The Removal Of ‘Biological Sex’ From Official Data Is Causing Chaos In Britain

Maya Forstater, chief executive of Sex Matters, said: ‘The problems are everywhere, from NHS records that do not record biological sex to police forces that record male sex offenders as women.

‘These corrupted data standards have been set by bureaucrats insulated from the impact of their decisions, and competing for Stonewall awards.

‘The Government should swiftly implement the recommendations of the review.’

The review by Professor Alice Sullivan, from University College London, found that from 2015, public bodies began collecting information on gender identity rather than biological sex, meaning ‘robust and accurate data’ was lost.

It said a ‘partisan climate’ existed within public bodies – including the Office for National Statistics – that has created a ‘hostile environment’ for those who believe in biological sex.

Professor Sullivan’s report calls for the statistics regulator to urgently carry out a ‘review of activism and impartiality within the civil service’ in relation to official figures.

The 226-page review was commissioned under Rishi Sunak to examine the collection of accurate data and statistics on biological sex. It concludes that there has been a ‘widespread loss of data on sex’ which poses a risk to the public, with this risk particularly high in health and social care settings and among children.

Across the NHS, ‘gender identity is consistently prioritised over or replaces sex… putting individuals at risk,’ Professor Sullivan found.

It undermines medical research and poses the risk that people are not called up for sex-specific checks, such as cervical cancers screenings or prostate exams, potentially with ‘fatal consequences’.

It also presents a safeguarding risk to children because under the current rules there is no minimum age at which a child’s sex and NHS number can be changed, the Sullivan Review adds.

It gives a real example of a child who was ‘brought up in the preferred gender of the mother which was different to their birth-assigned gender’.

It adds: ‘She had gone to the GP and requested a change of gender/NHS number when the baby was a few weeks old and the GP had complied. Children’s Social Care did not perceive this as a child protection issue.’

Professor Sullivan also found that the recording of sex and gender across the justice system and police forces is ‘highly inconsistent’, meaning data is often not reliable, particularly when it comes to female offending, and specifically in cases where biological male rapists who identify as trans women have been recorded as female.