My general test for any political discussion is to replace one group of protected characteristics with another and see if the discussion still seems reasonable - would we be using the terms the "race debate" or the "disabled debate"?
A good starting point would be for everyone to admit trans people exist and deserve dignity to live their…
My general test for any political discussion is to replace one group of protected characteristics with another and see if the discussion still seems reasonable - would we be using the terms the "race debate" or the "disabled debate"?
A good starting point would be for everyone to admit trans people exist and deserve dignity to live their lives but also there are some practical concerns, particularly for Women. What we should be talking about is safe-guarding, provision of social care / prison services and design of toilets / changing spaces to maximise dignity and safety for all.
PS. I bet if we went with public opinion polling at the time, I'm pretty sure we would still have race segregation, homosexuality would be illegal etc. E.g. have a look at the polling around repeal of Section 28 in 2000: https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/public-attitudes-section-28
On your first point, I'm not sure that really solves "what to call it", as it implies a second order question – "what characteristics should be protected?" – which itself is contested in this circumstance (whether you agree it should be or not, again, there are clearly two pools of people with very divergent views!)
And I take your point about things we now look back on as universally good polling badly at the time. I had a whole cut section on this, citing the gay marriage debate as an obvious one that basically everyone agrees is good now, and the Iraq war as an instance where there was a thing that previously polled (relatively) well that everyone now agrees was a disaster. But I guess my point here is _because_ not everyone agrees, there's an electoral trade off to be made with doing what you feel is the most right. (Again, to draw an analogy, look at how Obama had to pretend he opposed gay marriage until public opinion caught up.)
That probably links in quite well with your Starmer piece previously.
I am very wary with the polls about this - the sheer quantity of questions, and the whole garden path of them, in the YouGov poll could well be leading a lot of respondents to respond in a way that is negative towards trans people.
The explanations provided by YouGov with the questions don't go into enough detail for anyone to proclaim that they show a truer picture than the more general polls.
Fully Agree - I'm sure on this topic, subtle changes in wording will prompt different responses. Also I might be cynical but polls are generally commissioned by newspapers who have a particular agenda in asking questions.
There's also a question of weighting. It's often described as what the public things but it's more likely to be weighted to people voting. Considering the young don't vote as much and likely to be more liberal on these matters, it could be misinterpreted.
On weighting, maybe, but I presume YouGov would have weighted it in the same way they do normal political polls - so unless they also systematically under-count young people, I’m not sure why this would be an exception.
On changes in wording - agree that makes a big difference, as demonstrated by the questions on trans people using changing rooms and the big shift once the question specifies that the hypothetical person has had not surgery. Given this though, I’m sceptical of how you could ask a similar question about another downstream policy outcome from Self-ID and get a more positive response vs the vaguer question.
Political polls are generally weighted to represent the 67% of people that vote, not the general public. This is reinforced by Redfield and Wilton describing their sample as "British Voters". Although yougov says "Britains"? so it's not clear that they do.
So we have to be really careful here that we are not confusing voters with the public. Adults as a whole will be younger and likely to be less conservative on these issues.
I suspect you could get different answers if you didn't include the word trans, whether the changing room was communal or not. Actually they completely miss the real question which is would you prefer trans-men or trans-women to use your facilities? (It is sex as originally assigned or outward gender that matters more?)
I realised that Yougov are good at publishing their data tables. I checked the aged splits and they are proportional to the age groups so it does represent the adult population not voters. I shouldn't have been cynical!
My general test for any political discussion is to replace one group of protected characteristics with another and see if the discussion still seems reasonable - would we be using the terms the "race debate" or the "disabled debate"?
A good starting point would be for everyone to admit trans people exist and deserve dignity to live their lives but also there are some practical concerns, particularly for Women. What we should be talking about is safe-guarding, provision of social care / prison services and design of toilets / changing spaces to maximise dignity and safety for all.
PS. I bet if we went with public opinion polling at the time, I'm pretty sure we would still have race segregation, homosexuality would be illegal etc. E.g. have a look at the polling around repeal of Section 28 in 2000: https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/public-attitudes-section-28
On your first point, I'm not sure that really solves "what to call it", as it implies a second order question – "what characteristics should be protected?" – which itself is contested in this circumstance (whether you agree it should be or not, again, there are clearly two pools of people with very divergent views!)
And I take your point about things we now look back on as universally good polling badly at the time. I had a whole cut section on this, citing the gay marriage debate as an obvious one that basically everyone agrees is good now, and the Iraq war as an instance where there was a thing that previously polled (relatively) well that everyone now agrees was a disaster. But I guess my point here is _because_ not everyone agrees, there's an electoral trade off to be made with doing what you feel is the most right. (Again, to draw an analogy, look at how Obama had to pretend he opposed gay marriage until public opinion caught up.)
That probably links in quite well with your Starmer piece previously.
I am very wary with the polls about this - the sheer quantity of questions, and the whole garden path of them, in the YouGov poll could well be leading a lot of respondents to respond in a way that is negative towards trans people.
The explanations provided by YouGov with the questions don't go into enough detail for anyone to proclaim that they show a truer picture than the more general polls.
Fully Agree - I'm sure on this topic, subtle changes in wording will prompt different responses. Also I might be cynical but polls are generally commissioned by newspapers who have a particular agenda in asking questions.
There's also a question of weighting. It's often described as what the public things but it's more likely to be weighted to people voting. Considering the young don't vote as much and likely to be more liberal on these matters, it could be misinterpreted.
On weighting, maybe, but I presume YouGov would have weighted it in the same way they do normal political polls - so unless they also systematically under-count young people, I’m not sure why this would be an exception.
On changes in wording - agree that makes a big difference, as demonstrated by the questions on trans people using changing rooms and the big shift once the question specifies that the hypothetical person has had not surgery. Given this though, I’m sceptical of how you could ask a similar question about another downstream policy outcome from Self-ID and get a more positive response vs the vaguer question.
Political polls are generally weighted to represent the 67% of people that vote, not the general public. This is reinforced by Redfield and Wilton describing their sample as "British Voters". Although yougov says "Britains"? so it's not clear that they do.
So we have to be really careful here that we are not confusing voters with the public. Adults as a whole will be younger and likely to be less conservative on these issues.
I suspect you could get different answers if you didn't include the word trans, whether the changing room was communal or not. Actually they completely miss the real question which is would you prefer trans-men or trans-women to use your facilities? (It is sex as originally assigned or outward gender that matters more?)
I realised that Yougov are good at publishing their data tables. I checked the aged splits and they are proportional to the age groups so it does represent the adult population not voters. I shouldn't have been cynical!