by Hannah Barnes, New Statesman
When, in September 2024, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) downgraded data from the census for the first time in its 120-plus-year history, it shocked many. Having spent years ignoring advice and warnings about how to gain accurate data on both biological sex and the transgender population, the ONS asked such a confusing question on gender identity that it rendered the findings meaningless. It transpired that a sizeable number of people picked up as trans weren’t: their level of English simply meant they hadn’t understood the question.
While this part of the 2021 census, which as a whole cost taxpayers almost £1bn, was undoubtedly an expensive failure of data collection, it was far from being a one-off. In February 2024 the government commissioned the UCL professor Alice Sullivan to review how data on sex and gender identity was collected by public bodies. Her report, published on 19 March, revealed that scores of official statistics and data sets have been corrupted over the past decade. “The term ‘sex’ has lost its ordinary meaning in data collection,” she wrote, with implications not just for public policy, but for safety and safeguarding. Some of the greatest risks have been to children.