The Census can’t keep LGBTQ people in the closet

Seal of the United States Census Bureau
Photo by: Wikimedia Commons

The historic Supreme Court ruling that the Civil Rights Act protects LGBTQ people from workplace discrimination is an enormous and hard-fought victory on the heels of the 50^th anniversary of the first Pride march.

Yet, there is so much that is unknown about the contours and scope of that discrimination because of how the government closets LGBTQ people when collecting data. For instance, what’s the unemployment rate for gay or transgender people? Or, the rate of violence against these groups?

Related: What the U.S. Census means to LGBTQ people & why you should fill it out. Now.

Basic parts of the data reporting and collecting structure the federal government uses, like the Census, simply do not collect information about these groups. Not only does it then become hard to track these questions for the LGBTQ community writ large, understanding the intersections— like how Black trans women are impacted by these problems, for example — becomes even more difficult, often letting the most marginalized slip through the cracks.

In the information age, where data rules supreme, the U.S. government is in the dark…

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