The @ONS have decided that it's no longer possible to ask people simply what their sex is, even though this has been asked in every census since forever. Women have used the resulting data to prove that we face ongoing and widespread discrimination, at large and small scales 1/10

The people making decisions about the census, however, have been persuaded that some (unknown number of) people won't respond to the census at all if they have to answer this very basic factual question. 2/10

They have therefore changed the guidance so that an unknown number of people are advised to answer it according to their 'official documents' - which may contradict each other. Since it's easily possible to change the sex marker on a passport or driving licence 3/10

just by asking for it to be changed, this guidance effectively means that (an unknown number of) people unhappy about their biological sex are advised to answer the sex question however they choose. 4/10

The most immediately damaging impact of this decision will be on trans people. It means the opportunity to gather robust data from the new gender identity question in the same census is lost. We will not be able to tell how many trans people are male or female. 5/10