Australian Bureau of Statistics defends not asking questions on gender identity and sexual orientation in 2021 Census

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has defended not asking questions on gender identity and sexual orientation in the 2021 Census.

Equality Australia said the Government needed to take steps to count LGBTQI+ people in the Census, joining countries like New Zealand, Canada and the UK.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has defended not asking questions on gender identity and sexual orientation in the 2021 Census, and revealed it will go “to some trouble” to analyse responses from Australians who wrote comments along with their answer to the question on their sex.

The only question asked by the ABS on the topic was whether respondents identified as “male”, “female” or “non-binary”.

Equality Australia said the Government needed to take steps to count LGBTQI+ people in the Census, joining countries like New Zealand, Canada and the UK which had already done so.

“Once again lesbian, gay, bi+, transgender, intersex and queer people are not properly represented in the census data, because the ABS and the minister responsible at the time failed to ensure much-needed questions about sexual orientation, gender identity or variations in sex characteristics were asked or asked properly,” Equality Australia chief executive Anna Brown said.

“Until we’re counted, we’ll remain invisible. That’s why – with the first release of 2021 census data – our communities are coming together again to say that it’s time for the Census to stop leaving LGBTIQ+ people out, and count us in.”

LGBTIQ+ Health Australia also criticised the fact the Census kept Australia “in the dark” about the LGBTQI+ community.

“Had appropriate questions been included in the 2021 Census, today we would have access to a whole range of data that we urgently need to be able to better respond to the health disparities that LGBTIQ+ people live with,” LGBTIQ+ chief executive Nicky Bath said.

“I call on the Federal Government to ensure that in 2027 when the data is released from the 2026 Census that the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Statistics Standard for Sex, Gender, Variation of Sex Characteristics and Sexual Orientation Variables… is included.”

ABS statistician David Gruen said it was not up to the ABS to decide the questions in the Census.

“The parliament and the government determine the topics of the Census and for the 2021 Census the ABS was instructed to ask a question to ask a question on sex but not on gender and not on sexual orientation,” he said.

“There will be an opportunity to revisit that at the 2026 census and the ABS will be engaging in a public consultation process starting later this year to ask the community if there are other questions people think we should be asking.”

However, Dr Gruen said more insights would be offered in two months’ time, with comments made in the section about gender to be collated.

“We are going to go to some trouble to carefully analyse the results of the sex question and put out an analytical article in a couple of months which will go into detail about… those answers,” he said.

“People not only answered the question but had the opportunity to write comments and we will be providing detail on that.”