Mick Hartley

Sarah Ditum in the Times reminds us of some of the history behind the Sullivan Review:

Alice Sullivan — author of the government-commissioned review of data, statistics and research on sex and gender that was published this week — is a sociologist with a neat pixie haircut and a gently sensible tone of voice. Her academic work is careful, analytical and concerned with questions of survey design. With all respect to Sullivan (a professor at UCL), it is hard to imagine anyone finding her terrifying.

That is, until you remember the feverish atmosphere of the gender wars at their peak. In 2019, the Office for National Statistics announced plans for a new, “inclusive” version of the sex question on the national census, which would allow respondents to answer according to their self-identified gender rather than their physical sex.

Sullivan criticised this in an open letter she organised, signed by 80 academics, pointing out that it would “undermine data reliability on a key demographic variable and damage our ability to capture and remedy sex-based discrimination and inequality”.

For such a dry statement of fact, she was no-platformed by NatCen (the National Centre for Social Research), who cancelled a seminar she was due to speak at. Better to pull the whole event, apparently, than be compromised by association with a woman like Sullivan with so-called terf tendencies.

But she was right that the census was badly worded. After a legal challenge, the guidance was rewritten to clarify that the question was about physical sex. Unfortunately, the follow-up included by the ONS — “Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?” — was so confusing that the resulting data on the trans population of England and Wales was a load of hot nonsense.

According to the 2021 census, transgender adults are more religious than the general population, more likely to be Muslim and less likely to be native speakers. Adults with no formal qualifications were three times as likely to fall into the “unspecified gender” category as those with degrees.

Plainly, this was not a reflection of reality. All it showed was that the ONS had embraced a version of gender politics that was deeply confusing to anyone outside the gilded circle of graduates who spend their lives online. In attempting to write an “inclusive” question, the ONS had excluded a huge chunk of the population from understanding it.

It was only when Michael Biggs, Oxford professor of sociology, pointed out that the question asked in the ONS survey – “is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?” – only made sense to gender enthusiasts and was totally baffling to people with English as a second language, and Muslims in particular, that people began to realise how ridiculous it all was. For a while there were actually those lost in awe at the fact that our marvellous immigrant communities were so advanced in their thinking, and so ahead of the curve in embracing trans ideology.

And here we are. Ostracised five years ago for speaking out on the reality of sex, and now lauded for her sensible views. Perhaps a corner has been turned, at last…