The Gender Pay Gap Team replies

And their response is even more deranged than expected.

I wrote about the “gender pay gap” a couple of days ago and asked people to challenge the Government Equalities Office on their advice. Thank you to everyone who did so.

If you had a response, was it anything like this one?

Thank you for your email regarding gender pay gap reporting.

The gender pay gap regulations rely on the information about employees that are recorded by the organisation that employs them. In practice, this is normally carried out during recruitment and employers will have their own policies as to how gender and/or sex is recorded, whether that is self-reported or based on the legal documents held by the employee. Many employers will be mindful of requesting information that they may regard as unnecessarily intrusive.

With regards to people who identify as non-binary, an employer may or may or may not capture this information. The decision to allow employers to omit non-binary employees is based around these difficulties and the probable wide variation in how employers record such information. The regulations require that employers report binary information regarding men and women, and as such, there is no practical way to include non-binary people in gender pay gap reporting.      

In terms of gender pay gap reporting, the numbers of trans and/or non-binary employees is likely to be very low. This means that from a statistical perspective, such numbers are unlikely to be significant enough to effect (sic) the data adversely.

Once again, thank you for your query and we hope you have found this answer helpful.

Kind regards,

Gender Pay Gap Team

This jargon-filled spiel is the result of Stonewall having trained up the civil service, and I dare say they’re very proud of their handiwork. It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry.

The most obvious takeaway from their ludicrous response is the extent to which Queer Theory has been absorbed and embraced by the “Gender Pay Gap Team”.

The liberal and casual use of “trans” and “non-binary” is very telling, not least because neither is mentioned at all by the gender pay gap legislation or guidelines. And the reason for that, of course, is because this office is supposed to be reporting the sex pay gap.

What else does it tell us?

Government Equalities Office reporting lacks statistical rigour

In terms of gender pay gap reporting, the numbers of trans and/or non-binary employees is likely to be very low. This means that from a statistical perspective, such numbers are unlikely to be significant enough to effect (sic) the data adversely

But any pretence that rigorous data matters has been abandoned. How would they know how many “trans and/or non-binary employees” any company has? It’s neither measured nor declared.

They don’t know how many “trans and/or non-binary employees” are male, and how many are female.

They also don’t know if “trans and/or non-binary” employees are high or low earners. One very high earning man recorded as a woman in a small company would offset many low-paid women. I’d call that statistically significant.

The Government Equalities Office are promoting an ideology

The original email that triggered this response made no mention of non-binary. The Gender Pay Gap Team just assumed that someone who does not “identify as” male or female must be non-binary. (And begs the question, what other unevidenced assumptions underpin statistical reporting from the Government Equalities Office?)

What gender do you identify as:

Male

Female

Neither

Prefer not to say

They have deliberately used language that is ideological. But most people don’t talk or think about themselves in these terms, and for those of us who are better versed in this ideology than we ever wanted to be, it’s a matter of principle that we don’t “identify as” a gender but instead we are one sex or the other.

“Prefer not to say” looks like an opt-out for sex-realists, but according to the Gender Pay Gap Team this means they “identify as non-binary” and they can’t be reported.  

Not only is their data excluded, they’ve been classified as belonging to a category they don’t even recognise.

And if those people are overwhelmingly women (or low earners, or men, or high earners), it’s likely that this will prove to be statistically significant too.

The Government Equalities Office is ignoring legal requirements

With regards to people who identify as non-binary, an employer may or may or may not capture this information. The decision to allow employers to omit non-binary employees is based around these difficulties and the probable wide variation in how employers record such information. The regulations require that employers report binary information regarding men and women, and as such, there is no practical way to include non-binary people in gender pay gap reporting.      

This might be the most extraordinary overreach of all. “Non-binary” does not exist in law, and most certainly doesn’t exist for gender pay gap reporting. Because it is a nonsense.  

As an attempt to justify the exclusion of pay data for goodness-knows-how-many people it is at best feeble and at worst deliberately misleading.

The regulations are clear: employers must report data for males and females. They must report binary information because there are only two sexes and every person who ever lived was one of those sexes.

It’s beyond ludicrous that government departments are trashing our data to further this cult.  

We must continue to object.