JK Rowling reveals she put ‘believer in biology’ as her religion on Scottish census

Harry Potter author JK Rowling has revealed that she put ‘believer in biology’ as her religion on the 2022 Scottish census.

Data from the 2022 Scottish census, published on Thursday (3 October) by the National Records of Scotland, shows that in the write-in responses for the passport, national identity, ethnic group, country of birth and main language questions, 2,883 people wrote “believer in biology” as their religion.

And author JK Rowling was one of them, she has stated.

The census shows that 51.1 per cent of Scots now have “no religion”, compared with 36.7 per cent when the previous research was completed in 2011. Of those who are religious, members of the Church of Scotland make up the largest demographic at 20.4 per cent of the population (1,107,796 respondents).

A number of people who entered the “believer in biology” response did so as part of action led by gender-critical organisation For Women Scotland, which called on citizens to write the answer as a protest against the inclusion of trans-inclusive sex and gender questions in the census that allowed for self-ID.

A judge ruled in February 2020, one month before the group called for action, that people should be able to record their sex based on “biological sex, sex recognised by law, or self-identified (“lived”) sex as at the date of the census”.

Rowling, well-known for her views on trans issues, announced on X/Twitter on the day the data was published that she too wrote the phrase in the religion section.

In response to a post by professor Sarah Pedersen, who published an academic article on the action in the Scottish Affairs journal, Rowling wrote: “I was one of those people.”

The size of Scotland’s LGBTQ+ population was revealed for the first time in June.

The research showed that almost 184,000 people in the devolved nation are LGB, representing four per cent of people aged 16 and older, while close to 20,000 people described themselves as transgender or as having a trans history, which equates to 0.44 per cent of people aged at least 16.

Within the sexuality figures, 80,100 (1.76 per cent of those aged over 16) identified as gay or lesbian, 80,260 (1.76 per cent) described themselves as bisexual, and 23,500 (0.51 per cent) chose another sexual orientation, such as pansexual, asexual or queer.

The council areas with the highest percentage of LGB+ people relative to their overall population were Edinburgh (7.6 per cent), Glasgow (7.1 per cent), Dundee (6.6 per cent) and Aberdeen (5.2 per cent).  

The Dundee City Council area had the highest percentage of trans people relative to their overall population aged 16 and older (0.91 per cent), followed by Edinburgh and Glasgow (both 0.77 per cent) and Aberdeen (0.58 per cent).