znake

Nina

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znake
@znake
nex3
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cofruitrigus
@cofruitrigus

Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation England and Wales Census Data Released

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?
    1. 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!

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in reply to @cofruitrigus's post:

cofruitrigus
@cofruitrigus

Most of the numbers are from the ons, I just formatted them. But thank you anyway! I'm having a great time.

The City of London is weird, it's also the Male capital (biggest sausage fest) of the UK, at 55% male. It really is just lawyers and bankers. Nearly all areas of England and Wales are majority female. It also has the second lowest population, after the Isles of Scilly. So yeah it is odd that there are over 600 gays, that's way higher than the average ratio. It's a weird place!

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shel
@shel

These numbers are astoundingly small. In America the predictions have always been that at least 10% of people are LGBT with younger generations having nearly half or even as majority being LGBT. I wonder if this being a government census in a more conservative country has something to do with it

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cofruitrigus
@cofruitrigus

I don't think I'd say that the UK is more conservative than the USA as a whole. As I put in my reply to @chicanery there are definitely people lying because it's a government census. I saw someone point out that there's a weak trend between people identifying as not-straight and not answering the question, so that areas with high levels of people not answering might be areas where there are more queer people, so the people not answering might be quite likely to be queer. It also might just mean that survey takers are gayer than the general population? I know I love a survey, and I think I've heard that queer people are more likely to be engaged with politics.

I'd note that the big survey company Gallup only estimates it as 7.1% LGBT in the USA in 2022. Surveys in both countries have given results that are all over the place. And that's not even getting into the way that people don't necessarily self-describe in ways that make sense. I found this wild data from YouGov which asked people:

  • How they'd identify: 86% hetero / 10% other / 3% prefer not to say
  • Place themselves on the Kinsey scale: 77% 0 or 1 / 18% 2 to 6 / 6% other
  • If they'd ever had a sexual experience with someone of the same sex: 77% no / 18% yes / 5 % other

It's a really complicated and interesting topic, I'm working on a big post about it, but there are a lot of surveys and studies to look into.

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