Tag: uk

WAM!-It-Yourself: Improving Media Coverage Beyond The Binary

Posted by Nat – April 3, 2012

WAM!-It-YourselfOn Sunday March the 25th I took part in a radio-style talk show looking at how the media covers nonbinary and nonconforming gender and what we can do to make that coverage better.

Hosted by Avory Faucette of QueerFeminism.com and Radically Queer as part of Women Action Media‘s WAM!-It-Yourself events, the show featured guests with expertise in gender-neutral parenting, nonbinary identities, and media coverage of transgender issues. The discussion looked closely at some misunderstandings the media makes and how we can take action to educate and improve coverage.

As well as myself, guest included Arwyn Daemyir, creator of Raising My Boychick; Gunner Scott, Director of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition and Marilyn Roxie, creator of Genderqueer Identities and intern at the Center for Sex & Culture.

During the discussion we considered topics including major media coverage of gender-neutral parenting and education in 2011, the media’s refusal to take supermodel Andrej Pejic’s stated identity seriously, and what articles on genderqueer and other identities get right and wrong. We also explored the best way to cover less familiar gender identities, how journalists can describe gender in a way that is less harmful to nonbinary or questioning individuals, and how blogs and social media are changing the conversation.

As well as speaking as an androgynously presenting nonbinary person, I also added a UK perspective and raised the differences between North American and British media coverage and activism.

Listen to the entire show as a streamed recording. My contribution begins at around 45 minutes but I’d recommend listening from the beginning. A transcript will be available within the next few weeks.

Resources mentioned

Trans Camp video responses

Posted by Nat – January 12, 2012

The UK trans* activist organisation Trans Media Action is running Trans Camp on January 13th at the offices of Channel 4.

Trans Camp will bring together trans* people, developers, designers and innovators to come up with ideas to improve the lives of trans* people using web technologies and the media.

In order to make sure the widest range of experiences are covered, they asked for one minute video responses from trans* people around the UK explaining their experiences of childhood, media, comedy and family. (At the time of writing, you still have a day to upload videos of your own).

The following are my responses to the four questions Trans Media Action posed for Trans Camp:

CHILDHOOD: For those of you who knew, what was it like growing up as a trans child?

I didn’t know, but I chose to talk about how I was still a trans* child:


TransCamp. Childhood: Nat in Nottingham

Transcript

I didn’t know I was a trans* child but I was still trans*.

I was lucky enough to have a pretty gender neutral upbringing. No one in my family really cared about gender roles and there was very little gender segregation at my primary school, so I managed to just be myself, be friends with who I wanted and was happily oblivious to just how much of a problem gender was going to become for me.

I didn’t realise I was trans* until my late teens, but I knew I was different from about age 12.

Other kids at secondary school made a really big deal about gender and I was immediately singled out for being a bit weird and not performing my assigned gender in the way that peer pressure demanded.

This had a particularly negative effect on me because I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with my body as puberty began.

For most of my teens I was an unhappy kid who desperately wanted to fit in and be normal, but everything I did to try to conform just made me feel even worse about myself.

I desperately needed to be told what transgender was, how it could be a positive thing and how it could be me.

Notes

I often wonder if things would’ve gone differently had I realised that I could do something about it when I had the revelation aged 17 that I was supposed to be androgynous, and if I’d have had that revelation any earlier if this sort of thing were talked about as normal in schools or on TV.

As it was, it took until I was 19 to realise that I was so unhappy with my body that I ‘must be transsexual’ and another two years after transition to stop struggling to live with another gender role that made me just as uncomfortable as the first.

MEDIA: How does media coverage of trans people affect you?

I chose to talk about nonbinary erasure and misrepresentation:


TransCamp. Media: Nat in Nottingham

Transcript

I’m nonbinary, that means I live as something other than a woman or a man. It also means I have next to no representation in the media.

Even in documentaries featuring trans* people with genderqueer or gender binary challenging identities or histories, like some of the participants in My Transsexual Summer, these are simplified, glossed over or completely edited out in fear of ‘confusing’ the general public.

If my life experiences are ever touched upon, they’re simplified to the point of misrepresentation. If I’m to be hinted at, it’s in the suggestion that some people are ‘in between’.

My gender and my body are not ‘between’ anything. My gender is not a balancing act. I’m not in the middle ground, I haven’t gone halfway and stopped. I am not half a woman and half a man, I’m not following two sets of sexist stereotypes. I do not ‘pick and choose’ about gender. And I’m not ‘on the fence’. And I’ve definitely not ‘de-transitioned’.

I’m a trans* person, I’m doing what I need to do to be true to myself.

Notes

Of course not all nonbinary people object to being described as ‘in between’; that’s an accurate description of some people’s gender identities. But there are many more people besides me whose experiences of being agender, bigender, fluid gender, genderqueer etc are erased by that simplification.

In my case, I experienced gender dysphoria and I did what it was necessary to do to become comfortable with my body. Doing so didn’t fix my social dysphoria though. I tried to be a ‘classic transsexual’, I tried to pretend to be a gender I didn’t truly feel I was. But I found ‘passing’ made me just as socially dysphoric as my assigned gender role had done.

It turned out that transition just wasn’t the perfect ‘package deal’ I’d been sold in the brochure, I had to go off the beaten track to find my own way to authentically express myself to the world.

It would be nice to see this represented in the media at all, especially on TV shows where some of the participants have similar feelings.

(And no, ‘androgyny’ and ‘androgyne’ don’t have to mean ‘in between’; the dictionary definition boils down to ‘having both male and female traits’, and anyway that’s my appearance not my gender).

COMEDY: How do comedy portrayals of trans people affect you?

I talk about how comedy tends to only give problematic representations of a small subset of trans* experiences, and how it could be better:


TransCamp. Comedy: Nat in Nottingham

Transcript

When I tell people I’m trans*, comedy stereotypes often spring to their minds, but they almost always have the wrong idea. There aren’t many television comedy portrayals of androgynous or nonbinary people. Only the early 90s androgynous Saturday Night Live character ‘Pat’ springs to mind.

There are also almost no trans* men in TV comedy, and trans* women are either laughed at for not being able to ‘pass’ – like the deep voiced and hairy chested Barbara from League of Gentlemen – or shown as attractive, feminine and desirable, but with the punchline that they are ‘really a man’.

Comedy shouldn’t make fun of things people can’t help, but it could focus on the things they do. Trans* experiences are often funny. Barbara could’ve been brilliant satire if she was just a woman who over-shared about her transition.

Better still, comedy could focus on the often amusing ways that others react to trans* people – at their best the Pat skits drew their humour from the ridiculous lengths that polite people went to when unable to gender someone, of course, they never asked! – And this invited the audience to think twice about the nature of gender – something I’d like to see more!

Notes

I didn’t have time to mention the standup comedy of Andrew O’Neill whose material about being treated as androgynous while crossdressing has me grinning and nodding in recognition. But, as I hadn’t seen that in the media but in person, it didn’t make the cut down to one minute.

I don’t mean to imply that the SNL Pat sketches were perfect, only what they managed to do when they’re at their best. The Pat character is hardly a positive representation (although it’s nice to see the trope of androgynous people as highly sexual and desirable completely avoided!) and the movie spinoff It’s Pat is frankly terrible.

Is Pat really a trans* character? We’ve no way to know for sure as the character’s identity is ambiguous. In fact ambiguity is rather the point. However the character clearly transgress gender roles and transcends other people’s attempts to gender them, so that counts as trans* to me.

FAMILY: How have you experienced support, or lack of, from family and friends?

I talk about having a supportive family despite there being very few success stories to point to in the media when I first came out:


TransCamp. Family: Nat in Nottingham

Transcript

My family are accepting and supportive of me, they’ve never shown any disapproval of anything I’ve needed to do to be happy and true to myself. They’ve never had a problem with using my name and pronouns of preference. In fact my parents have become adept at gender neutral language, I often find myself being introduced to their friends with ‘this is my eldest, Nat’.

I know I’m very lucky in this respect, but I also know it’s clear to them and anyone else that my ‘transition’ was undoubtedly right for me, and I’m happier, confident and more successful having resolved my gender dysphoria.

That wasn’t always the case though. When I first came out as trans* in the late 90s, my parents had to make a ‘leap of faith’. All they ever wanted was for me to be happy and loved, but unlike if I’d come out as gay, there were no obvious ‘trans* success stories’ in the media, no trans* news readers or TV presenters, no trans* politicians. I couldn’t hand them a newspaper list of Influential Trans* People or pick up a trans*-focused magazine equivalent to Diva or Gay Times.

My parents were essentially ignorant to the trans* experience and so I had to become my own positive example.

Notes

I didn’t have time during the video to make it clear that I was coming out as a classic binary transsexual the first time around, when my family were most concerned and most in need of positive role models and representation to reassure them.

When I came out as being neither binary gender and living androgynously they’d had two years of seeing that I was clearly happier with myself and able to be loved and liked by others, so they were a lot less concerned and trusted me to know myself and what was right for me.

View all the Trans Camp video responses as a YouTube playlist

* The asterisk at the end of ‘trans*’ denotes that this is the wider inclusive form of trans that includes all transgender, transsexual, nonbinary, genderqueer, gender variant and gender nonconforming people regardless of gender identity or expression.

Being Constructive About the Independent on Sunday Pink List

Posted by Nat – October 29, 2011

The Independent on Sunday Pink List 2011Last weekend the UK Independent on Sunday released their annual ‘Pink List’, described each year as a ‘celebration of the gay and lesbian community’. It’s been a tradition of mine to look through lists such as these each year and bemoan the lack of representation for the wider LGBT and queer communities. Last year’s list produced a lot of justified criticism for not including any visibly bisexual or openly trans* people and not representing the grassroots activists within the LGBT community. It’s been very easy to be critical of a list of ‘influential British LGBT people’ that reads as a hierarchy of mainly cisgender (as in, not identifying as trans*), apparently able-bodied, gay and lesbian famous people and politicians who mostly live in England, mainly London. Cynicism is especially easy when it’s arranged as a league table complete with comparisons to where each entry charted in the previous year.

Since last year’s list was released, Time Out Magazine produced an even more problematically structured ‘Pride Power’ list, which at least included one openly trans* person, highly deserving activist Christine Burns MBE, albeit handled in a pretty problematic way. As you’ll see from that blog post and its comments, that spurred Christine and the equally wonderful Trans Media Watch to put pressure on the Independent on Sunday to produce a truly trans* inclusive Pink List this year. As a result of this campaigning, and I’m sure pressure from other parts of the LGBT community, the IoS appointed trans* journalist and activist Paris Lees to the panel of judges and asked their readers to put forward their own ‘unsung champions’ and ‘heroes’ of the LGBT community for inclusion in the nominees for the 2011 list.

Real Progress

With those announced changes, I approached this year’s Pink List with some degree of optimism, and I was indeed extremely pleased to see a considerably improved list with:

  • The frankly amazing teacher Elly Barnes, who has done invaluable work to exorcise the ghost of Section 28 from the nation’s schools, in the top position
  • A performer clearly described as bisexual in the third position
  • More women included in top positions
  • An openly intersex activist in the ‘Nice to meet you section’
  • Six trans women and one trans man in the numbered league table
  • Another two trans women and one trans man in the Lifetime Achievement Awards
  • And yet another trans woman in the ‘Nice to meet you’ section

Note though, five of trans women included were not explicitly noted as trans*.

It was clear that this wasn’t just a small step towards token trans* representation as I’d worried, but a significant jump towards treating trans* people as equally valid members of the LGBT community.

Valid Criticism

Is the list perfect? No, by no means. It’s still arranged in league table format, it’s still mainly white, English, well educated, apparently able-bodied (there is not one mention of ‘disabled’, ‘disability’ or any particular impairments on the entire list), apparently dyadic (non-intersex) people. People who lampoon these things as ‘Pride Privilege Lists’ still have much to rightfully criticise.

My traditional scouring of the list has been to look for bisexual representation and, despite singer-songwriter Jessie J now appearing in third position with a clear declaration of bisexuality, there are no other entries described as ‘bi’ or ‘bisexual’. All other uses of ‘bisexual’ are simply writing out LGBT or ‘gay and bisexual’, there is not one usage of the term ‘bi’ which is preferred within the UK Bi Community or the word ‘queer’, my label of choice. There are other people on the list who I know are bisexual, but not one of them is identified as such, and so bi invisibility continues. As a long term active member of the UK Bi Community, which is hugely accepting of queer-identified, trans*, nonbinary and genderqueer people such as myself, I was particularly disappointed to see all the hard working bisexual activists overlooked yet again.

This year the Bi Community focused its visibility activism efforts onto equal bi inclusion in the Lesbian and Gay Foundation’s ‘Homo Heroes’ award, gaining hugely deserving nominees in four categories (none of whom won the popular vote). It’s quite telling that the trans community aimed its visibility activism one way, the bi community another and the end result was that two prominent perviously ‘lesbian and gay’ lists gained more inclusive representation for one of the usually overlooked B and T but not the other (although one of the bi ‘Homo Heroes’ nominees is also trans*, so L, G, B and T are all represented there). I think it’s highly likely that the next Bi Activist Weekend will be discussing strategy to get a bi activist judge on next year’s Pink List panel.

So yes, there is much to criticise and much of my immediate response (on Twitter) after congratulating those listed was to critique the list’s failings. Many others in the trans* community (and beyond) have criticised the list too, some with anger at how the trans* people who were included were all transitioned binary transsexual, mainly trans women rather than trans men, not people of colour and mostly from England rather than Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. There was considerable disappointment that not one openly nonbinary (living as neither a woman nor a man) or explicitly genderqueer (identifying as challenging the gender binary through non-normative gender expression – your definitions may vary, I find the distinction useful) person was included. The trans* people who were included all fit the dominant transgender narrative of cross-binary gender identity and transition.

Some people defending the lack of such people on the list have argued that no British nonbinary, genderqueer or solely gender nonconforming (as in not trans* in other respects) people have done anything notable enough yet and this will come with time. While this may be true of activists (those prominent in the field live overseas while British activists have only come to the fore recently), it isn’t the case of performers and famous people. What about Richard O’Brien of Rocky Horror and Crystal Maze fame who came out as nonbinary transgender in 2009? What about stand up comedian, world famous actor, ‘executive transvestite’ and ‘male tomboy’ Eddie Izzard who has helped normalise femme male gender expression, has been an inspiration to a huge number of trans* people of all stripes for years and who recently ran seven weeks of back-to-back marathons (with Sundays off) across the UK to raise money for Sport Relief? Personally I’d have liked to see at least one nonbinary or genderqueer activist or performer on the ‘Nice to meet you’ list and I am hugely disappointed that CN Lester was overlooked for that honour. But I am hopeful for next year.

Unfortunately much of the perfectly valid criticism of the structure and composition of the list inadvertently reads as an attack on the trans women and men who are on the list for the first time this year. There is a very uncomfortable air of belittling or dismissing the achievements of the people who are on the list, because they are ‘tokenism’ or because others ‘more deserving’ are not there. Some of the critiques feel like they’re dragging those people down rather than lifting others up, which CN Lester eloquently describes and confronts here.

This Stuff Is Important

Much like CN, I had an ‘inspiration board’ on the wall of my teenage bedroom, full of printed out song lyrics, pictures and newspaper clippings that kept me going through my last couple of years as a closeted queer teenager at a rural comprehensive school (1996 to 98). My board included people like teenage Age Of Consent campaigners Chris Morris (who was the same age as me) and Euan Sutherland, and famous performers like Ellen Degeneres, Wilson Cruz, Brian Molko, David McAlmont, Ani DiFranco, Michael Stipe and Skin from Skunk Anansie. Being surrounded by images of successful queer and gender nonconforming people and listening to their music made me feel like less of a freak and gave me hope for the future.

As a community, we need visible inspirational ‘heroes’ to look up to. Some people survive, get through it and are inspired to succeed and perhaps become activists themselves due to newspaper articles just like this one. It is possible to critique the form of an award and the nature of the organisation that issued it while still seeing it as important and valuable. As little as I believe in the honours system and the monarchy, I still found it incredibly significant and inspiring when the establishment recognised the work of trans* activist Christine Burns by issuing her with an MBE in 2004 and Stephen Whittle by issuing him with an OBE in 2005.

Being Constructive

I see these lists and the tendency to single out certain prominent famous and notable people for recognition and awards as only problematic in isolation. If we let this be the only way that trans*, queer and LGBT people are celebrated in our communities, then yes, it is problematic. If we let this start a conversation about who else should be recognised and celebrated, the hard work that so many others do in our communities and all the different ways people make a difference, then it becomes just one of many ways that the deserving, inspiring people in our communities receive thanks.

When Dan Savage started the It Gets Better campaign, I was among the critics who found it deeply problematic. But it started a conversation that prompted complementary and constructive campaigns that focused on helping young people to Make It Better, and inspired many other It Gets Better videos that weren’t problematic in the ways that Savage’s had been. There are now some amazing trans* and queer It Gets Better videos out there and no end of testimonials from people saying how seeing them has helped them in the way my inspiration board helped me.

I would like to see positive and constructive reactions amongst the justified critiques of the organisation and form of the current Pink List. While campaigning for next year’s list to end bi invisibility, recognise bisexual, pansexual, asexual and queer activists and include more trans men, nonbinary, genderqueer and gender nonconforming people, we should also be putting forward our own lists of inspiring queer and trans* people, and thanking and celebrating all those who inspired us personally, or who have worked to make our lives better as queer or trans* people.

As such, last night I asked my Twitter followers to indulge me for a while as I thanked those who had inspired me. Rather than focusing solely on individuals, I tried to thank entire groups and classes of people who have helped our communities, while highlighting particular examples that I’ve personally come across and been inspired by. My own personal Inspiration List. You can read it in my Twitter favourites, starting at 10:12pm. Note, there are many many more people who I could name (each category was limited to 136 characters) and, as I was reacting to a list of inspirational British LGBT people, my list was intentionally focused on people from the UK. I would write a very different list if I was including those who are active in other countries and internationally.

I would love to read other people’s Inspiration Lists, especially international lists and lists covering queer and trans* communities of which I’m not a member. I encourage you all to thank everyone who’s inspired you, made it easier to be queer, trans* or gender nonconforming or helped you or your communities in practical ways.

Deserving Their Recognition

And let’s not forget that we do have eleven openly trans* people and several more trans* allies recognised within the Pink List article. Forget the numbering and the different categories and focus on the recognition these people have been rightfully given. As I said above, I want to see more trans* people included, more trans men, more trans* people assigned female at birth, more nonbinary, openly genderqueer and solely gender nonconforming people, and I want us to work towards getting those people into next year’s list and given recognition through our own community efforts, independent of The Independent. But let’s not play down the hugely important work those who are listed have done to represent, inspire and improve the lives of all trans* people.

So here’s my personal take on how some of the trans* people who are recognised in this year’s Pink List article have inspired and represented me as a nonbinary, genderqueer, gender nonconforming, queer-identified, atypically transitioning, androgynously presenting trans* person…

Longterm Inspirations

I was extremely pleased to see people who have been personal longterm inspirations to me on the lists:

Stephen Whittle and Christine Burns, whose campaigning work for Press For Change was a practical help and inspiration to me while transitioning in the late 1990s, especially as their website and resources recognised that not all ‘trans people’ they campaigned for transition in the same way or at all, live ‘full time in role’ or identify as simply female or simply male.

It is thanks to Press For Change that Britain now has legal employment and provision of goods and services protection for trans* people (by adding the protected class of ‘gender reassignment’), including the changes in the Equality Act 2010 that mean those protections are no longer prerequisite on a ‘gender specialist’ psychiatrist’s approval or any medical treatments. Stephen has also featured in two prominent television documentaries about transsexual men and numerous trans* publications, providing inspiration to many. As mentioned above, Christine is one of the most vocal campaigners for recognition of the full diversity of trans* activists and influential people in lists such as these.

Travel writer Jan Morris whose groundbreaking 1974 memoir Conundrum and its journey through her transition (most notably chapter 12) was my first exposure to the reality that it was possible for me to become androgynous, it wasn’t just something that some people were naturally gifted with that I could never achieve. I cannot overstate how important this was to me and how much hope and inspiration it gave me as a dysphoric nonbinary person trying to find comfort with my body and social role.

Activists I Admire

I was also overjoyed to see recognition given to current activists who I admire, all of whom have in some way helped nonbinary and gender nonconforming trans* people as part of their work to represent the entire trans* community:

Sarah Brown, Britain’s only openly transgender activist serving in an elected political position; a Liberal Democrat Cambridge City Councillor, and chair of the Lib Dem Transgender Working Group. Sarah was instrumental (along with Zoe O’Connell) in influencing Lib Dem MP Julian Huppert to raise the issue of gender neutral documentation such as passports in the House of Commons. Something that will be vitally important to many nonbinary, genderqueer, transgender and gender nonconforming people in this country (including myself).

Jay Stewart of Gendered Intelligence, an organisation that does hugely important creative work with young transgender and genderqueer people and is explicitly inclusive of the wider transgender spectrum. Jay organised the wonderfully positive and inclusive Trans Community Conference, that I was lucky enough to attend this year, and was previously the chair of FTM London, an AFAB (assigned female at birth) trans* support and social group known for being inclusive of all identities and expressions within the wider transgender spectrum. I have briefly spoken with Jay and seen him speak from stage and on video. He comes across as someone who comfortably challenges stereotypical assumptions that all trans men are hyper-masculine. Read him here encouraging readers of the Times Educational Supplement to celebrate transgender students and allow male assigned students to express femininity in their schools.

Journalist Juliet Jacques (in the ‘Nice to meet you’ section) whose blogging for The Guardian has talked frankly about the process of coming to terms with being a trans woman and undergoing transition in a very public and visible way that has exposed the human story behind trans* people’s lives to a whole new audience. In her earlier articles, Juliet talks about how she did not have the stereotypical transsexual childhood story (in a way I hugely identified with), and tried on and explored numerous transgender identities and communities before transitioning. She writes about having been drawn to male crossdressers, made to feel less alone by the comedy of ‘action transvestite’ Eddy Izzard and going through years of identifying as a gay male crossdresser and later ‘transgender’ as described by Leslie Feinberg and Kate Bornstein. As such she is one of the few journalists to have written about transgender people who ‘live beyond the traditional gender binary’ in a mainstream outlet.

Creative People

Creativity and consuming the creative works of others is hugely important to me. As such, I was pleased to see three creative trans women whose work I enjoy recognised in the lists as much for their non-activist careers and artistic merits as their work as ‘professional trans people’:

Roz Kaveney is given recognition as a poet and novelist. I first saw Roz on television talking about science fiction and fantasy, then later met her in person through science fiction conventions (where she is well known and respected in the community of authors and fans). If you like a science fiction or fantasy author, Roz is probably friends with them. I later learned she is openly transsexual from her (highly recommended) poetry LiveJournal and from there found her Twitter feed, where she’s shared sonnets about transgender history, remembrance and bodies [NSFW], and challenged the prejudices of others (most notably Julie Bindel) in a relentlessly reasonable and open minded way. Roz is notable to the nonbinary community for having talked about neutrois (agender) identity along with the wider inclusive meaning of transgender, for the Guardian newspaper’s blog in June 2010.

Comedian Bethany Black is given recognition for being successful in the competitive and male dominated world of stand up comedy while being openly transsexual. She describes herself as “Britain’s only Goth, lesbian, transsexual stand-up comedian” and challenges binary transgender stereotypes enough to proudly feature in the MtF Butches Tumblr. She’s also very funny.

Actress and singer Adèle Anderson of marvellous humorous female cabaret group Facinating Aida is recognised under ‘lifetime achievement’. Adèle is recognised for her acting and singing career, and her campaigning for the British Humanist Association, most notably against the Pope’s recent state visit to the UK. Adèle came out as a trans woman in the mid-1980s after success while ‘stealth’, in part due to pressure from the press, she later talked publicly about how difficult that process was. As a transgender singer and lover of comedy music, I personally find inspiration in Adèle and her willingness to pursue a singing career despite the risk of it outing her.

To Conclude…

So while I am not aware of any nonbinary, genderqueer-identified or solely gender nonconforming trans* people recognised on the Pink List this year, every one of the trans* people listed above has either worked for their rights and/or recognition in some way, or challenged binary gender roles and the public’s stereotypical view of transgender people through their openness, their humour or their own gender nonconformity. I don’t know about you but, as a genderqueer and nonbinary person, I think that’s worth celebrating.

And let’s not overlook the significance of the inclusion of openly intersex activist and LGBTQQi addiction specialist Sarah Graham recognised in the ‘Nice to meet you’ section, who has been frank and open about her life experiences in an article for The Independent and an episode of the BBC radio programme The Essay broadcast on Radio 3.

Finally, we should not forget all the people on the list who work for trans* people as part of their careers or wider LGBT activism. I want to wrap up this article by pointing you at a video of the person who made the number one spot in this year’s Pink List, Elly Barnes talking about how her Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans History Month work in schools led to her pupils being exposed to positive queer and trans* role models in assembly and taught in science classes about how gender variance and transition is a normal part of some people’s lives. If Elly’s recognition in the Pink List leads to just one other teacher following her example and achieving the same, then it will have been an indisputable success.

* The asterisk at the end of ‘trans*’ denotes that this is the wider inclusive form of trans that includes all transgender, transsexual, nonbinary, genderqueer, gender variant and gender nonconforming people regardless of gender identity or expression.

United Kingdom Census 2011 – Summary and Analysis

Posted by Nat – July 21, 2011

Logos for The Office for National Statistics and WhatDoTheyKnow.comEarlier this year I wrote about the controversy around the question ‘What is your sex?’ in the 2011 United Kingdom census. In that article I established that the question of ‘sex’ was intended to record how the respondent subjectively saw their identity and that the Office for National Statistics and the Census Customer Services were advising transgender individuals to choose the binary option (male or female) that most closely reflected their self-identity, rather than their ‘biological’ or legal status.

I also included my reply to the Office for National Statistics asking for clarification as to how those who identify outside of the gender binary and would not be able to choose either binary option should respond to the question, and whether those answers would be reflected in the census statistics in any way. Read the previous article here.

Sadly I did not receive a response to my questions, but other non-binary gender activists received advice from the Census Customer Services telephone line advising them to enter both male and female if they felt that this was most accurate. They were informed that they would not be prosecuted for failing to answer this legally mandatory question if leaving the question blank, ticking both boxes or writing in a different answer was a genuine attempt to answer the question accurately.

However, at no point did the Office for National Statistics indicate that such non-binary answers would actually be reflected in the eventual census statistics. In fact non-gender activist Christie Elan-Cane‘s 2008 census public consultation period call to add a third ‘non-gender specific’ answer to the ‘sex’ question received a response that showed no intention of recording non-binary genders, and I myself was advised in 2001 that my non-binary answer in that year’s census would not be recorded in the statistics. There was also direct evidence that the answers of people in same sex marriages and multi-partner relationships were being treated as errors and ‘statistically resolved’ in the census statistics.

It seemed that non-binary and genderqueer people talking to Census Customer Services were being given false hope that their answers would be meaningfully recorded in any way.

As such, in May I made a Freedom of Information request using the excellent online service WhatDoTheyKnow.com. In this request I asked the following questions:

Could you please explain:

1a) How is the ‘sex’ question used in census statistics? What is an
answer of ‘male’ or ‘female’ taken to mean?

1b) How the ONS compensates for the inaccuracies/ambiguity
introduced by conflating the separate concepts of sex, social
gender, legal gender and gender identity into one binary question?

2a) Does the census system accept answers for this question other
than responses of only ‘male’ or ‘female’?

2b) Will the figures be made available for the number of people who
answered census question 2 to indicate they are:

i) Both male and female
ii) Neither male nor female
iii) Some other sex/gender, indicated by adding an additional box
or writing an answer in the space around the question
iv) Abstaining from answering the question, indicated by writing
this in the space around the question or by crossing out or
otherwise spoiling the question

2c) Are such figures available for the 1981, 1991 and 2001
censuses? If so, where may I read these?

3a) Will people who indicated that they do not have a single sex
ever have their answer ‘corrected’ or ‘resolved’ to assign them a
single binary sex?

3b) If so, what criteria will be used to assign this sex? How is
this justified?

4) Approximately how many people had their answer for sex
‘corrected’ in the 1981, 1991 and 2001 census statistics for any
reason?

On the 27th of June, Paul Wearn of the Office for National Statistics issued the following response:

1a) Responses to the ***sex*** question, which has been asked since the
first UK Census in 1801, are used, together with age, as the basic
variable, by which the full range of other characteristics, such as
health, employment and unemployment in particular occupations and
industries, education levels, migration, etc are measured. Such
characteristics have always been measured by the sex as reported
subjectively by the respondent. Information on the category of transgender
is not specifically collected in the census since the small numbers
resulting would prevent ONS from disclosing any detailed statistical
information about them, even if a need had been expressed for the census
to collect such information.

1b) For the overwhelming majority of the population ***sex*** and
***gender*** will be the same, and no statistically significant
inaccuracies are introduced by conflating the two. Where someone has
ticked both options or left the question unanswered, a single response
will be created. This is not in any way intended to reflect the true
gender identity of any individual, it is simply done to ensure the
completeness of the final outputs as for every other census question
(except the question on religion which is voluntary). Note that the
scanned image of the original census record, which is stored for 100
years, will retain the original response.

2a) No, the census system does not accept answers to the ***sex***
question other than ***male*** or ***female***.

2b) i) Information on the number of instances of multi-ticking for any
question (including the question on sex) will be recorded, and could be
made available on request subject to the numbers not being disclosive,
once data processing is complete.

2b) ii) Item non-response for all questions (where respondents do not use
any tick or text boxes available) will be published as part of the data
quality report. If any other indication of being neither male or female
was specifically recorded, no figures will be available.

2b) iii-iv) No. This information would not be identified or captured in a
structured way, in the scanning process, although as noted above, the
scanned image will be retained and released in 100 years.

2c) Item non-response results for the 2001 Census are available on the ONS
website (which showed that 0.4% of the population did not answer the
question on sex), but none of the other information requested or item
non-response for 1981 and 1991 Censuses is available.
[1]http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/…

3a) The response as recorded on the questionnaire will not be changed.
However, the data processed from every such record will be edited to
assign the category ***male*** or ***female*** for statistical purposes.

3b) A probabilistic statistical system will assign the sex, based on other
characteristics. This system is called CANCEIS (Canadian Census Edit and
Imputation System), and is used by census offices worldwide.

The system identifies a “donor” record (someone who has answered the
question with a single tick, and has other similar characteristics) and
copies their response. This statistical method is known as
***imputation***.

4) Information about edited records is not available for 1981 and 1991.
ONS has published imputation rates for each variable from 2001 on our
website at
[2]http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/…

Note that the imputation rate will include people who have left the
question blank and those who have ticked both male and female.

Summary

As far as the census is concerned there is no statistically significant difference between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’. The census system does not allow non-binary responses to be recorded for sex, each person recorded must have a single binary answer. Those who answer with both or neither binary options will have their sex ‘created’ for ‘completeness’ by a process called imputation. This is not meant to reflect the person’s actual gender identity, only to make the data ‘consistent’ and complete. As such non-binary gender is not reflected in the census statistics in any way.

The actual answers that people entered on their census forms will be stored, but won’t be made available for another 100 years.

In previous censuses, the numbers of people who entered both or neither option, wrote in their own response or spoiled the question in some way were not recorded. However starting with the 2001 census, both the rate of ‘non-response’ and the rate of ‘multi-ticking’ was recorded and this information was made available in the Edit and Imputation Evaluation Report.

In 2001 approximately 14,000 people intentionally ticked both male and female as their answer to the sex question. A further ~185,000 people failed to tick either box. This totals ~199,000 people who had their answer ‘created’ due to ‘non-response’, which accounts for 0.4% of the census population. Interestingly a further 20,000 people had their single binary answer for sex changed for some reason. Stated reasons for correcting binary sexes include preventing the recording of same sex couples being listed as married or as the parents of a child. These assumptions/requirements are described as ‘hard checks’.

It should be noted that 199,000 was the lowest imputation rate for any question. Questions related to education and employment required as much as 16 to 18% imputation, accounting for as many as 5,400,000 non-responses. Even age and marital status had higher rates at 0.53 and 0.76% respectively.

The criteria for assigning a binary sex when respondents gave non-binary answers or failed to be consistent with expected (highly heteronormative) statistical structures is to identify a ‘donor’ record with similar characteristics for other questions, then take the sex from that household or person. Where possible entire households in a similar local area are used. The choice of sex assigned may involve matching features such as the person’s relationship, partnership, marital or parental status. This may involve judgments based on the sex of ones partner or co-parent, or whether one is a single parent. The report indicates that the validity of imputed sex data was assessed for sample areas by judging the ‘sex’ of the person’s name. By this criteria 75% of imputations were judged to be ‘correct’, with the ‘incorrect’ values more likely to be perceived male names assigned a female sex.

The Office for National Statistics has no plan to change the way it reports ‘non-response’ for the sex question in the 2011 statistics. We will eventually be given a similar non-response rate that will cover the total number of people who omitted or wrote in their answer for sex, and another multi-ticking rate that will reflect how many people ticked both male and female.

Those who answered with a single binary gender but also wrote in a protest at the nature of the question, clarified their gender in more complicated terms or added an unticked ‘other’ box will be recorded as the indicated binary gender. Their protests, comments or elaborations will not be available to the public until the year 2111.

Analysis

The Office for National Statistics has no interest in recording the number of transgender or non-binary gender individuals in the census statistics or recording information such as age, relationship status, health, ethnicity, religion etc related to these individuals. There is no demand for this information from the organisations that use the census statistics and there must be a ‘strong need’ for any information requested. The ONS believes the numbers would be too low to be statistically valid, or that releasing the data would reflect such a small population as to make any information released too specific and identifiable, violating the confidentiality of the respondents.

The non-gender campaigner Christie Elan-Cane advocated for the addition of a third option on the ‘sex’ question during the public consultation period before this census, but was told that people would find the option of identifying as neither binary ‘sex’ too tempting if it were presented to them. Helen Bray of the ONS also informed me that ‘[there is] some concern that such an additional category might encourage some people to simply not reveal their male or female identity, and this could interfere with the demographic analysis we undertake.’

The census statistical systems are designed to ‘resolve’ or erase non-normative genders and relationship structures that do not meet statistical expectations or fit recognised legal structures. The response Zoe O’Connell received from the ONS makes this especially clear. This erasure also includes the answers of binary gender trans* people who indicated that they are in ‘same sex’ marriages, ‘different sex’ civil partnerships or are the parent of a child with a ‘same sex’ co-parent.

In 2001 approximately 14,000 people ticked both male and female and 185,000 people ticked neither box, this accounts for 0.4% of the population. We will eventually be given similar counts of how many people failed to indicate a single binary ‘sex’ or who answered both male and female in the 2011 census. It will be extremely interesting to see if the rate of non-response or the proportion of multi-ticking has risen since 2001 in light of the (albeit limited) campaigns asking non-binary and genderqueer people to tick both answers.

Although “What is your sex?” had the lowest imputation rate for any question, the figures nonetheless indicate that there were almost two hundred thousand answers that were potentially attempting to accurately record a non-binary gender or intersex status, of which the 14,000 multi-ticked answers are highly likely to be intentional. Some of the ‘non-response’ answers counted may have actually indicated a non-binary gender or intersex status by writing this information into the space around the question.

However the ONS has no plans to report figures for the number of people who wrote in, spoiled, amended or clarified their answers on the paper forms. The individual answers will however be stored and made available in 100 years. Knowing these individual figures could be extremely interesting and would help to show how many people felt strongly enough about their non-binary gender to protest being asked for a binary sex on the census. However even with this information, the census data will never be a good indication of the numbers of non-binary people in the United Kingdom due to the intentionally limiting and misleading nature of the question.

We have no way of knowing, until the years 2101 and 2111, how many answers recorded as ‘non-response’ or even as a binary ‘sex’ in fact indicated an unambiguous non-binary answer by writing in this information. We’ll never know how many more people with non-binary genders opted to answer with their assigned or legal sex due to incorrectly believing that was what the census was asking for, due to the legally mandated nature of the question, due to using the online form which did not allow multiple, skipped or written in answers, due to someone else in their household incorrectly answering for them, or out of fear of the ramifications of indicating trans* status on a form that would be seen by their entire household.

Due to the ambiguous nature of the question (asking for ‘sex’ when supporting materials explain that gender identification is required), it is likely that some intersex people with binary gender identities gave non-binary answers to the question in an attempt to accurately record their sex.

Next Steps

Write to the Office for National Statistics requesting that the number of people who wrote in some kind of response extra to the binary options in the question of sex be counted and reported. Ideally this information would be further sub-divided into those who did this while ticking no items, ticking male alone, ticking female alone or ticking both. We would also need to know the number of people who completed the question online and were therefore unable to amend the question or give any kind of non-binary answer. When requesting this information, state that we do not believe that this would be a statistically valid reflection of the numbers of non-binary trans* people in the country, but we do feel that it would give a better reflection of how many felt strongly enough about their gender to clarify their answer or protest the question.

In addition to campaigning about the census now past, if you want the government to legally recognise the existence of non-binary genders and record accurate statistics about our numbers then write to your MP explaining how strongly you feel about this issue and how having your gender ignored and erased impacts your life. Also ask your MP to write to the Minister for Equalities Lynne Featherstone on your behalf to explain how important it is to you that National Statistics surveys and censuses record and reflect non-binary genders and other types of trans* experiences.

Should censuses continue after 2011 (this is currently in doubt), it will be important for more non-binary people to take part in the next public consultation process and advocate for a strong need for non-binary gender to be included in the questions asked.

Visibility and pressure from non-binary people is vital in ensuring that our identities are officially recognised in the future.

‎* The asterisk at the end of ‘trans*’ denotes that this is the wider inclusive form of trans that includes all transgender, genderqueer, gender variant and gender non-conforming people regardless of gender identity or expression.

Pink News: Interview with genderqueer performer CN Lester

Posted by Nat – March 13, 2011

PinkNews.co.uk: Genderqueer performer CN Lester, who identifies as neither male nor female, talks to Paris Lees about sexual harassment, operatic androgyny and a mutual fear of going blind.

What harassment do you face?

I don’t take hormones, so the majority of people perceive me as a woman, but obviously a woman who is transgressing gender norms. So the street harassment I get tends to be sexual aggression from cis [non-trans] guys, like “Hey baby, how about one up the arse?” or “Suck on this darling.” Or trying to grope you in the street. Then it gets mixed in with the transphobia, when they’re not entirely sure if I’m female or male, that adds to that aggression and it just turns into “f**ing freak” or “faggot”. I think one guy even came out with “You f**king pervert.” I thought wow: you have no idea what I do in bed.

This interview with courageous openly trans performer CN Lester is one of the few examples of a non-binary identified trans person talking publicly about their experiences. Kudos to Pink News for publishing this on their mainstream LGBT news website.

I’d hope that everyone will read this and think long and hard about CN’s experiences in public places, in the world of classical music and in the gay community.

Read the interview at Pink News

United Kingdom Census 2011

Posted by Nat – March 13, 2011

Here in the UK we’re asked to complete a census every 10 years. It is a legal requirement that all households accurately record certain details of those present on the day of the census, these details include each person’s ‘sex’. Unfortunately this question is worded simply as:

Tumblr user lottelodge shares a photograph of the 2011 'What is your sex?' question, the answers are stuck out and instead the following is written 'Sex is not binary. Gender is important. What about trans people?'2, What is your sex?

[] Male   [] Female

There is no separate field for gender.

Before the 2001 census, I wrote to the organisers inquiring how I as an androgynous individual with a non-binary gender identity should answer this question and why more options were not given. As it is a legal requirement to complete this question accurately, I was quite concerned by the fact that I could not do so given the options present.

At that time I was told that gender variant people are too small a group to be recorded in the census and that smaller minorities are not reflected in the census statistics as they could be identified within their communities which could affect their safety. I was told that I would not be prosecuted for leaving the question blank, but that my answer would not be reflected by the census.

Unfortunately having searched through several boxfiles of papers, I have been unable to find my 2001 reply, or else I would quote from it directly.

Having seen that the 2011 census was still phrasing the question in the same way, I wrote to Census Customer Services at the Office for National Statistics in February asking for guidance on how the census records non-binary gender. The relevant excerpt of my letter follows:

I wonder if you could give me some guidance as to how I should answer certain potentially ambiguous census questions and how the census will record certain types of information. I could not find any guidance at http://2011.census.gov.uk/

I notice there is no question referencing ‘gender’ only ‘sex’. Will there be any attempt to record the number of transgender or non-binary identifying individuals in the country? Does the census distinguish between sex and gender at all?

How do you define ‘sex’ and what criteria would define whether an individual should answer female or male? Is this a question wishing to record a person’s primary or secondary sexual characteristics, chromosomal sex (which most people have not been tested for), personal identity (more rightly called gender) or legal status (in which case if ones passport disagrees with ones birth certificate, which should one answer)?

How does the census record individuals who are neither female nor male due to being intersex, transgender or transsexual currently in the process of transitioning to a binary role or transitioned to a non-binary role?

I recently received a reply from Helen Bray of the ONS, which was forwarded on to me by Rosemary Byatt of the ONS’s Parliamentary and Legal Support department. The relevant excerpt follows:

The primary purpose of the census is to give accurate and authoritative count of the number of people in England and Wales and to provide a benchmark for annual mid-year population estimates for local areas. Apart from serving essential needs for national and local population statistics, information of sex, age and marital status is key for estimating demand for local authority services, such as facilities for the young and elderly. The data are fundamental to major statistical series allowing age- and sex- specific rates for morbidity, mortality, fertility, marriage and divorce to be calculated.

One of the criteria for including any question or response category in a census is that there must be a strong need for information to be collected. Consultation with census users on the content of the 2011 Census did not identify a requirement for options for non-gendered or transgender. Nor do international agencies such as the UN Economic Commission for Europe and Eurostat recommend the collection of such information in a mandatory population census. In addition, collection information on such a small population subgroup would raise confidentiality issues. There is also some concern that such an additional category might encourage some people to simply not reveal their male or female identity, and this could interfere with the demographic analysis we undertake.

You’ll note that this response gives no guidance on how gender variant individuals should respond to the question and instead implies that all people will have a ‘male or female identity’ which the census must not confuse.

You’ll also note that this response implies that those who don’t answer with their ‘sex’ (implying agender on non-gender identity) and those who answer both male and female (implying non-binary or bigender identity) will not be recorded in the statistics, due to the ‘confidentiality issues’ of which I was advised before the 2001 census.

If one was feeling cynical, one might suggest that the Office for National Statistics might not have any idea how much of a minority non-binary and transgender identified people are as they haven’t asked this question in previous censuses and surveys. One might also point to serious flaws in their reporting on sexual minorities in previous surveys.

As there is still a legal requirement to answer this question correctly (albeit one under which only 38 of the more than 1.5 million households who did not complete the 2001 census were prosecuted), I wrote back pressing the matter of how non-binary gender individuals such as myself should respond. Here is my letter in full:

Dear Helen Bray or whom this may concern,

Thank you for your reply to my previous email dated 1st of March explaining why no options other than male or female are provided for the question ‘What is your sex?’ and why no separate question for gender is included.

I am still however uncertain as to how I should complete this section of the census.

I have a non-binary gender identity, in that I am something other than the binary genders of female and male, man and woman. In addition to this I have a highly androgynous appearance so that I am treated as both or neither of the binary gender options as I go about my life. I am seen as non-binary gendered by my friends and family, I am open about my gender identity to all, including my employer. I transitioned to this state through the aid of the NHS, I am seen as neither sex by my medical professionals. I have lived this way for a decade.

I can say with absolute honesty that it would be inappropriate for me to give a single answer of ‘male’ or female’ for the question. I feel that the census should reflect the reality of my existence, rather than some arbitrary and inaccurate binary option. I do not consider the sex assigned to me by the state to be accurate, I have lived with both binary sexes on my passport at different times.

If I were to choose to leave the ‘What is your sex?’ question blank, in order to reflect that I feel myself to have no binary gender, how would this be reflected in the census statistics?

If I were to choose to answer the question by indicating that I am both female and male (as I am treated as both by different individuals and groups during my day to day life), how would this be reflected in the census statistics?

If I were to write in my own gender identity and/or gender presentation, such as ‘Other’ or ‘Androgynous’, would this be recorded? Would I be penalised for not fulfilling my legal obligation to complete the census correctly?

Before the 2001 census I made similar inquiries and was informed that gender variant people are too small a group to be recorded in the census and that smaller minorities are not reflected in the census statistics as they could be identified within their communities which could affect their safety. I was told then that if I left the ‘What is your sex?’ question blank, the census statistics would not reflect this fact. In effect you would arbitrarily assign me an incorrect gender, just as the person who forwarded your letter on to me did when they addressed me as ‘Mr Titman’(!).

Could you please confirm whether my understanding of the 2001 policy still reflects the policy in place for the 2011 census? Is there any way that my non-binary gendered life will be accurately reflected in the census statistics or will my gender effectively be erased?

Thanks again for your help answering my questions. As before, please be aware that I may share your response with other transgender, non-binary and gender variant people who have similar questions to my own.

I look forward to your reply,

Nat Titman.

I have not yet received a reply from the Office for National Statistics and I was planning to delay writing this article until I had one. However I recently read an article by a guest blogger at Shakesville explaining how they had been given verbal agreement over the telephone saying that respondants cannot be fined for ticking both ‘male’ and ‘female’ if this is the most accurate representation of their gender achievable using the layout given.

The blogger goes on to suggest that all non-binary gender identified people should tick both or write in a third option and that somebody somewhere will have to ‘work out how to take account of it in the statistics’. They also suggest writing to your MP about the status of non-binary gender in law and official statistics. Something I also recommend.

In light of that article and the discussion around it, I felt that I should publish this article early without a further response from the ONS. I think that what I have currently is enough to strongly imply that anyone who gives a non-binary answer to the question ‘What is your sex?’ will not be recorded accurately in the census statistics. I’ll update again once I hear back from the ONS, which will hopefully be before Census Day (Sunday the 27th of March 2011).

If you wish to contact the ONS yourself on this matter, you can email Census Customer Services at census.customerservices@ons.gsi.gov.uk

If you have received information regarding this matter from Census Customer Services or any other organisation or individual involved in the 2011 UK Census, please add your experiences in the comments.

Update: Having received some feedback from people claiming that the ONS are only interested in ‘biological sex’ and not any other aspect of gender, I felt I should update to say that that’s demonstrably not true. Transgender identified individuals including transsexuals in transition who have phoned the census helpline have been instructed to choose whichever ‘sex’ they feel best represents their current identity. See the comments at the Shakesville article for others confirming this is their experience.

The responses I received from the ONS indicate that the statistics gathered will be used for a variety of purposes that would relate to a number of different factors including legal status, ‘birth sex’, ‘hormonal sex’ and social role. By conflating all of these aspects into a single simplistic question of ‘sex’, the ONS is inherently reducing the accuracy of the data recorded.

Finally, if the ONS was really interested in biological sex, they would provide an option for intersex people who were born with indeterminate ‘non-binary genitalia’ and/or a ‘chromosomal sex’ other than the most common XX/XY configurations to indicate this. As the majority of intersex people live comfortably within binary roles and see their intersex status as a medical issue, I’d say that such a question would be an invasion of privacy.

Update 2: The online UK Census Guidance for Students actually spells out how trans* indivduals should complete question 2:

Transgender or transsexual: select the answer which you identify yourself as. You can select either ‘male’ or ‘female’, whichever you believe is correct, irrespective of the details recorded on your birth certificate. You do not need to have a Gender Recognition Certificate.

So that’s an official UK Census publication explicitly defining the question of ‘sex’ as concerned with recording gender identity and not ‘biological sex’. So why do those of us who identify outside of the gender binary not have an option on the form?

Update 3: Post-census follow up Freedom of Information request analysis article here.