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Professor Alice Sullivan Profile picture
Professor Alice Sullivan
@ProfAliceS
Professor of Sociology @UCL, Head of Research @UCLSocRes, runner @ChasersLDN.
Sep 23, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
"The Office for National Statistics “hugely overestimated” the number of transgender people in the UK, Whitehall sources have claimed, as the body admitted it could have carried out “additional probing” before releasing the controversial data"

telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/… "Michael Biggs... claimed that confusion over the question may explain why the London boroughs of Newham and Brent, which have a significant percentage of residents who speak English as a second language, recorded the highest proportion of transgender people in the UK."
Apr 12, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
1/ It is appropriate that @StatsRegulation are looking into the 2021 Census.

According to the Code of Practice for official statistics, "Quality means that statistics fit their intended uses, are based on appropriate data and methods, and are not materially misleading." 2/ Michael Biggs @SociologyOxford has shown that the responses generated by the gender identity question are materially misleading.

spectator.co.uk/article/why-do…
Jan 30, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
When a he/him Professor with no expertise in social statistics makes an assertion about the likely direction of error in a statistic, perhaps I should just ignore it.

But misinformation and attempts to whip up hate are indeed dangerous, so I will respond. Prof Walters implies that the Trans Murder Monitoring Project figures must be an underestimate.

On what basis?

The project is funded to record all homicides of people who may fall under the trans umbrella. Activists are highly motivated to report any possible incidence.
Jan 30, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
1/ Interesting work on the @ONS 2021 Census from Michael Biggs @SociologyOxford

Analysis of the geographical concentrations of trans identity throws up some odd results.
osf.io/preprints/soca… 2/ "The most likely explanation is that the question on gender was misinterpreted by a non-trivial number of immigrants whose main language was not English."

This highlights an important principle of questionnaire design.

Questions need to make sense to the whole population
Jan 29, 2023 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
1/ 'Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?’

0.5% of people said 'no' to this question in the England and Wales Census.

0.056% of murder victims in the UK in the last 10 years were trans.

spectator.co.uk/article/what-t… 2/ It is hard to overstate the importance of Census data: it provides a snapshot of the entire population; it furnishes the benchmark against which we judge whether other data sources are representative.

And it is vital for equalities monitoring.
Sep 9, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Michael Biggs, a professor of sociology at Oxford, said the university “is supposed to be governed democratically by its academics, and yet here is an outside lobby group ordering the administration to change its policies without the normal scrutiny”. thetimes.co.uk/article/212a31… "The university had tried to keep its correspondence with the lobby group secret"...
Aug 24, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
1/ The editors of @QRJCardiff have issued a note of retraction regarding the paper “I am not alone – we are all alone: Using masturbation as an ethnographic method in research on shota subculture in Japan” journals.sagepub.com/pb-assets/QR%2…

Is this adequate? 2/ This was a peer reviewed paper describing the author wanking to cartoon images of young boys. The content was crystal clear from the abstract of the paper.

You don't need to be an expert in research ethics to realise that this is not OK.
Aug 23, 2022 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
Thread.

1/ @NHSDigital are running a survey on how the 111 service asks about sex and gender.

You can take the survey here (before 30th August) feedback.digital.nhs.uk/jfe/form/SV_2b…

You can take it as many times as you like.

Which is just one of the problems with the survey. 2/ What is the sample?

If the sample is not representative of people who use the 111 service, then the results will be biased.

If anyone can use the link (and as often as they like) @NHSDigital is making the survey prone to rigging by activists.
Jun 1, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
1/ At the next evidence session on GRA reform in Scotland, Kevin Guyan and Paul Lowe are both giving evidence on data collection. Neither had submitted evidence to the committee. No voices critical of self-id, despite being area of concern for @EHRC parliament.scot/chamber-and-co… 2/ In contrast, I submitted evidence, and was not called. The committee could have called any number of esteemed social statisticians who have spoken out in favour of accurate data collection on sex alongside gender identity. ukdataexperts.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/respon…
Mar 2, 2022 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
I started writing about sex and gender identity in 2019. This is a thread of articles and papers.

1/ The first thing I wrote, with Judith Suissa. We were pretty scared, but we just couldn't stay silent while colleagues were bullied. @BERANews bera.ac.uk/blog/the-gende… 2/ The BERA blog was the start of this paper for @JPhilofEd onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…
Dec 21, 2021 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
1/Caroline Noakes MP says she has no idea why we would want to know someone's sex. There are lots of reasons. Sex has systematic effects on physical health, and is linked to wide-ranging socio-economic outcomes.🧵 2/We need accurate data, disaggregated by sex in order to understand differences in the lives of women and men, and in order to tackle sexism. doi.org/10.1080/136455… (Open Access version) papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
Dec 18, 2021 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Le Monde "In the United Kingdom, professors and intellectuals are alarmed at threats to freedom of expression, in particular with regard to sex and gender issues, sources of deep tension between some feminists and trans activists." @Docstockk @mary_leng lemonde.fr/international/… 2/ Upload article here: profalices.co.uk/wp-content/upl…
Dec 9, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
People who have fallen foul of Stonewall and its allies. 1/ Allison Bailey, black, lesbian barrister taking Stonewall to an employment tribunal for victimisation. Stonewall urged Allison's chambers to get rid of her after she criticised the lobby group. thetimes.co.uk/article/stonew… 2/ Sonia Appleby, children's safeguarding lead for Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust. "Ms Appleby's job meant protecting children at risk from maltreatment, and stopping impairment of children's health or development." bbc.co.uk/news/uk-584532…
Nov 4, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
1/ 2021 NHS Staff Survey. It is a basic principle of questionnaire design that when you expect the respondent to pick one option, the responses must be mutually exclusive. People who identify as non-binary are also male or female. And why can you self-describe sex but not age? 2/ How has this changed over time? NHS Staff Survey 2019 Version. You can self-describe and prefer not to say for sex, but non-binary is not included.
Aug 8, 2021 • 10 tweets • 5 min read
1/ FAO @ucl and @ucl_ucu colleagues. There is an EGM Thursday 12 August 2021, 13:00-14:00 to discuss USS. A motion calling for UCL to rejoin the Stonewall Diversity Champions scheme has been added to the agenda at the last minute. 2/ This is a clear attempt to pass a divisive motion with inadequate notice while many members are away during August. I hope some members will be able to attend to challenge these underhand tactics.
Jul 12, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
1/ The idea of non-binary passports could seem trivial. But this is part of a campaign to remove sex as a category in law and data collection. This was clear in the recent battle over sex in the census. ihttps://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/f728d27a-e28b-11eb-a821-58982b1c936d 2/ The argument was initially accepted by the Methodological Assurance Review Panel that the sex marker on documents issued by the state, such as passports, must be seen as valid for the purposes of the census. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…
May 29, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
1/ Nancy Kelley, CEO of Stonewall likens "gender critical" beliefs to anti-Semitism. The core tenets of the beliefs that she objects to are that sex is real and that it matters. The only motivation for this crass comparison is to justify #nodebate bbc.co.uk/news/uk-572814… 2/ Recall that Nancy Kelley was involved in no-platforming me for arguing that sex should be measured accurately in the 2021 Census. thetimes.co.uk/article/stonew…
May 28, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
1/ Good to see @acas has withdrawn from the Stonewall Diversity Champions scheme. ACAS collects data on the gender pay gap, and all employers with over 250 staff must report this. But they advise firms to collect data on gender identity, not sex thetimes.co.uk/article/stonew… 2/ and people who identify as "non-binary" are omitted from the data. Yet "gender pay gap" reporting was intended to monitor discrimination based on sex. spectator.co.uk/article/Corona…
May 20, 2021 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
1/ UCU free speech survey🧵. It is not good practice to invite people to take part in a survey by telling them what their views should be. One likely effect is to dissuade those who disagree with you from participating, thus biasing the results. 2/ Questions are highly disclosive, taken together they would give a high risk of identifiability. Although questions are optional, this isn't made clear. Given that the ruling faction in the union is hostile to some members, leading to low trust, these considerations are
Mar 17, 2021 • 6 tweets • 4 min read
1/ Quantitative social scientists have been trying hard to explain to ONS that data on sex matters since 2019. I wrote a paper on this for @TheIJSRM tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108… Open access version here papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf… So how did the question end up in court? 2/ 80 quantitative social scientists wrote to the census authorities explaining our concerns. The arguments and scientific consensus could not have been clearer. parliament.scot/General%20Docu…
Mar 12, 2021 • 18 tweets • 4 min read
🚨Please read and RT!🚨 1/New paper on "The Gender Wars, Academic Freedom and Education" with Judith Suissa published in @JPhilofEd onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11… 2/ We often hear it claimed that there is no such thing as a crisis in academic freedom, cancel culture is a myth, etc. This paper demonstrates that there is a serious problem with academic freedom regarding the ability to discuss sex, gender and gender identity.