THREAD: Today ONS has published a report on how it decided that the Census question "what is your sex" should *not* mean the sex you were born

The ONS considered 5 difference concepts of sex:
Sex registered at birth,
Sex recorded on birth certificate,
Sex recorded on legal/official documents,
living / presenting sex,
Self-identified sex.

/2
A big part of their evidence for why asking 'sex registered at birth' was unacceptable was that trans people won't like it and might boycott the Census. /3
From this they concluded "The highest negative impact on accuracy & reliability is anticipated if sex registered at birth was collected due to the likely negative impact on response rates caused by the perceived invasion of privacy" /4
and that "The data need [for birth sex] is not considered to be strong enough to justify collecting this" /5
So what was this important and influential piece of research they did to gauge the response of the trans community and women? /6
They interviewed 52 people; cisgender, transgender and trans allies.

.... some members of women's groups /7
They don't go into details but we know from elsewhere:

"participants were recruited through existing databases from those who had ‘opted-in’ to take part in future research *and via a professional agency*".

Who is this professional agency that supplies trans & trans allies? /8
And are these voices representative of ordinary trans people or are they selected trans activist voices? How many were there? Perhaps a dozen of each?

So many questions unanswered. /9
But these dozen or so views was enough to convince the ONS there was a risk of boycott if they asked people what sex they were born /10
Who were the 'women's groups' they interviewed to make sure they heard the other side?

Not us.... not any of the gender critical groups in fact.... /11
Again, they don't give detail in the report but we know from elsewhere that "14 women’s groups were represented, e.g.: Women’s league for peace and freedom, MIND Women's forum, Swarm Association, Women's Equality Party; amongst others)" /12
Has this really been a fair and transparent assessment by an independent organisation whose purpose is to collect accurate data?

We don't think so, do you? /13

More from Society

Brief thread to debunk the repeated claims we hear about transmission not happening 'within school walls', infection in school children being 'a reflection of infection from the community', and 'primary school children less likely to get infected and contribute to transmission'.

I've heard a lot of scientists claim these three - including most recently the chief advisor to the CDC, where the claim that most transmission doesn't happen within the walls of schools. There is strong evidence to rebut this claim. Let's look at


Let's look at the trends of infection in different age groups in England first- as reported by the ONS. Being a random survey of infection in the community, this doesn't suffer from the biases of symptom-based testing, particularly important in children who are often asymptomatic

A few things to note:
1. The infection rates among primary & secondary school children closely follow school openings, closures & levels of attendance. E.g. We see a dip in infections following Oct half-term, followed by a rise after school reopening.


We see steep drops in both primary & secondary school groups after end of term (18th December), but these drops plateau out in primary school children, where attendance has been >20% after re-opening in January (by contrast with 2ndary schools where this is ~5%).

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The chorus of this song uses the shlokas taken from Sundarkand of Ramayana.

It is a series of Sanskrit shlokas recited by Jambavant to Hanuman to remind Him of his true potential.

1. धीवर प्रसार शौर्य भरा: The brave persevering one, your bravery is taking you forward.


2. उतसारा स्थिरा घम्भीरा: The one who is leaping higher and higher, who is firm and stable and seriously determined.

3. ुग्रामा असामा शौर्या भावा: He is strong, and without an equal in the ability/mentality to fight

4. रौद्रमा नवा भीतिर्मा: His anger will cause new fears in his foes.

5.विजिटरीपुरु धीरधारा, कलोथरा शिखरा कठोरा: This is a complex expression seen only in Indic language poetry. The poet is stating that Shivudu is experiencing the intensity of climbing a tough peak, and likening

it to the feeling in a hard battle, when you see your enemy defeated, and blood flowing like a rivulet. This is classical Veera rasa.

6.कुलकु थारथिलीथा गम्भीरा, जाया विराट वीरा: His rough body itself is like a sharp weapon (because he is determined to win). Hail this complete

hero of the world.

7.विलयगागनथाला भिकारा, गरज्जद्धरा गारा: The hero is destructive in the air/sky as well (because he can leap at an enemy from a great height). He can defeat the enemy (simply) with his fearsome roar of war.