Civil servants have backed down on plans to quiz people about whether they are transgenderat the next census. The government funded Office for National Statistics (ONS) faced a fierce backlash from women’s rights campaigners the last time it asked that question. Confusing wording of a question on gender identity on the 2021 census resulted in 'unreliable’ statistics which vastly overestimated the number of trans people living in England and Wales. Now the ONS has confirmed it will not be asking 220,000 households in six local authority areas what gender they identify as in next year’s census test – a dry run before the official census in 2031. Women’s rights campaigners hailed the news as 'a win for common sense’. Fiona McAnena, of sex-based rights charity Sex Matters, said: 'Ideology should have no place in this exercise. It should ask about sex, male or female, and instruct respondents to answer honestly. 'It still beggars belief that the Office for National Statistics ignored repeated warnings, listened to nobody but trans activists andploughed on with a gender identity question in the 2021 census. 'Many people who haven’t been steeped in the twisted logic and language of the trans movement were unable to decode the gender identity question.’ The Office for Statistics Regulations watchdog found non-fluent English speakers misunderstood the question 'Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?’ and were four times more likely to say they were transgender. It later ruled data suggesting thereare 262,000 transgender people in England and Wales must be discarded. Referring to Newham in London, a constituency with one of the lowest white British populations, Shadow Cabinet Office minister Mike Wood said: 'The gender identity question in the previous census was clearly flawed, leading to the ridiculous situation of Newham being the trans capital of the country.’ An ONS spokesman said the new question on gender identity 'is not due to be finalised in time to be incorporated into the test questionnaire’.
