wobble bopper

a new textbook, biodiversity & classification of wasps, 1st edition, was just published and you can get it for free here!

Sexual Orientation here / Gender Identity here

This is the first time these questions have been asked. Scotland's census results will be released at a later date. Northern Ireland did not include questions on these topics in their census. More data will be released comparing sexual orientation and gender identity with sex and age on the 25th Of January 2023. The relevant questions were voluntary and only applicable to over 16s, and they are:

• 26. Which of the following best describes your sexual orientation?
• 27. Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?

Main Points

In sexual orientation:

• 43.4 million (89.4% of the population aged 16 and over) identified as straight
• 1.5 million (3.2%) identified as something other than heterosexual
• 3.6 million (7.5%) did not answer the sexual orientation question

In gender identity:

• The question was "Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?"
• 45.4 million (93.5% of the population aged 16 and over) said Yes (meaning they're cis)
• 262,000 (0.5%) said No (meaning they're trans)
• 2.9 million (6.0%) did not answer the gender identity question.

Further Points

In Sexual Orientation:

• 748,000 (1.5% of the population aged 16 and over) identified as gay or lesbian
• 624,000 (1.3%) identified as bisexual
• 165,000 (0.3%) identified as "Other sexual orientation"
• For people selecting Other, there was a write-in for sexual orientation
• 112,000 (0.23% of the population aged 16 and over) identified as pansexual
• 28,000 (0.06%) identified as asexual
• 15,000 (0.03%) identified as queer
• 10,000 (0.02%) wrote in something else
• No significant differences in sexual orientation identification between England and Wales
• The Gay Capital of England and Wales is Brighton and Hove at 10.7% LGB+
• The Gay Capital of Wales is Cardiff at 5.3%
• There's no list of Other Sexual Orientations. (yet)

In Gender Identity:

• The Yes/No question was followed by an optional write-in for gender identity
• 118,000 (0.24% of the population aged 16 and over) people who answered No left the space blank
• 48,000 (0.10%) identified as a trans man
• 48,000 (0.10%) identified as a trans woman
• 30,000 (0.06%) identified as non-binary
• 18,000 (0.04%) wrote in something else
• The Trans Capital of England and Wales is Newham in London, at 1.51% trans
• There's no list of Other Genders. (yet)

Notes from me:

• Looking at the data, the exact numbers for trans men and women are 47,581 trans women and 48,456 trans men.

How queer is your local authority? Now you can find out!

i briefly learned a bit of toki pona about 5 years ago so of course it has entirely left my brain by now. i got the pdf of the toki pona book from the original twentytokithree post and i'm ready to learn some silly little words!

i've looked at lessons 1 and 2 so far and now i know useful phrases like soweli li ijo :)

we're all familiar with the prefix "sub-." comes from latin, means under. simple! we're also familiar with its antonym, "super-." same origin, means over. easy! we're also (probably) all familiar with them being used in tandem-- for example, subscript meaning script beneath the main text, superscript being the text above.

however.

there exists a whole field of words that could hypothetically be used, but aren't; and for what? simplicity's sake? absurd. there is an untapped bounty of new words to be used out there. here are some examples:

• submarine > supermarine: a word for any sort of vessel that travels over water. we didn't - have a word for that before, right?
• subway > superway: all elevated rail is now called the superway. you're welcome.
• subtitle > supertitle: text that goes over everything on the screen, making it hard to see.
• submissive > supermissive: you can figure this one out yourself. it's not hard.
• subterranean > superterranean: a word for things that are above ground. so great to have a single word for this.

it goes the other way, too. here are some sub- equivalents of super- words:

• superhero > subhero: a guy with below average capabilities that saves the day. tumblr blorbo style
• superlative > sublative: a title you get for being worst at something in your high school. "least athletic." "least likely to succeed." "least likely to find true love." that shit.
• supervise > subvise: a word for when you're watching people who are theoretically above you. like when your new manager is really dogshit at his job so you have to teach him the ropes even though he makes twice your salary. subvision.

i think these words would make excellent additions to the english lexicon, and i'm sure there are even more potential words out there that could really spice up our lives in these trying times. if you think of any, feel free to share.

"sur" refers to things that are directly on top of other things ([Eddie Izzard voice] le chat est sur la table), so in fact normal seafaring vessels should be "surmarine"; "supermarine" would be reserved for stones in mid-skip, flying fish, or airplanes currently above the ocean. "superterranean", similarly, would be for e.g. birds in mid-flight or the upper floors of buildings, while buildings in general and ground floors are "surterranean". To distinguish regular railway from subway and the newly-established superway, we now also have "surway".

To echo some more of the OP examples:

• supervision, subvision > survision: peer review.
• superlative, sublative > surlative: "about what you'd expect"
• superhero, subhero > surhero: just some rando who happened to be in the right place at the right time
• subtitle, supertitle > surtitle: text cards.

• Subversive: Something surverts our expectations when it is merely mundane, whereas something superversive actively entrenches the status quo.
• Substance: Superstance is the spiritual essence of something, while the surstance is the sensory phenomenon of experiencing it.
• Subjunctive: A clause should be inflected in the surjective mood if it doesn't matter whether it is real or a hypothetical , while the superjunctive mood is used for logical tautologies.
• Sub: A sub is a type of sandwich named after its resemblance to undersea watercraft. By extension, a sur should refer to a panini because its flatness is evocative of an aircraft carrier, and a super is a traditional street taco, because it is shaped like a UFO.