Queer Conflicts, Concept Capture and Category Co-Option: The Importance of Context in the State Collection and Recording of Sex/Gender Data
| Author | Ben Collier,Sharon Cowan |
| Published date | 01 October 2022 |
| Date | 01 October 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/09646639211061409 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Queer Conflicts, Concept
Capture and Category
Co-Option: The
Importance of Context in
the State Collection and
Recording of Sex/Gender
Data
Ben Collier and Sharon Cowan
Edinburgh University, UK
Abstract
Queer, trans and non-binary lives, bodies, relationships, and communities often compli-
cate the taken-for-granted processes through which the state manages those under its
power. In this article, we explore the forms of power and harm at play in attempts to
quantify people through administrative processes of state data collection about sex
and gender, and in the current UK and Scottish context, examine some of the sites
for wider conflicts over constructions of sex and gender in public life. We emphasise
the need to collect sex/gender data in ways that reflect the intersectional lives of data
‘subjects.’We also suggest that governments and public bodies should not adopt a uni-
tary definition of sex or gender in data collection exercises such as the census, or other
administrative categories such as criminal justice records, and argue those who lobby to
record ‘sex not gender’in data collection are engaging in a strategy of concept capture
(reducing sex to a binary, biological model that excludes trans and non-binary people)
through the co-option of a number of administrative and legal categories across a wide
range of social and political fora. We conclude by recommending that public bodies ask-
ing about sex and gender should: co-produce questions with the community that is being
surveyed; ensure that the wording of each question, and its rubric, is sensitive to the
context in which it is asked and the purpose for which it is intended; and avoid
Corresponding author:
Sharon Cowan, School of Law, Edinburgh University, Edinburgh, UK.
Email: s.cowan@ed.ac.uk
Article
Social & Legal Studies
2022, Vol. 31(5) 746–772
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/09646639211061409
journals.sagepub.com/home/sls
attempting to offer any overarching standard definition of sex or gender that would be
applicable in all circumstances. To engage in meaningful sex/gender data collection and
recording that does not cause harm, governments and public bodies should avoid relying
on reductive, over-simplistic and generalistic categories that are designed to fit the stan-
dardised norm. In being attentive to individual contexts, needs and interests when for-
mulating categories and records, they can make space for more intersectional
experiences to be made visible.
Keywords
sex, gender, queer, trans, non-binary, data collection, census, concept capture
Introduction
Queer, trans and non-binary lives, bodies, relationships, and communities often compli-
cate the taken-for-granted processes through which the state manages the people who
come under its power. In this article, we explore the forms of power and harm at play
in attempts to quantify queer people through administrative processes of state data collec-
tion, and how, in the current UK and Scottish context, these have become a site for wider
conflicts over constructions of sex and gender in public life.
In the UK, there is a clear duty for public bodies to collect information pertaining to the
delivery of services, and a broader duty on government to collect statistical information,
particularly as regards what are commonly referred to as ‘protected characteristics’–i.e.
the types of characteristics –such as age, sex, race and disability –that the UK Equality
Act 2010 (EqA) protects from discrimination. Collection of this sort of information is
intended to inform public policy and service delivery, and facilitate wider dissemination
of information to the public. Whether intended or not, it also increases the visibility and
intelligibilityof a broader diversity of humanlived experience, potentiallythereby reducing
stigma and discrimination against more marginalised groups and individuals.
These obligations and incentives to collect information have to be balanced with a
duty to minimise potential harm associated with over-intrusive attempts to count and
measure populations and their needs or experiences. This includes balancing the need
for information against the burden on respondents of answering surveys and censuses;
and the individual right to privacy, particularly under Article 8 of the European
Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), as well as the collective need for and public inter-
est in security and privacy.
Recently, there have been a range of social conflicts across the UK focused on the cat-
egorisation and collection of data –the administrative systems that regulate and measure
our lives, and the systems of social power they embody. The categories embedded in
apparently-innocuous collections of data are sites of struggle, shaping directly who
‘counts’as what for the purposes of public life. Thus, these ‘category conflicts’matter
deeply.
Some of these conflicts have focused on what we mean by sex/gender data, and the
importance and impact of collecting such data. In December 2020, the Office of the
Collier and Cowan 747
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