Trans staff may be triggered by census data, government statistics body feared

Jan 29, 2024 by Jill

by Frederick Attenborough, Free Speech Union:

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggested that trans staff may not feel “safe” in the workplace, after its methodology for counting transgender people in the census was questioned by the UK’s statistics regulator, as well as leading academics.

As reported in the Telegraph, senior leaders – all of whom are also on the ONS’s LGBTQ+ staff network – voiced concern about the “impact” on trans employees after it emerged that the census may have overestimated the number of trans people because of a poorly worded question.

An inquiry into the findings from the ONS census was launched after the collated data showed 262,000 people (or 0.5% of the population over 16) in England identify as trans.

Academics with expertise in quantitative social research immediately queried the finding, and warned that the wording of the relevant census question – “is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?” – was problematic. Not only did it assume that everyone has a gender identity, but the wording may also have been confusing for respondents whose first language was not English.

Michael Biggs, a professor of sociology at the University of Oxford, described the results as “scarcely credible” and said that confusion over the meaning of the question may explain why the London boroughs of Newham (1.5%) and Brent (1.3%), which have a significant percentage of residents who speak English as a second language, recorded the highest proportion of transgender people in the UK.

When the ONS subsequently released customised data showing the tabulation of gender identity by proficiency in English, it became clear that those who speak English ‘not well’ or ‘not at all’ were most likely to be counted as transgender.

The controversy led to a review by the Office for Statistics Regulation, which in October said that the ONS should have done more to communicate “the inherent uncertainties” relating to the data.

A Whitehall source said it was clear that the figures “hugely overestimated” the number of transgender people – a view they suggested was shared by multiple ministers.

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