@ONS got mesmerised by the allure of woke points. It’s now waking up to this shocker just one month before its £1 billion Census day. A lesson for Stonewall champions everywhere. /1
“Civil servants have been accused of caving in to last-minute pressure from transgender activists that will make it easier for people to pick their sex in the UK Census”. /2
“The campaign group Fair Play For Women has launched a High Court challenge against the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for letting respondents to the Census on March 21 choose the sex that appears on legal documents such as their passport”. /3
“Dr Nicola Williams, of Fair Play For Women, accused the trans lobby group Stonewall of putting statisticians under pressure, adding: ‘The ONS has been captured by Stonewall. It’s a complete stitch-up’ “ /4
“‘The ONS is unlawfully messing around with the definition of sex and allowing self-identification through the back door.’”
“Dr Williams also criticised the ONS for what she described as a ‘biased’ consultation on framing the question about sex”. /5
“The ONS invited responses from 23 transgender people and ‘trans ally groups’ from a sample size of 52. No women’s groups critical of self-identification were invited” /6
“Alice Sullivan, professor of sociology at University College London, said: ‘It’s shocking. The ONS paid more attention to lobbyists than expert social scientists.’” /7
“Professor Catherine Meads, of Anglia Ruskin University, a member of the Government’s LGBT Advisory Panel, held talks with Sir Ian about framing the Census question, and suggested the ONS changed tack because it did not want to ‘p*** trans people off” /8
“Stonewall, said: ‘Trans people have always responded to the sex question in line with who they are and how they live”.
False - there is no evidence trans people don’t know and understand accurate birth sex data is important to collect. /9
Stonewall said “'This year’s Census offers clear and inclusive guidance on how everyone can answer the question using legal documents.’”
An “Inclusive” sex question means allowing male people to put the answer female. 🤪🤨
Inclusive question = inaccurate answer /10
ONS said ‘We did this because research showed this was the most help to people as they completed their Census form. It would therefore maximise response rates as well as meeting user needs.’
By research they mean ‘asked 23 trans and trans allies’ /11
ONS: ‘We did this because research showed this was most help to people as they completed their Census form. It would therefore maximise response rates as well as meeting user needs.’
By ‘maximise response rates’ they mean don’t upset trans people else they won’t do census /12
“The ONS denied it had been pressured and rejected any bias”.
Too late ONS you’ve been caught red-handed. We see you and we’ve had enough. See you in court.
Why are groups who claim to advocate for the transgender community arguing *against* the collection of high quality data that can benefit them? There is a paucity of evidence-based research on trans outcomes like surgery regret, suicide rates and health /1
A full and rich data set on trans people will help any inequalities to be identified and policy makers to make trans lives better. Instead transactivist like Stonewall appear more bothered with pushing gender ideology that actual helping trans people /2
Stonewall says transgender people should be allowed to answer BOTH the gender identity question AND the sex question according to gender identity. They say it’s simply too offensive and hurtful to ask a trans person a factual question about the sex they were born /3
“Campaigners have launched a legal challenge against the Office for National Statistics over the question of sex in next month’s census” /2
“The ten-yearly survey has asked if a person is male or female since 1801, but in 2011 people were allowed to answer according to whichever gender identity they felt best described them, rather than their biological sex” /3
Our legal challenge against the ONS isn’t just to help women. It’s for the gay and lesbian community too. Sex matters for data on sexual orientation too /1 crowdfunder.co.uk/sexinthecensus…
For the first time in the census there will be a voluntary question asking about sexual orientation. The question lumps all homosexual people together into one group of ‘gay or lesbian’. /2
But we know forms of discrimination against lesbian women will be different from forms of discrimination against gay men. So we need to be able to split the data by sex to pull out data on lesbians and data on gay men. /3
Oh what a shambles. The @ONS don’t have a clue what they are doing. Here’s their twitter account reassuring people the sex question is about birth sex! This is despite their guidance saying the complete opposite!
Someone else is tweeting from @Census2021 saying the complete opposite one hour later 😂
ONS don’t have a clue do they. 🤯
It sounds comical. But it’s deadly serious. This is the OFFICE FOR NATIONAL STATISTICS!
The public needs to trust that the body in charge of U.K. national statistics is competent.
They need to get their act together. Help us hold them to account /3
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
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