The Scientist's View

12.16.2008

Gay question on the census???

Mike Petrelis has an interesting post today about the need for a gay census.

His blog entry has a longish statement of support for the idea from Larry Kramer (LOVE HIM!) as well as plans for Britain to do a census that includes questions about sexual orientation/identity/preference (whatever they want to call it now).

It would be an interesting experiment to try - have an official statistic to account for how many "non-straight" people there are in the country (and by geography/state/locality). I do wonder how people would react to a question on a census form that asks about your identity?

Here are the two forms and their questions for the 2000 census:

What are the U. S. Census Questions?

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are two types of forms, and only one will be mailed to your residence. The mailing is done by random computer selection. The first form is called the short form. This is mailed to 83% of all United States households. This form is very basic and has seven questions for the head of the household: name, age, date of birth, sex, race, Hispanic origin, homeowner or renter. The rest of the individuals in the house receive six questions: name, age, date of birth, sex, race, and Hispanic origin.

The second form is called the “long form.” This is the form that people could have a problem with as a more intrusive invasion of privacy since it has 53 questions. This form is mailed out to 17% of the population. The computer selection sends this to one out of every six households.

Generally, the U.S. Census long form covers the following subjects as allowed by federal law (Title 13 of the USCS):

Social characteristics of Population: marital status, place of birth, citizenship, year of entry, education-school enrollment, educational attainment, ancestry, residence 5 years ago (migration), language spoken at home, veteran status, disability, grandparents as care givers.

Economic characteristics of Population: labor force status (current), place of work and journey to work, work status last year, industry, occupation, class of worker, income (previous year).

Physical characteristics of Housing: units in structure, number of rooms, number of bedrooms, plumbing and kitchen facilities, year structure built, year moved into unit, house heating fuel, telephone, vehicles available, farm residence.

Financial characteristics of Housing: value of home, monthly rent, shelter costs, (selected monthly owner costs)


So it is pretty clear from the 2000 census template that there is easily room in the census long questionnaire under "Social Characteristics of the Population" to slide in a question about sexual oreintation/identity/preference.

I thought about the questions asked and one really stuck out in my mind - the one called "Grandparents as Care Givers". Now this must be a socially engineered question because it evokes one of two thoughts in my mind: 1) poor kids, mom and dad died in some accident and the kids had to be raised by grandma/grandpa and/or 2) poor kids, mom and dad vanished for some reason (drugs, escaping the law, abandonment, etc) and the kids had to be raised by grandma/grandpa.

Now I don't intend to be non-sympathetic, but who really cares from a census standpoint how many grandparents are primarily the child's care-giver? If that statistic is of sufficient concern to the general populace to make it onto the long form questionnaire then it seems of sufficient merit in some social engineering way to be calculated.

Given that we are seeing a pretty "active" discussion about gays and gay rights in our country and we have NO idea how many "non-straight" folks are out there, it is a pretty reasonable idea to include a question about sexual orientation. Now if this were to make it onto the census form, how many multiple choice questions are provided and in what order?

Example:

Please describe your sexual orientation/identity (Reminder: All census form information is for statistical use only and individual identities will not be revealed).
a) male homosexual
b) female homosexual
c) male bisexual
d) female bisexual
e) asexual
f) transgendered
g) intersex
h) queer

Now I have always like queer as a "non straight" bin because even the most sincere of our activists will make some joke about how unwieldy the "non-straight" acronym is and what it is. It is always like GLBTIQ, LGBTI, GLBT, etc. Its like the word scramble that doesn't make a real word. So lets say that we pick the letters G (gay), L (lesbian), B (bisexual), A (asexual), T (transgender), I (intersex), Q (queer) - best I can come up with is GLABTIQ (pronounced glab TIK') which isn't exactly charming.

Acronyms are a pretty interesting part of the whole equation - I have sat in on meetings and read about many more meetings where the question of the order of the letters in the acronym is somehow important and it seems that G or L always starts the acronym. However, if we are to believe Kinsey, wouldn't B start the acronym? And do we really know how many asexual people there are out there? Lots of men married for >10 years would claim their wives are asexual. How many men are asexual? Are there more people who are asexual than gay/lesbian?

My point, and there is one in here somewhere, is that if we don't know the basic stats of our community beyond the oft cited (and suspiciously rounded off ratio) of 1:10 are gay(-ish), then we don't have the ability to be considered (or recognized legitimately) as a minority. Liberal mayors and mayoral candidates in big cities always appear at gay pride parades, there are alot of votes there. Similarly, if we had gay numbers from the census, it might make politicians (and policy makers) think about how to approach their communities. If you have 5%-10% of your community that is "non-straight", that is a pretty decent chunk. And the converse is also true, if only 0.1% of your community is "non-straight", then there is little incentive from politicians or policy makers to consider gay rights in a voter context.

It is a pretty compelling idea to get some hard statistics on the number of "non-straights" in America.


PS: Who would play Larry Kramer in a biopic of his life??? Ben Kingsley could easily handle the older Larry.

2 Comments:

At 10:26 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I would have a young Paul Lynde play you in an epic cinematic biography.

 
At 5:12 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mr. Scientist, you are such an interesting, funny writer. I did a Yahoo search for "isisorettes" because I wondered how they got along at the inauguration parade and never saw anything on the Register. Your blog from I believe July of 2007 came up and I am now hooked on your daily comings and goings. This, I suppose, is what a blog is all about? I am straight, 41, two kids, married, blah blah blah. My sister is gay and married to her partner in Minneapolis. You remind me of her in your closeness to your friends and lovers, and your humor. Well I just wanted to say hello to you and tell you I enjoyed reading your blog very much. I'm glad you came to Iowa and I'm hoping Iowa will continue to be good to you and yours, despite the cold. Take care, Rachel

 

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