Constructing a queer population? Asking about sexual orientation in Scotland’s 2022 census

Guyan, Kevin

doi:10.1080/09589236.2020.1866513

Cited by 14 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…The Census return is often presented in these arguments as aiming to produce an immutable and direct measurement of objective 'factual' or 'scientific' reality. In fact, the relationship between individual returns and the final outputs of the census is not linear, rather, it is deliberately constructed, complicated, corrected, brought into contact with other data sources, and obfuscated (Guyan, 2021). These processes begin with the design of the questions themselves.…”

Section: Designing Out Trans Inclusion the Censusmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This point has been taken up by Kath Browne in the context of governmental social research about people's race and ethnicity and their sexual identities: information about these categories is not merely raw data to be collected or measured, but rather the exercise of categorising and asking about those categories produces and legitimates certain kinds of racialised and gendered identities, and in so doing, complexity and nuance are often lost: she quotes Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick as saying, ‘knowledge does rather than simply is’ (2016: 234; see also Nobles, 2000 and Guyan, 2021). Thus, not only do these sorts of inquiries shape (and are shaped by) social interactions and discourses around identities, reifying and linearising narratives, and excluding or invisiblising even as they attempt to include and make visible the marginalised; they also, of course, have an impact on the distribution of resources, and the intensity of state surveillance and other governance and control mechanisms.…”

Section: Accounting For Intersectionalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this respect the guidance – and indeed the Scottish Government more generally – are lagging behind the direction of travel of recent cases in the UK; courts in asylum law and employment discrimination contexts have not only recognised non-binary sex/gender, but afford legal protections to those who identify as non-binary ( Mx M (gender identity – HJ (Iran) – terminology) El Salvador [2020] UKUT 313 (IAC)]; and Taylor v Jaguar Land Rover Limited ET/1304471/2018; see also White and Newbegin, 2021). Therefore, any data collection exercise question asking about sex (and not just trans status) should include the possibility for an answer that is non-binary, as well as ‘prefer not to say’ (Guyan, 2021).…”

Section: Collecting and Defining Sex And Gender In The Ukmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Through its status as the archetypical mode of state data collection it provides material examples of many of the key arguments around the collection of data on sex and gender. The Census is collected in the UK every 10 years, with all UK households legally required to take part (Guyan, 2021). It has historically collected information only on sex , using a binary category system in which respondents – including now trans respondents – self-identify as a man or a woman.…”

Section: Designing Out Trans Inclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Queer Conflicts, Concept Capture and Category Co-Option: The Importance of Context in the State Collection and Recording of Sex/Gender Data

Collier

Cowan

2022

Social & Legal Studies

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Queer, trans and non-binary lives, bodies, relationships, and communities often complicate the taken-for-granted processes through which the state manages those under its power. In this article, we explore the forms of power and harm at play in attempts to quantify people through administrative processes of state data collection about sex and gender, and in the current UK and Scottish context, examine some of the sites for wider conflicts over constructions of sex and gender in public life. We emphasise the need to collect sex/gender data in ways that reflect the intersectional lives of data ‘subjects.’ We also suggest that governments and public bodies should not adopt a unitary definition of sex or gender in data collection exercises such as the census, or other administrative categories such as criminal justice records, and argue those who lobby to record ‘sex not gender’ in data collection are engaging in a strategy of concept capture (reducing sex to a binary, biological model that excludes trans and non-binary people) through the co-option of a number of administrative and legal categories across a wide range of social and political fora. We conclude by recommending that public bodies asking about sex and gender should: co-produce questions with the community that is being surveyed; ensure that the wording of each question, and its rubric, is sensitive to the context in which it is asked and the purpose for which it is intended; and avoid attempting to offer any overarching standard definition of sex or gender that would be applicable in all circumstances. To engage in meaningful sex/gender data collection and recording that does not cause harm, governments and public bodies should avoid relying on reductive, over-simplistic and generalistic categories that are designed to fit the standardised norm. In being attentive to individual contexts, needs and interests when formulating categories and records, they can make space for more intersectional experiences to be made visible.

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Section: Designing Out Trans Inclusion the Censusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Accounting For Intersectionalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Collecting and Defining Sex And Gender In The Ukmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Designing Out Trans Inclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Queer Conflicts, Concept Capture and Category Co-Option: The Importance of Context in the State Collection and Recording of Sex/Gender Data

Collier

Cowan

2022

Social & Legal Studies

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“…2 The collection of data about LGBTQ people in the U.K. is among the most comprehensive in the world. For example, national censuses in 2021 and 2022 collect data about the sexual orientation and trans/gender identity of respondents aged 16 and over for the first time (Guyan, 2021). 3 National censuses follow research conducted by the Office for National Statistics in 2016, which estimated that 2.5% of the U.K. population aged 16 or above identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual or a sexual orientation 'Other' than heterosexual (LGBO) (GEO, 2018).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Diversity Monitoring in the Library

Guyan

2021

IJIDI

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The collection of data about the identity characteristics of library users is the latest development in a long history of contested categorisation practices. In this article, I highlight how the collection of data about lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) people has implications for the undertaking of diversity monitoring exercises in academic and public libraries. Based on experiences in the United Kingdom, I argue that recuperative efforts to ‘fix’ categorisation practices are not enough and overlook how categories of gender, sex and sexuality are constructed through the practice of diversity monitoring, how categories are positioned in time and space, and who is involved in decision-making about who to include and exclude from the category of ‘LGBTQ’.

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Lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth volunteering behaviors: Evidence from Northern Ireland

Van Matre

2024

Journal of Philanthropy and Marketing

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Youth volunteering is associated with a host of individual benefits, in addition to the service provided to organizations and communities. However, little is known about the volunteering behaviors of lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) youth. This is a large and growing lacuna in the literature, as recent demographic surveys show that younger people are far more likely to identify as LGBTQ than those in older generations across many countries. Using Hustinx et al.'s Inequality in Volunteering model as a theoretical lens and analyzing survey data from 16‐year‐olds in Northern Ireland, this research explores whether LGB youth experience inequalities in volunteering activities relative to their non‐LGB peers. Measures of volunteering activities include propensity to volunteer in formal and informal settings, motivations, location for formal volunteering, and experiences while volunteering. Findings indicate that LGB youth are less likely to volunteer in sports or religiously oriented organizations, more likely to volunteer in order to expand social networks, and less likely to report feeling appreciated by the organizations they volunteer with. I discuss implications for philanthropic organizations wanting to move towards creating inclusive environments for LGBTQ youth volunteers and call for increased investment in data collection within gender and sexual minority populations.

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Constructing a queer population? Asking about sexual orientation in Scotland’s 2022 census

Cited by 14 publications

References 18 publications

Queer Conflicts, Concept Capture and Category Co-Option: The Importance of Context in the State Collection and Recording of Sex/Gender Data

Queer Conflicts, Concept Capture and Category Co-Option: The Importance of Context in the State Collection and Recording of Sex/Gender Data

Diversity Monitoring in the Library

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth volunteering behaviors: Evidence from Northern Ireland

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