March 17, 2022 - 1:15pm
What is your sex? It’s a question that should be neither difficult nor controversial. Governments need to know the answer to understand the different experiences of men and women, and plan future services to improve their lives.
Sex was not arbitrarily “assigned at birth”; it certainly wasn’t assigned to us at random by statisticians. But that ludicrous suggestion has been taken seriously in Ireland, and by people who should know better. Bizarrely, the forthcoming Irish Census will allow individuals to indicate both male and female. The Irish Central Statistics Office (CSO) then explains:
After apparently blaming the EU for requiring them to ask the question — and restricting the answers to male and female — the guidance notes trumpet plans to ask about gender identity in the next census.
But the census is not there to affirm anyone’s identity — or protect their feelings — it exists to monitor the experiences of men and women. In a more lucid moment, the guidance admits that:
That task is rather harder if the data is just made up. GIGO – garbage in, garbage out – is as true here as it is in computer science. Aggregated data will be compromised to protect the feelings of a few individuals. Maybe only a small number will take the option of ticking both boxes because they feel “uncomfortable” selecting just one. But the 390,000 self-declared “Jedi Knights” uncovered by the 2001 census in England and Wales suggests that where there is potential for mischief, and it can happen on a significant scale.
Like other institutions, the CSO appears to have been captured by an ideology that has displaced reality. Facts have been displaced by feelings, and reliable data has been superseded by the need to avoid causing discomfort and offence. The Irish are not alone — this year’s Scottish census will allow respondents to identify as male or female regardless of what is on their birth certificate.
Biology denial helps nobody but, ironically, the biggest losers may well include trans people like me. Transwomen and transmen have different needs according to our sex, as do those who identify as non-binary. How can governments hope to understand our needs if our data is among the most mangled?
The truth is that everyone has a sex, whether they like it or not. The enumerators need to know it, and we should all supply it. The answer is simple and straightforward. My sex is male and the sky does not fall down when I admit it. It is a fact of life, and it should also be a fact of the census.
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SubscribeGender ideology is an in-road to making child sexual-grooming socially acceptable. The doctors, nurse, parents, teachers, politicians, judges and lawyers that push forward this ideology need to be held accountable as of now. It’s shocking that it has penetrated this far into Western thought and that people who disagree with this big lie are liable to lose their jobs.
Excellent article!
Thank you for highlighting the insane situation in Ireland
It’s exhausting. There was no debate at all when the GRA was passed in 2015.
Many of us were asleep at the wheel while it was rushed in under the cover of gay marriage
Ireland has gone from the sublime- a Catholic country that produced such writers as Joyce, Yeats and leaders such as Pearse, Connolly, Dev etc – to the ridiculous in a few generations
As usual Debbie Hayton is the most sane voice in this mad debate who actually has skin in the game as it were.
We are solemnly told how important these statistics are for government planning and analysis under pain of penalty if they are not completed but then the governments deliberately encourage the entry of nonsense data for purely ideological reasons. If they actually don’t really care what sex people were born i.e. how many prostates there are and how many wombs there are out there it would be better not to ask.
If they are not seeking genuine useful information why should we engage with their performative sharade?
It’s half the reason we ended up with so many Jedi in the previous census. Very few people think oh good it’s census time! It’s a chore that we have to accomplish or risk being fined so people will take the proverbial given the opportunity!
It’s curious that the Anglosphere seems particularly prone to this nonsense – Scotland, Ireland, Canada, US, Australia, NZ, but England itself not quite so much. Why is that?
It could be that most of those have left-leaning governments (who generally sign up for this nonsense), whereas England have a, notionally, Conservative government.
Wales is Labour and trans-positive. It makes them feel that they are ‘listening’.
Political leaning should not really enter into it. Instead, do the members the government in question have functioning brains?
This is what happens when ideology trumps facts.
What then happens of course is that Trump then trumps ideology. And then the facts trump Trump. A game of rock paper scissors.
Truthy.
mind blown.
booooshhh !!!
To get the best possible data the census should ask “what sex were you born” *and* “what is your gender identity”.
That would allow us to determine what percentage of the population are trans, gender queer (no, me nether), etc.
I mentioned earlier that the census should question both natal sex and current gender identity.
On reflection, I’d also suggest that those wishing to identify as trans-women should be restricted to responding with something like ‘trans-woman-intact’ and ‘trans-woman-transitioned’.
My rationale for this is that we are making major policy decisions such as the GRA in a vacuum of data.
My biggest beef with the gender debate is that some people want to police my thoughts, but very hot on the heels of that is the obvious safe-guarding dangers of allowing physically intact males into refuges, women’s prisons and hospital wards.
If we had the relevant data from the census we’d be able to deduce how many specialised refuges, prison wings, and hospital wards we’d need to set aside and roughly where to place them.
I am uncomfortable at the idea of declaring my income, occupation, marital status, etc. on a form. To relieve this feeling of discomfort, I am considering filling out multiple boxes on the upcoming census form. The CSO can then randomly assign me an income, occupation, etc. when they tally up the numbers.
They had to creat jobs for graduates of Gender Studies degree.
Maybe organise a movement to have all those who believe in biological sex respond by saying their female in the census. That would screw up their stats.