Trans population estimate dropped by ONS due to ‘confusing’ census question
Trans UK Census figure lowered and will no longer be considered an ‘official statistic’ by ONS (Getty Images)
Official figures estimating the number of transgender people in England and Wales have been voided after an investigation found that people may have misunderstood the question on gender identity in the 2021 census.
The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) released its final report on Thursday (12 September), which recommends the figures should no longer be considered “accredited official statistics” and should instead be classified as “official statistics in development”.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures previously suggested that more than 260,000 people in the UK identify as trans, about 0.55 per cent of the population. The census also showed that around 1.5 million people (3.2 per cent) identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual or another sexual orientation.
Those numbers were called in to question, however, with former women and equalities minister Kemi Badenoch asking for an investigation in 2023 after she claimed the number of trans people in England and Wales could have been “overestimated”.
At the time, advocacy groups questioned if the numbers could actually be an underreporting, because those who are not out might fear filling in their gender identity on an official document.
“We… cannot ignore the probability that some trans people were among those who chose not to respond to the voluntary question,” deputy national statistician Emma Rourke wrote in a blog post for the ONS in October 2023.
The OSR noted in its final report on Thursday that there is “great value in ONS having undertaken this work on developing these statistics”, and that there had been “challenges” in collecting this data at scale “on a sensitive topic for the first time”.
“While there are lessons to be learned, ONS has worked with good intentions aiming to address an important data gap on gender identity,” the report read.
It concluded: “The evidence indicates that people may have found the question confusing and therefore gave a response that did not reflect their gender identity. This appears to be more likely for people who do not speak English as their first language.”
For the first time, the 2021 census for England and Wales asked a voluntary question about gender identity reading: “Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?”
Scotland’s 2022 census, in contrast, asked: “Do you consider yourself to be trans, or have a trans history?”
In November 2023, the ONS had stated that it had confidence in its gender identity estimates “at a national level”, however some respondents may have misunderstood the question on gender identity.
“There are some patterns in the data that are consistent with – but do not conclusively demonstrate – some respondents not [having] interpreted the question as intended, for example, people with lower English language skills in some areas,” Jen Woolford, the ONS’s director of population statistics said in 2023.
After the OSR’s final report was released, Emma Rourke added that there is “potential for bias in how the gender identity question was answered by those in England and Wales who responded that they did not speak English well”.
“Our request to reclassify better reflects the findings coming from the first census question of its kind and our developing understanding of measuring this complex and important topic,” Rourke added.
OSR explained that including a question on gender identity in future censuses is “important for society”, however the ONS should now carry out “further testing of the question” to ensure that it’s widely understood.
The ONS previously updated its figures relating to the number of pansexual people in England and Wales after it explained that some responses to the sexual orientation question that should have been coded to “all other sexual orientations” were instead put down as “pansexual”.
The update resulted in the estimated figure for the number of pansexual people dropping from 112,400 to 48,000.
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