A new UK government-commissioned report is catching serious heat from LGBTQ+ rights groups, who claim it risks erasing trans and non-binary people from national statistics—and from existence. The so-called Sullivan Review, led by sociology professor Alice Sullivan, suggests ditching the collection of gender identity data in favor of strict “biological sex” metrics. But queer advocates say the report is not just flawed—it’s biased.
Published earlier this week, the Sullivan Review argues that recording legal or self-identified gender muddies the accuracy of data sets. Sullivan recommends that researchers “default” to categorizing individuals as male or female, claiming this approach “future-proofs” research. Translation: the review wants the world to fit into a neat, binary checkbox—non-binary and trans people be damned.
A Political Agenda Disguised as Science?
TransActual and the Feminist Gender Equality Network (FGEN) aren’t buying it. They argue the report is soaked in “factually incorrect assertions about the binary nature of sex and gender.” The real issue? Sullivan’s longstanding ties to Sex Matters, a gender-critical group that openly promotes rigid definitions of sex. Sullivan is not just affiliated with the organization—she’s written for it and served on its advisory board. So much for “independent,” right?
Keyne Walker, strategy director at TransActual, minced no words: “This report would do nothing to support equality and diversity. It would make gender data even less reliable.” The backlash also extends to the survey methods used in the review, which some say included “leading questions” and excluded options for non-binary or intersex individuals. Sounds less like a data review, more like a culture war in spreadsheet form.
Queer Lives Deserve Better Data
Critics warn that if the UK government adopts the review’s findings, it could spell disaster for public policy and research. “Data must reflect lived realities,” said a spokesperson for TransActual and FGEN, “and that includes gender identity, assigned sex at birth, and trans status.” Stripping out that complexity in favor of a “two boxes only” approach doesn’t just simplify the data—it erases people.
Dr. Kevin Guyan of the University of Edinburgh blasted the report as a hangover from the former Conservative government’s anti-woke crusade. “This is a Trump-style attempt to erase trans and non-binary people from existence in data,” he said, slamming the report’s ideological bent. Ironically, the health secretary Wes Streeting backed the findings, insisting that recording biological sex doesn’t negate gender identity. But that’s little comfort to a community that sees itself being erased in policy, one spreadsheet at a time.
LGBTQ+ Voices Fight Back
While some government departments have welcomed the report, LGBTQ+ advocacy groups are making clear they won’t go down quietly. They demand that public data reflect the actual, messy, beautiful diversity of real lives—not the binary fantasy pushed by gender-critical academics.
In a political climate increasingly hostile to trans rights, data isn’t just about numbers. It’s about visibility, representation, and survival. And for the LGBTQ+ community, this review sends a chilling message: if you’re not “biological” enough, your truth doesn’t count.
And that, darling, is just bad science.