Abstract
This chapter seeks to address the challenge of collecting data about individual and interpersonal experiences of sex and gender to advance justice and equity in a context where gender and sex classifications have been used to erase and subdue non-conforming identities. The authors outline the field of previous studies on the topic, then illustrate the need for data collection with a human rights approach illustrated by case studies from three geographical contexts. First, the importance of accurate and just data for equitable access to public services is highlighted through a case study of transgender inclusion in public data in India. Second, the importance of collecting data with communities is illustrated through the example of a feminist association of transgender women based in South Africa. Finally, the authors provide ideas for designing data collection instruments, illustrated through changes in the Australian data collection standards initiated by advocacy and activist groups.
TopIntroduction
The data we collect matters for diversity, inclusion, and equity initiatives at workplaces and in organizations. Imagine a staff survey exploring experiences of harassment within an organization. When the survey asks respondents to report their gender, it classifies colleagues into categories, for example: “Man”, “Woman”, and “Non-binary”. By classifying the respondents according to their gender, the survey makes it possible to distinguish whether people of some genders experience more harassment than others. Knowledge about the experiences of different groups can also help design mitigation and response strategies that better meet the specific needs of those who experience harassment. When gender or sex is expected to be relevant to the purpose of the data collection, refraining from asking the question is not an option – data matters for access to services and benefits.
However, while the survey is helpful in developing nuanced approaches, it also records an inherently imperfect snapshot in time. As this chapter will show, a person’s gender identity may shift over time, may depend on the social context, and may go beyond the options provided by the survey. Organizations that strive for an inclusive and equitable workplace must recognize and address the complexities of collecting sex and gender data, including data that includes people with intersex variations. In contemporary societies across the globe, data on gender and sex is all too often collected with a binary and cisgender lens, in effect excluding from the knowledge gathering process those who do not fall in one of two predefined categories (man and woman, or male and female). This chapter addresses the challenge of collecting data across sex and gender spectrums, while respecting human rights and maintaining methodological rigor.
It is commonplace in several academic fields as well as among inclusion practitioners to distinguish between gender and sex, where gender is broadly linked to a person’s identity and sex describes their biological and anatomy characteristics. However, as this chapter will show, social norms and structures affect both sex and gender. In the field of psychology, the distinction appears to originate in the 1950s (Muehlenhard & Peterson, 2011). On the other hand, anthropological and historical studies highlight that the dichotomous classification into nature=sex and nurture=gender is not enough to explain or reflect individual and collective experiences across time and space. The binaries within sex (male/female) and gender (man/women) are similarly lacking when describing the human experience (Herdt, 2020). One aspect of this simplification of the human experience is found in how colonial and settler power structures have erased indigenous understandings and experiences of sex and gender that did not fit the norms of the colonial society (see for example Meissner & Whyte, 2017; van der Merwe, 2017). Similarly, people with innate variations in sex characteristics (intersex) have historically been subjugated and subsequently remain an invisible group in the population. In contemporary societies this has often resulted in physical and psychological harm because of medicalised construction of maleness and femaleness that has resulted in surgical intervention often in the absence of personal informed consent (Carpenter, 2021a).
This chapter seeks to address the challenge of collecting data about individual and interpersonal experiences of sex, gender and sexuality for the purpose of advancing justice and equity in a context where gender and sex classifications have been used to erase and subdue non-conforming identities. Sex and gender, historically are reified as universally the relevant categories for data collection about any given group or population, but the experience and expression of these categories varies over time and space and it is important that academics and practitioners are able to capture these variations and shift the ownership of identification back to the person. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) (2018) has outlined a human rights based approach to data in support of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Two key considerations specified in this guidance are crucial to this chapter: the call for disaggregation to allow analysis of differences between groups; and the importance of self-identification – allowing individuals and groups to share or not to share details about their own characteristics and identities.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Transgender: A term used to denote that someone’s self-identified gender is different from their sex assigned at birth.
Nonbinary: A person who does not identify their gender solely as a girl/woman or boy/man. This is a common umbrella term under which many gender identities lay.
Intersectionality: A term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw to name the overlapping and cumulative nature of multiple inequalities (e.g. racism, ableism, cissexism, classism) on marginalized individuals.
Colonial power structures: Power structures put in place through the process and legacy of colonialism that have often erased indigenous understandings and experiences of sex and gender that did not fit the norms of the colonial society.
Sex: Biological attributes primarily associated with physiological characteristics such as hormone levels, gene expression, genitals, and chromosomes. Social norms often dictate that a child be assigned as either ‘female’ or ‘male’ at birth based on genital appearance.
Gender: Socially constructed behaviors, roles, and expressions that align with what is referred to as girl/woman, boy/man, and other diverse genders. These are often assumed to be expected based on sex assigned at birth and what is deemed appropriate behavior for the sex category.
Intersex: Sex characteristics (e.g. genitals, gonads, chromosomes) that do not fit typical binary definitions of ‘female’ or ‘male’. Also referred to as ‘variation of sex characteristics’.