More than eighty experts write a letter warning AGAINST allowing people to pick their gender on the 2021 census
Proposals mean that respondents don't have to list their biological sex in 2021
Experts fear that it could lead to inaccuracy in crime statistics and elsewhere
More than 80 academics have written a letter to the census authorities
Some were scared to go public for fear of being called transphobic
By SEBASTIAN MURPHY-BATES FOR MAILONLINE
Academics have warned that allowing people to self-identify their gender on the 2021 census will make it unreliable.
More than 80 experts have opposed the move to let people decide whether they are listed as male or female.
Proposals would mean respondents answering the question of which gender they are based on what they feel themselves to be as opposed to their biological sex.
The census takes place every 10 years and is an attempt to accurately analyze the nature of the UK population.
In a letter sent to census authorities and published in today's Sunday Times, the academics say: 'The guidance will effectively transform the longstanding sex question into a question about gender identity.'
It adds that sex and gender identity are distinct from one another and should not be conflated.
Signatories worry that the results could offer to affect the accuracy of studies into earning disparities between men and women.
They include Professor Alice Sullivan, a professor of sociology at University College London (UCL).
She heads the 1970 British Cohort Study, which tracks the lives of 17,000 people born in the same week that year.
Several of the signatories were not willing to go public with their anxieties because they fear being branded 'transphobic'.
The census is run by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which said it would be 'continuing to ask the binary choice male/female sex question'.
But its guidance says the answer you give can be different from that which is on your birth certificate.
Proposals include the adding of a voluntary question on the subject of gender identities for people aged 16 and older.
The ONS says that the guidance it is following is very similar to that it followed in 2011.
However, the academics have pointed out that the census authorities admitted that they don't know how the 2011 guidance affected the data collected that year.
And they say that the 'digital-first' 2021 census will make the proposed guidance more visible.
The number of respondents who might self-identify will probably be higher than that of 2011, they claim.
Campaign group Stonewall said that trans people have always been able to respond to the census question in a way that reflects how they live and who they are.
Professor Sullivan argues that academics must have the correct data on men and women for reasons including the collation of crime statistics.
She called it a 'great shame' that a 'chilling climate' is shutting down debate on transgender issues.
Professor Joshi said that it was vital to have reliable information for 'the gold standard for other basic demographic questionnaires'. Draft census orders will be put to Parliament in the New Year.
Read more:
Sex question catapults census into trans war | News | The Sunday Times [недоступно по причине paywall]
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