The U.S. Census Bureau, after nearly a year of pushing the Biden administration, will begin testing questions pertaining to LGBTQ+ identity on its American Community Survey (ACS). These questions would ask people about their sexual orientation and gender identity.
The Bureau put out a Federal Register notice signifying that this is the last chance for the public to give comment on all pending ACS questions, including those pertaining to LGBTQ+ individuals. The deadline given for comment is May 30, with an online form provided for any feedback on these questions.
The wording for these questions can be found on the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs website.
After the Bureau’s deadline, it will be submitting the questions to the Office of Management and Budget, where they will await approval for testing in the summer.
The ACS asks questions about demographic, socioeconomic, and housing-related topics annually. New questions must undergo a rigorous approval and testing process that can take months or years.
The only LGBTQ+ question it currently asks is whether the participant is married to someone of the same sex.
This current process was initiated back in September 2023, when the Census Bureau asked the Biden administration for permission to begin the testing phase of these questions. The public comment period was initiated in February of this year, with mostly positive responses.
“The currently too-limited data resources stand in stark contrast to the numerous policy debates and legislative efforts focused on these populations,” said Gary Gates, a retired demographer, to the Associated Press.
However, like several others, Gates also had critiques of things like the wording of some of the possible responses to questions, including “Straight, that is not gay” as a response to the question about sexual orientation.
“The phrase is patently offensive,” Gates said. “Not being gay is hardly an accurate definition of a straight identity…. Why emphasize that they specifically are not gay? It is simply not an adequate description of straight identity.”
Others critiqued the requirement of people to answer their assigned sex at birth or the separation of “transgender” from “male” and “female” on the gender identity question. Additionally, there were criticisms given for the lack of inclusion of intersex, asexual, and pansexual individuals within any of the questions.
Conservatives have taken issue with the inclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals on these questions at all. Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and J.D. Vance (R-OH) wrote a letter to the director of the Census Bureau opposing the specific inclusion of “gender identity.”
Nancy Bates, lesbian and a sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) data collection expert who was named a member of the 2030 Census Advisory Committee, told Bay Area Reporter that she was satisfied with the ACS questions.
“This test is extremely critical and will move the needle forward on our understanding of SOGI reporting using a single household proxy to report for all members.”
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