Queering the census: We ALL count!

[melannen]

...except, of course, those of us who still don't exist.

This is about the Queer the Census campaign, sponsored by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force among other groups: they want the US Census to include a question about sexual orientation, and until then, they are giving people free stickers with sexual orientation checkboxes on them that they can use to seal the envelopes they send their census forms back in.

Except, of course, what are the choices on the stickers that say "Attn. Census Bureau: It's Time To Count Everyone"?

You can be gay, lesbian, bi, transgender, or a straight ally. That's it. Not even an "other" option.

...I like to support pro-GBLT stuff, but I have to admit, this is one of those times when I get slightly bitter about it. Yes! Let's get queer people in the census! As long as they're the *normal* queer people! What do the rest of you think? Any ideas on what we can do about it? The "Queering the Census" website doesn't have any contact methods, but I'm debating finding e-mail addresses for the groups that are sponsoring it.

Comments

[charamei]

*headdesk*

As a dirty foreigner I don't believe there's much I can actually do to help (although if I'm wrong, please do tell me!) - but you have my support.

[melannen]

Well, the thing I'm complaining about isn't anything to do with the census, officially - it's being done by a bunch of LGBT advocacy groups - so non-US people complaining ought to have the same grounds as US people. I'm just not sure *where* to complain. (Except here!)

[mommy]

I'm happy that there's publicity and support for various queer people. I really am! But it's kind of tiring to never see that support for my own orientation.

Is there an "other" option on the original Census? If there is, then this situation is slightly less annoying.

[melannen]

There's never been a sexual orientation question on the census, as far as I know - this is an effort to get it added for the first time. I seem to recall there was something of a fight to get an "other" option for race and they keep trying to take it off, but there is still an "other" option there, anyway. (They're really cut down the census questions this year, so a lot of things that might have needed an "other" aren't on it any more. Gender still doesn't have an other, though, AFAIK. Still, if the point of this is to make it *better*...)

I just ... if your motto is "we ALL count" maybe you ought to think about inclusivity a little, yeah?

[true_statement]

I'm all in favour of queering the census, but that sticker's really grr-inducing.

[melannen]

Yeah. I mean, I guess they were going for just spelling out the LGBT acronym rather than proposing an acual question, but I'm still not going to order a sticker that has no box for me.

[finch]

As an only marginally related gripe, I hate having to point out that my TG status is not related to my sexual orientation.

[princess]

Thanks! I was just going to ask that, since I had a lesbian transgender parent, and was wondering if the T shouldn't maybe be under gender?

[melannen]

I can see how it would be relevant for a sexual orientation question if you don't subscribe to binary gender - l/g/b implies a binary, which doesn't work for everyone, so a transgender option at least gives those people something to check - but it is certainly not *ideal*, because, like you said, it implies that transgender is a sexual orientation, and it lumps all trans people together in a separate category whether they identify with a binary gender or not. Neither of which are true.

(And you'd think an LGBT advocacy group that was actually concerned about people who don't identify as male xor female would be at least as interested in getting more than two options for gender on the form as they are in a sexual orientation question. Possibly more interested, since everybody already gets the gender question on the short form. And yet they do not seem to be.)

[finch]

It would be more effective to have a [] pansexual box if that was that they were getting at, but god knows people wouldn't know what that meant. XD

Gender should really be []male []female []none of the above or something, at least.

[fizzyblogic]

I don't like that those are the only options. Hrmph.

[elf]

I have mixed feelings on the whole "Queer the Census" concept. On the one hand, yeah, it'd be nice to have more awareness of queerness all around, and statistics would help with that. On the other, I'm not sure it's something the census should measure, any more than it measures religion. (The basic census form, at least, does not mention religion. I gather there's a more detailed form that some households get.)

Counting heads & income levels & location & education are all what I think of as public statistics; I'm not sure personal details should be tangled into that. Any attempt to "count" sexualities or orientations is going to leave people out, because unlike income levels, there aren't nice neat boundaries where you can say "if you're in Category A, you're not in Category B."

[melannen]

I have mixed feelings as well; I'm enough of a demographer at heart that I adore the idea of getting gsolid numbers on orientation for once, but it would be incredibly difficult to get any sort of accurate numbers, I think (esp. given the fact, as evidenced here, that nobody can really agree on what the categories should be.) I'm not sure exactly how they would be relevant for the sorts of things the census is usually used for. (I can see how it could be relevant, but there's not that much federal funding going out about sexual-orientation related stuff anyway. Which I suppose is the point. But if I was running an LGBT organization, I personally would be more interested in getting the federal funding to trans people, especially as regards medical and social work stuff.)

.. (And it seems like somehing of a futile effort this year anyway, since they've cut a whole *ton* of questions out of the short form already, including the religion ones, iirc.)

[alafaye]

This. Thank you :) How does sexuality matter to the public stats? Why?