Shouldn't it be "are" instead "is"?

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He said the identity and gender of the victim is yet to be ascertained.

Shouldn’t it be “are” instead “is”?

Thanks.

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Yes.

He said the identity and gender of the victim are yet to be ascertained.

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In my view,
He said, 'The identity and gender of the victim is yet to be ascertained."
He said, 'The identity and the gender of the victim are yet to be ascertained."
He said that the identity and gender of the victim was yet to be ascertained.

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Is “the identity and gender” one thing or two things?

I feel strongly both ways.

When I wrote my original response, after thinking about it, I took the easy way out and said two nouns = two things.

But, if the writer was thinking of “identity and gender” as being one thing, then “is” would be correct. If the writer is proficient in English, the use of “is” would imply that he does think of “identity and gender” as one thing.

On the other hand , gender is part of identity. He could have just said “identity” or “identity, including gender”, but he called out “gender” as something separate, perhaps to emphasize it as being of particular importance in his context. This would, I think mean that they are two things.

Bottom line: No reader is going to analyze the sentence like this. I don’t think anyone would actually notice which verb you use.

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