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{Thread} LGB Alliance recently posted a thread critical of the 2017 Government Equalities Office Research into the experiences of LGBT+ people in the UK, and it's interesting going through the criticisms as a social research student.
The first criticism is one of representativeness. LGB Alliance argue that the data may not be representative of the actual LGBT population in the UK due to the survey respondents being self-selected.
This is a common criticism of these types of survey. An alternative to volunteer sampling is using a polling company etc. to randomly talk to a wide range of people, but for small groups such as LGBT people there are other methodological shortcomings.
Using random sampling necessitates those people having signed up to a polling organisation (self-selection) and them being willing to answer a *very* long survey. (Unlikely.) There are problems with volunteer sampling, but many of these can be fixed with a large enough sample.
Over *100,000 people* responded to the survey, making it the largest survey of its kind in British history. That overcomes some of the shortfalls of volunteer sampling techniques. I therefore don't think this critique is entirely good faith.
It is also alleged that women were underrepresented in the survey and therefore it shouldn't have been used to help form policy. Good thing is, we can actually find out to what extent this is true BY LOOKING AT THE DATA!
LGB Alliance of course are mainly interested in the experience of cisgender women, and the data collection allows us to make that separation fairly easily. (Only 13% of the respondents were trans, fyi.) Of the cisgender respondents, 45% were women and 55% were men.
Breaking this down further, the younger the age group the more likely the cisgender respondents were women. 68% of 16-18 and 54.8% of 18-25 (the largest age group with the most respondents) were women. Only 32% of 55-64 were women.
There's a couple of conclusions we would draw. 1) young people are just more likely to identify as LGB and that explains the sample spread, 2) the survey oversampled young people. Likely to be both. But there's still a large sample of older cisgender LGB women to draw from!
LGBA disagree with the decision to survey LGBT intersex people and assert that it makes interpretation of the data difficult. They don't expand on this.
LGBA also assert that the LGBT survey includes those identifying as asexual, pansexual & genderqueer as "under the 'trans umbrella'", but there isn't any reference to this in the survey report.
LGBA also argue that pansexual means non-monogamous heterosexuality, when it is in fact an identity under the bi+ umbrella (often defined as being attracted to people regardless of gender/sex). It is very concerning an alleged LGB rights org do not know something this basic!
There's another criticism of using volunteer sampling (this time a criticism on YouGov, which is actually more randomised than the National LGBT Survey! There seems to be a poor understanding of survey methodology and sampling techniques. (Slight detour incoming)
First, it's worth stating that unless it is illegal to refuse to answer a survey, all surveys are essentially self-selecting. The census is an example of a survey that attempts to utilise the entire population, and even then it fails through missing homeless people etc.
The Nat LGBT Survey is truly a volunteer sample style survey. YouGov in comparison use stratified or randomised sampling based on their existing databanks of volunteers. It is bad social science to reject every survey that you don't like on the basis of using volunteer sampling!
CN: rape denial, lesbophobia
This is the comment that picked up the most flack on Twitter so far, but LGBA argue that women can't rape other women. It is worth being sensitive about the language survivors use to describe their experiences. This sort of nitpicking is disrespectful
This is the comment that picked up the most flack on Twitter so far, but LGBA argue that women can't rape other women. It is worth being sensitive about the language survivors use to describe their experiences. This sort of nitpicking is disrespectful
LGBA next criticise the survey's findings on conversion therapy, first alleging (incorrectly) that this isn't defined. In fact, the report defines it as, "techniques intended to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity".
LGBA also argue that the stats on conversion therapy would refer to clinicians challenging the gender identity of trans people. Let's look at the data! Of the *cisgender* respondents, 2.1% had undergone conversion therapy and a further 4.9% had it offered, clearly a big issue
The way in which LGBA dismiss the very real harm of conversion therapy without even looking at the data for cisgender LGB+ people is awful tbh. Ofc, the data on conversion therapy is massively influenced by age, ethnicity and faith, worth bearing in mind
Also worth bearing in mind that 4.3% of trans people had undergone conversion therapy and a further 8.3% had been offered. Very shocking figures, especially because the conversion therapy is likely to be recent given the younger-skewing age demographics of surveyed trans people
Next, there's a dismissal of the statistics on verbal harassment. Again, there's an assertion that this is something to do with trans people. If one ACTUALLY READS THE REPORT, we get a clearer picture.
(Worth stating throughout their thread, LGBA assert that GEO didn't disaggregate the data when in fact THEY DID ALL THE WAY THROUGHOUT, it's infuriating.)
If we look at the data, 24.3% of cisgender LGB+ people experienced "verbal harassment, insults or other hurtful comments" on the basis of being LGB in the past 12 months. A further 12.4% experienced outing, 2% physical violence and 1.8% sexual violence/harassment.
Clearly a big issue! If we look at trans respondents, 37.1% had experienced verbal harassment, 22.3% experienced outing, 5.3% physical violence & 4.9% sexual violence. Even if we discount all of verbal harassment to remove misgendering as harassment (as LGBA want), it is serious!
There's a dismissal of the long waiting times for trans people by LGBA. They assert that the data isn't comparative and that many groups experience long waiting times. However, the data is comparative within the data set.
12.8% of cisgender LGB+ respondents felt they had waiting too long for sexual health services, while 68% of trans people felt the same about access to Gender Identity Clinics. The claim by LGBA is false!
Next, LGBA mistakenly cite an AKT stat as a government stat arounds homelessness, derailing a crucial point that LGBT young people are especially likely to experience domestic abuse from parents.
The data (if they'd be bothered to read it) says that 14.4% of LGBT people experienced verbal harassment in the previous 12 months, and 8.6% controlling or coercive behaviour from a member of their household. For the most serious forms of harm more broadly, 38.2% were by parents.
LGBA argue, "In summary, the LGBT survey is statistically dubious, fails to disaggregate data, lacks definition of frequently-used unclear terms and omits key comparators." The first two are untrue, and the final one shows a lack of sociological imagination
