The survey was sent to all members by the parliament’s director of people, communications and inclusion, Lorna Hunter, with a deadline set for Friday 5 June.
It states the public has a “legitimate interest” in understanding the “sex and, where appropriate, trans status” of elected representatives.
Hunter said in the email: “Following the election, some information was made available online before it had been confirmed directly by individual MSPs. Once identified, it was removed from the Parliament’s website.
“To address this, an additional confirmation step has been introduced for the current parliamentary session to ensure relevant diversity information is confirmed directly with individual MSPs before use.”
MSP’s will be asked whether they “consider themselves to be trans”, defined as “people whose gender is not the same as the sex they were registered at birth”.
They are also asked to detail their trans status. The survey uses examples of “non-binary, trans man, trans woman”.
It finally asks for their consent to “process the data” for publication on the Scottish Parliament website and to be held by its internal systems.
Members have the option not to consent to their sex or trans status being published online.
In that situation, their information would be listed as “undisclosed”.
