Census could ask ‘are you menstruating?’ to be inclusive

THE census could ask “do you menstruate?” instead of “are you male or female?” to be inclusive of transgender people, a taxpayer-funded study has suggested.

The Future of Legal Gender Project, led by King’s College London, has assessed how legal sex could be abolished in England and Wales and replaced with a single “gender” category.

After interviews with 200 charity workers, civil servants, lawyers, Government officials and the public, it suggested “soft decertification” of small changes in organisations could replace

any sudden lurch to “gender-neutral law”.

The study, which received £580,000 in taxpayer funding, acknowledged concerns from campaigners who argue biological sex provides vital binary data and that trans women are not women.

The research found that in surveys such as the census, respondents understand the question on their sex in different ways. Some “assume the question is about their genitals, about their legal status or about the sex... at birth”. However, others will answer their sex “based on the social category they live in”, it noted.

The researchers said: “More precise questions may help to avoid distortions or inaccuracies, for example, ‘do you menstruate?’ or ‘are you perceived or treated as a man at work?’ rather than, or in addition to, ‘are you male or female?’.”

Prof Davina Cooper, a law researcher at KCL who led the study, said: “We did not advocate for a particular legal outcome, either to keep or abolish legal sex, but to identify some key issues and advance understanding of them.”