...and HIV survey can’t ask your sex

A DECISION to ditch a question on biological sex from official surveys about HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) has been branded ‘madness’. Two questionnaires administered by Public Health England previously sought to determine how patterns of STDs differ between men and women and between heterosexual and homosexual groups.

But following consultation with transgender groups, respondents are no longer asked about the sex they were born but instead whether they ‘identify’ as male or female.

Lesbian and Gay News editor David Bridle, who has lived with HIV since 1996, said it ‘will skew the data as well as putting people at risk’ and predicted ‘a rise in the numbers of those registered as women with HIV, when in fact they are male-bodied’.