes, then they need to collect the appropriate data otherwise they run the risk of discriminating inadvertently and an employee could in theory use this as an example to show how they are discriminating.

The purpose very much matters.

Yep @Harassedevictee I agree.

Wording sometimes depends on how professional the organisation is and what data set they are trying to collect.

Thank you all for replying, I’m going to take some time to author my email to them. I shall definitely raise/query the purpose of collecting data (I presume this is to monitor their membership somehow). The issue is, this is a healthcare related body. They should
a) Know about collecting personal data and
b) What sex is.
And definitely captured (pronouns, flags, acronyms, glossary of terms such as agender and ‘two spirit’).

Happy to report back if it’s not too outing.

What exactly is the point on gathering data on a mixed sex category? Why bother? What is it useful for? It's not a 'lets work out how many people using x have long swishy hair, spinny skirts and like pink' category because the massive majority of women don't.

Collecting and holding data is a serious business, they cannot expect people to hand over their personal information when they obviously have no serious purpose for it.