The Anonymous Widower

Disappearance Of Biological Sex In Research ‘Is Like Stalin-Era Purge’

The title of this post, is the same as that of this article in The Times.

This is the sub-heading.

Sir Anthony Finkelstein, a university vice-chancellor, laments that the category has become ‘politically uncomfortable’

These three paragraphs add detail to the post.

 

A university vice-chancellor has warned of the “quiet disappearance” of sex as a recorded variable in academic research, likening pressure to abandon politically sensitive classifications to Stalin-era persecution of statisticians.

According to Times Higher Education, Sir Anthony Finkelstein, head of City St George’s, University of London, made the remarks at an event to discuss the Sullivan review, which recommended that biological sex be used as the default category in research data collection.

Finkelstein said it was essential that researchers retain established classifications for sex in their statistical analysis. He said: “In recent years, there’s been growing unease about recording sex as a basic variable, and pressure — sometimes explicit and sometimes ambient — to replace it with or collapse it into gender identity.”

I fund and participate in medical research and certainly wouldn’t do so, if I felt the research was not being conducted  in a scientifically-correct manner.

 

February 16, 2026 Posted by | Health | , , , , | Leave a comment