Jay Todd 🏳️⚧️
@jaytoddgla.bsky.social
416 followers 265 following 164 posts
Non-binary researcher of trans lives in the UK. Human geographer. ABBA devotee. Geordie in Glasgow. they/them www.gla.ac.uk/schools/ges/staff/jay…
Non-binary researcher of trans lives in the UK. Human geographer. ABBA devotee. Geordie in Glasgow. they/them www.gla.ac.uk/schools/ges/staff/jay…
![Text that reads - Such notions of ‘ethics’ and ‘clarity’ dismiss lived and embodied experience in research design and deviate from well-established ethical standards. There will be cases where referring to someone as ‘male’ or ‘female’ against their will or knowledge, including when reporting findings on gender or sex at individual and aggregate levels, would constitute misgendering and undermine participant autonomy. This would, we argue, contravene ethical guidance of bodies such as the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), which states the primary role of Research Ethics Committees is to ‘ensure that the research will respect the dignity, rights, welfare and, where possible, the autonomy of participants and all parties involved in and potentially affected by the research’ (UKRI: ESRC 2025), and the UK Research Integrity Office principle that the ‘dignity, rights, safety, and wellbeing of participants must be the primary consideration in any research study’ (Parry et al. 2025, 15). Indeed, SR2 (17) explicitly calls for the ESRC to review its ethical guidance, including by acknowledging ‘the risk of politicisation of ethics processes’, a risk which it implicitly regards itself as outside of. SR1 (3) argues that ‘the purpose of survey data collection is to gather data about populations rather than to provide an opportunity for each individual to express the full complexity and richness of their identity’. While we acknowledge that no survey could capture such richness, this statement, taken alongside SR1's data categorisation and university ethics reform recommendations, risks deviating from the ESRC's principle that ‘[t]he rights and dignity of individuals and groups should be respected’ (UKRI: ESRC 2025, n.p.).](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:g23fjaa6rtl3x5ue74kcquan/bafkreia2xrsihlqlbb2wxgrmtergvrglnk2nktkksh6lwptag5go7hiwry)
