What is happening at the CSO?

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) is the official State body responsible for collecting and publishing statistics about the country. The CSO must count things carefully as it runs the census, produces data on population, employment, health, crime, education and the economy, sets standards for how data is defined and collected, and supplies the data used by Government, researchers and policymakers.

Any given figure depends on the definition of the item being counted. If you change the definition, then you can produce almost any reality you like. For example, if ‘exercise’ includes walking to the fridge, then we are a nation of athletes.

That is why recent developments in how the CSO approaches sex and gender matter more than they might first appear. Traditionally, the CSO recorded sex. Sex is a stable, observable category, and it underpins everything from health planning to education policy to crime statistics. We need to know how many females there are so we can plan for maternity services and in order to track differences in health outcomes, such as rates of heart disease or suicide.

However, the decision of the CSO to define man or boy as “an individual’s internal sense of being male” and to define woman or girl as “an individual’s internal sense of being female” is not only farcical and outdated, it is also stupid.

Outdated

It’s outdated because this has all been figured out in Britain already, making Ireland’s decision to head in this direction all the more foolish. Confusing wording in the 2021 census question on gender identity produced unreliable statistics that significantly overestimated the number of trans people in England and Wales. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) faced a fierce backlash from women’s rights campaigners about the inclusion of this question on gender identity in 2021, and civil servants have since dropped plans to include this question in the next census.

I know from experience that when I write about gender, somebody inevitably raises the issue of intersex and so, to be clear, although a small number of people are born with Differences of Sex Development (DSDs, also known as intersex conditions), this does not change the fact that we are all born male or female.

The real difficulties arise not from DSDs but when we move from recording being born a female to recording an ‘internal sense’ of being female”

DSDs are an umbrella term used to describe more than 40 rare conditions in which sexual development does not follow the typical male or female pathway. Roughly 0.018% of the population are born with a DSD. Contrary to popular belief, individuals with a DSD are not a third sex. Additional testing may be required to establish sex definitively for a tiny minority of people with DSDs, as some are born with under-developed sex organs, but people with DSDs are always either male or female.

The real difficulties arise not from DSDs but when we move from recording being born a female to recording an “internal sense” of being female.

Femaleness

I know I was born female. That much is clear. How much of my femaleness is an internal sense is, for me, a bizarre question. I think any internal sense of being female is presumably created in my head? Sometimes I feel very feminine, sometimes very masculine. But then, perhaps feeling ‘masculine’ means that I feel assertive and disagreeable – both more stereotypically male traits? But is this delving into the complex area of disposition and personality rather than some “internal sense” of femaleness.

Is it possible for the CSO to count how many people feel “assertive and disagreeable”. And, more importantly, should they try?

A well-run campaign could easily shift the statistics to suggest that every single person in Ireland has an internal sense of being female, and nobody could argue with the results”

It is neither necessary nor workable for the CSO to accurately count an “internal sense” of being male or female. This subjective and unfalsifiable concept could change. With such a vague definition, a well-run campaign could easily shift the statistics to suggest that every single person in Ireland has an internal sense of being female, and nobody could argue with the results.

There have been numerous reports of LGBTQ+ organisations such as Belong To and TENI running workshops across public bodies to promote concepts such as gender identity. It does not take much imagination to wonder whether the CSO has been influenced in the same way, with someone deciding to insert a question on gender identity to signal alignment with the prevailing orthodoxy.

Fashionable

Gender identity theory sits under the fashionable LGBTQ+ banner. If you claim a gender identity, you are treated as progressive and acceptable; if you do not, you risk being cast as bigoted or reactionary by outlets such as The Irish Times and RTÉ, self-appointed arbiters of decency and respectability.

Yet many people strongly assert that they do not have a gender identity. How will the CSO record this fact? They will create many more problems for themselves if they choose to introduce mindless concepts such as being non-binary.

One day, concepts such as gender identity and preferred pronouns will look as dated as the Celtic Tiger or Girl Power slogans”

The whole thing is as clear as mud and reflects a broader post-modern influence, where subjective experience is elevated above material reality. This concept may have its place in philosophy, but it sits uneasily within a government-funded statistics office tasked with gathering and communicating accurate information.

It will not last. One day, concepts such as gender identity and preferred pronouns will look as dated as the Celtic Tiger or Girl Power slogans. They may seem fun at the time, but vague fashionable concepts that pretend to be positive can often cause more harm than good. In the meantime, the CSO needs to catch up with the changing tide and dump this “internal sense” from its definitions before it embarrasses itself any further.