Even the Zoe COVID symptom tracker app were forced to change their wording about sex. When it launched last year it asked the simple and straightforward question "your sex at birth?" with two answers Male or Female. /1
One month later they been put under pressure to change this to confirm with gender ideological language "What sex were you assigned at birth". With a series of options including 'prefer not to say' /2
Covid scientists need facts. Biological sex is a fundamental variable in all their work. They ask age, height and weight without problems but 'sex you were born' is optional and so data gets lost. /3
Covid scientist says “There is a trepidation among researchers that we don't want to upset people, don't want to do something wrong. We're not experts in law. We'll tend to follow what's done by the main government agencies." telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/1…
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For over 200 years the Census has asked “What is your sex”. This year there will also be an *extra* question asking about gender identity. That’s great. Two questions about two different concepts - lots of useful information /1
One question about facts – the sex you were born.
One question about feelings – how people identity and live.
The extra question will give us our first accurate indication of the size of the trans community. A move welcomed by everyone /2
So what's the problem? It's that trans pressure groups such as Stonewall say it's not enough that trans people have their own gender identity question. They think trans people should be allowed to answer BOTH questions according to gender identity /3
“Research into coronavirus will consequently be “stymied by political correctness”… despite sex being fundamental to social and medical impact of Covid” /1
“I think there is a concern among scientists that there are acceptable ways you can ask these questions. The ONS will make it more difficult to ask about sex registered at birth.” /2
She added: “There is a trepidation among researchers that we don't want to upset people, don't want to do something wrong. We're not experts in law. We'll tend to follow what's done by the main government agencies." /3
The ONS considered 5 difference concepts of sex:
Sex registered at birth,
Sex recorded on birth certificate,
Sex recorded on legal/official documents,
living / presenting sex,
Self-identified sex.
/2
A big part of their evidence for why asking 'sex registered at birth' was unacceptable was that trans people won't like it and might boycott the Census. /3
BREAKING: It has emerged that the @ONS has reversed its decision not to allow self-identified answers to the sex question in next month’s Census /1
The UK’s Chief Statistician, Professor Ian Diamond, recently confirmed on @bbcr4today the question “what is your sex” should be answered according to someone’s LEGAL SEX, and not self-ID /2
On 22 January, he told @bbcr4today that “The sex question is very simply your legal sex, there is then subsequently a question later which asks about gender identity” /3 fairplayforwomen.com/census-sex-que…
NEW: Some organisations are doing a bad job by mixing up sex and gender identity, others are do better by collecting data separately on both. The mix-up and inconsistency means valuable data gets lost and false assumptions get made /1
The prison service records both sex AND gender identity. But while things have improved more needs to change. Under current methodology trans people who have changed the sex on their birth certificate by obtaining GRC not appear in the annual figures for transgender prisoners /2
This means we don’t have accurate numbers for how many male-born transgender prisoners are currently in women’s prisons /3
The UK’s National Statistician and head of the ONS, Professor Ian Diamond, has confirmed that the question in the Census “what is your sex” should be answered according to someone’s legal sex, and not a self-declared gender identity. /1
In an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today program he said:
“The question on sex is very simply your legal sex, there is then subsequently a question later which asks people over 16 the identity of their gender.
/2
This marks a change from 2011 guidance on how to answer “what is your sex”.
In 2011 trans people were told they could answer this according to how they identify. Since then an additional question has been added to the Census that allows people to record identity separately /3