Jeremy Stangroom

3. It is claimed that interviewer reported sex 'heightens the risk of error', but no evidence is provided for this. It is further claimed that interviewer reported sex is unethical because it 'denies respondents the opportunity to describe their own sex'.

4. But what does this actually mean? Perhaps they mean that it denies respondents the opportunity to report on their gender identity. Which is, of course, a different thing, and could be asked separately.

5. The proposal goes on to say that it is important that respondents can report their sex as 'other' if they do not identify as male or female. Again, the distinct concepts of sex and gender identity are muddled here.

6. The proposal uses the language of sex 'assigned at birth'. Sex is noted at birth, not arbitrarily assigned.

7. The proposal acknowledges that this 'other' category would give no indication of the transgender population, and say this is not its purpose. The purpose is just to give people who do not identify as either male or female an option to select.

8. The proposers argue against a distinct question on gender identity because this 'could prove problematic in some European languages'. Certainly the question of gender identity is complex, and language differences are a further difficulty.

9. But a silly question is still a silly question in any language.

10. The proposal jettisons sex in favour of gender identity, but in such a muddled way that it doesn't succeed in asking about gender identity in a meaningful way either.