Sex is a fundamental biological characteristic, routinely observed and recorded at birth as part of standard healthcare. It is a crucial piece of information for patient safety and care throughout life. And the NHS is also a major employer in situations where sex matters. While the Sullivan Review is long and detailed, its core point is conceptually simple and common sense: biological sex is binary and immutable, and recording it accurately requires a clearly defined, consistent data field.

The Sex Matters Memo Update from Maya The Sullivan Review has been a long time coming, and it is so good! (Everyone should read its recommendations, so this memo is going out to our whole mailing list – do read our review of the highlights.) <


Professor Alice Sullivan of University College London and her team set out in careful detail the grave problems with official data collection on sex, in areas including health, justice, education and the economy. Professor Sullivan is on our advisory group, as is Lucy Hunter Blackburn of research collective MBM, the members of which were part of the research team.


Sex Matters was interviewed for the report. We sent them our Data matters guide and wrote to the review team about a specific issue with police data-recording practices (see footnote 454!). But other than that we were in the dark about the team’s research and recommendations until they came out.


The report has had excellent press coverage, covered by the BBC and The Guardian, making the front pages of The Times, The Telegraph and the Daily Mail, and immediately receiving a public response from Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. Streeting has promised to act on the findings, and has told the NHS to stop changing the recorded sex and issuing new NHS numbers for children who identify as trans.


One of the case studies in the Sullivan Report concerned a three-week-old baby, whose records were altered at a parent’s request to change the sex recorded. In coverage by Geraldine Scott for The Times, I was quoted as saying that changing sex markers on children’s medical records should never have been allowed, and that it was not just misguided but reckless.


Sex is a fundamental biological characteristic, routinely observed and recorded at birth as part of standard healthcare. It is a crucial piece of information for patient safety and care throughout life. And the NHS is also a major employer in situations where sex matters.


While the Sullivan Review is long and detailed, its core point is conceptually simple and common sense: biological sex is binary and immutable, and recording it accurately requires a clearly defined, consistent data field.

This is the point we have been making to the government in relation to the Data (Use and Access) Bill and digital identity verification. We have sent a briefing to MPs on how the Data Bill provides the opportunity for a coherent cross-cutting approach to the problems mapped out in the Sullivan Review.