How to challenge institutional buffoonery
Keep questioning this bonkers ideology
I received this from a subscriber.
Hi Graham - just a quickie - I’m forwarding you the email I just sent to the CDN re: their Diamond Diversity Programme, which has clearly been Stonewalled as you’ll see below. Thought you might find it interesting if you didn’t already know about it.
Afternoon!
I have been asked - as part of my involvement on a current project - if I would be open to filling out a Diamond Silvermouse form on diversity. As a person of colour, obviously I am very keen to ensure any practice that strives to do better in terms of representation in our industry should be welcomed.
However - when I went to look at the Diamond form, I was alarmed to see that the questions on protected characteristics (which I assume are used to accurately collect data from), used the word GENDER, instead of SEX. And then another question about GENDER IDENTITY.
I do not understand what is meant by gender. I do understand what is meant by sex, and if that was the question I would have answered female (intersex and non-binary are not sexes by the way). And under the GI question, no one is assigned a gender at birth - sex is observed, often before birth. These are both highly misleading and inaccurate ways of collecting data on the sex of participants. And as women, especially women of colour, are woefully underrepresented in our industry, the idea of being inaccurate on collecting this data is at best woeful, at worst harmful.
For this reason, until the form is accurately updated to include the correct terms for whether the participants are male or female, I will not be able to fill out the Diamond form. Which is a shame as I think the aims of Diamond are worthy and done with the best of intentions.
I look forward to hearing back from you on my comments.
Kind regards,
X
Keep your eye out for these kinds of letters and save them in your bookmarks. Here’s an excellent one from Susan McDonnell about the recent disgraceful events at the London School of Economics.
And follow @sexnotgender_ on Twitter who tirelessly reminds businesses and government organisations that they should be following the law, rather than Stonewall Law.
Look out for opportunities also to challenge the use of invented terms like ‘cis’, which presuppose that everyone is on board with the concept of gender ideology. If they keep meeting resistance, they might just realise they’re on to a loser.
And remember, this approach works. Here’s a ‘before and after’ from Macmillan’s cervical cancer page.
I feel so pleased that Macmillan changed people to women. It’s a small step but it’s still a step. If we join forces we should be able to achieve great things. Outside Twitter world I think you’ll find there’s more of us than there are of them
I was asked to complete a, Covid recovery questionnaire for people with disabilities. The same... What gender do you identify with? What is your sexuality? LGBTQIH+.
I refuse to answer such questions so couldn't take past. On contacting the researcher, I was told that "you old people need to get with the programme or get out". Not an answer that should come out of a researcher's mouth... I am not old for a start. I am a fellow researcher who now has an issue with how this research is being carried out, how much the company were given by the government for the contract, and how accurately the data/report will be with this attitude prevailing.
We need to challenge at every opportunity. But we also have to inform those who are paying for such research to take place that the starting point is biased.