Stop the ONS redefining sex in the Census

Fair Play For Women VS UK Statistics Authority will heard be at Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday morning at 10am (9th March)

We are seeking permission to proceed to judicial review to declare the Guidance that accompanies the question "What is your sex" in the 2021 Census unlawful. The ONS does not have the right to redefine sex; only parliament does.

We are also seeking an urgent interim order from the court to force the ONS to immediately take the Guidance down.

Thanks to you and over 3000 others we publicly crowdfunded over £100,000 in 2 weeks. This made it possible to bring this case to court at record speed to hold the ONS to account before Census Day on 21st March.

Why we are bringing the case?

Since 1804 the census has always asked "What is your sex". It's always been lawful to collect data on biological sex and it's always been important. In 2016 the ONS still was claiming that biological sex was "one of the most frequently used and important characteristics the census collects" and that it's "critical that the collection of information on gender identity for a small population does not jeopardise the quality of data collected on sex" for everyone else.

But in 2021 the Census will break with the past and could see up to 500,000 trans people accessing novel guidance allowing them to answer with their self-declared gender identity instead of their sex. This is despite the addition of a new and separate question to capture information on gender identity. Gender identity gets counted twice, and sex gets muddled.

Accurate data on sex matters. It matters most to women and girls. We need it. If we don’t have good data on sex we can’t monitor inequalities due to sex, and if we can’t measure it we can’t make good policies to remedy it. It’s not just us saying this – 80 top data scientists, including 50 Professors, wrote to the ONS in 2019 telling them not to conflate sex and gender identity. We've all been ignored.

The state recognises sex as what's on a birth certificate or GRC. It was recently confirmed, following extensive public consultation, that sex should not be self-declared. Government decided this "Strikes the right balance" to retain "proper checks and balances in the system". Despite this the ONS decides it will instead recognise sex as what's written on any other documents, all of which that can be easily updated on demand without any 'proper checks and balances'. This is sex self-ID through the back door.

Fair Play For Women will argue in court that withdrawing the Guidance now would restore consistency with all previous censuses, stops further data loss, and is the safer option. Pressing ahead with novel guidance, under the shadow of doubts over its legality and evidence-base, is risky and should be stopped.

This ground-breaking policy change was based on a last-minute switch just 3 weeks before the census went 'live'. As late as 1st February ONS was still telling stakeholders that "we have settled on legal sex" because they "think it is the best possible solution" and has said nothing about what and why things changed. That is not a robust process worthy of a £1 billion data collection exercise.

The ONS sets the gold standard for data collection. We need a clear signal that it’s OK to ask a simple question about the sex they were born. The public needs to trust that the National Statistician prioritizes good data and is not unduly influenced by ideological pressure groups.

The case will be heard remotely from the Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday morning at 10am. A decision from the judge on whether to order the ONS to remove the Guidance is expected the same day.