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  • 1.  Great article on transgender data (and what we're losing now it's gone)

    Posted 08-28-2025 03:37 PM

    I really enjoyed this article on gender identity data, which highlights changes to the federal data ecosystem and the impacts those changes will have on data about transgender people: We've been tracking the number of Americans who identify as transgender - soon, there will be no reliable way to measure them

    The Conversation remove preview
    We've been tracking the number of Americans who identify as transgender - soon, there will be no reliable way to measure them
    The federal government has erased gender identity questions from federal surveys. Researchers say it will cost them at least a decade's worth of data.
    View this on The Conversation >



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    Meghan Maury
    Maury Fox Consulting
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  • 2.  RE: Great article on transgender data (and what we're losing now it's gone)

    Posted 08-28-2025 04:31 PM

    Not to be flip here, but the stigma surrounding family and gender identities has a very long and unfortunate history, including in their statistical measurement, so it's important to keep focusing on the proper measurement instruments. 

    Back in the day, households were "headed" by men, so if a woman listed herself as "household head" in a survey, and there was a "male" household member, the coders changed the answer for tabulation. Back in the day, there were no "unmarried partners."   Back in the day, there were no "same sex partners. 

    Except there were.  See, for example, Dan Bouk's Democracy's Data chapter on "Partners."

    Or as things began to change, the creation of the POSSLQ, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POSSLQ

    Margo Anderson








  • 3.  RE: Great article on transgender data (and what we're losing now it's gone)

    Posted 09-02-2025 12:12 PM

    Data about sexual orientation and same sex couples does have a long and varied history!  And I do think making sure we're asking the right questions in the right places is critical.  

    This article doesn't really touch on sexual orientation and same-sex couples data - it focuses in on data on gender identity, which is much more recent and has been completely eradicated by the current Administration on both surveys and forms. Fortunately, much of the federal government's data collection on sexual orientation is still under way, so we should continue to have some good data on sexual orientation and on same-sex partners!  Love the throwback to the 1980's emergency of POSSLQ (people of the same sex sharing living quarters).

    Like Dan's great examples of how information about same-sex couples has been hidden inside Census data for decades, some researchers used creative methods to estimate the number of transgender people in the US even before there was data on gender identity.  However, these methods are incredibly time and labor intensive and are not nearly as accurate as the data we can get from surveys and forms that ask about gender identity more directly.  Let's hope that in a few years we'll be able to see data on transgender people coming directly from statistical agencies once again!

    Best,

    Meghan



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    Meghan Maury
    Maury Fox Consulting
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    Original Message


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