Same-sex couples to be counted for the first time in US census
Director of the US Census Bureau Robert Groves (L), Acting Deputy Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank (C) and US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke stand in front of the new figure of the US population during a press conference to present the first set of 2010 census data at the National Press Club in Washington,DC on December 21, 2010. As of April 1, 2010 the US population stood at 308,745,538. AFP PHOTO/Nicholas KAMM (Photo credit should read NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)
For the first time in its history, the US Census will count same-sex married couples in its statistics.
In order to account for same-sex married couples since the federal legalisation of LGBT+ unions in 2015, the Census will ask married couples one definitive question: are you married to someone of the opposite sex or someone of the same sex?
Same-sex married couples have appraised the inclusion, with one married lesbian woman Wendy Becker stating that the “filling” out the Census lets other people know that “we exist”.
“It really normalizes our experience on an American government form so that everybody looking at it and everybody filling it out sees that we exist,” Becker, who is part of an early census test run in Rhode Island, told Huffington Post.
However, the census only allows space for married LGBT+ people – not single ones – which of course leaves it open to a litany of miscalculations and absences.
Same-sex wedding cake (Getty)
Even with same-sex couples recognized on the census, there’ll be a lot of other people in the LGBT community missing from the picture of America.
“If this is about how resources are spent or given to communities and we are talking about the LGBTQ community, not everyone is married or in a relationship,” says Ronald Lewis, an openly gay man who is currently single to WAMU.
The census is accounted for in the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution.
As well as this, the census will not take into account transgender identities or any other gender identities in its data.
The census will also face a legal challenge from the NAACP after it said that it will underground members of the African American community and other ethnic minorities in the country.
A government study found that the 2010 Census resulted in an undercount of 2.1 percent of African Americans and 1.5 percent of Hispanic Americans.
Same-sex marriage, which came into action in every US state as of June 2015.
The decennial population survey was first taken in America in 1790.
The next UK census is due in 2021.
