The Trump Administration, under the direction of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States, just submitted a list of data categories it will use to collect for the 2020 Census and the American Community Survey (ACS).
At one time “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” were proposed subjects in the appendix. Today’s version appears to exclude LGBTQ persons from the list of subjects for the Census and ACS. In other words, LGBT persons have been erased.
As reported by The Advocate:
“Last year, various federal agencies urged the Census Bureau to include sexual orientation and gender in their data as it was crucial to their role in enforcing the law. The current census only allows for a snapshot of same-sex households, but Democrats in Congress had pushed for more indepth questions around sexual orientation and gender identity to improve results.
The logic was simple: With more focused questions law makers would be better equipped to ensure appropriate legislation to improve the lives of LGBTQ citizens.
Although the Supreme Court, in 2013, struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, paving the way for the census to change the way it tracks same-sex households, the White House has sent yet another powerful signal that it considers LGBTQ rights as frivolous.”
#WeWillNotBeErased https://t.co/K2Vtc1KhqZ
— Lambda Legal (@LambdaLegal) March 29, 2017
Meghan Maury, Criminal and Economic Justice Project Director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, released the following statement:
“Today, the Trump Administration has taken yet another step to deny LGBTQ people freedom, justice, and equity, by choosing to exclude us from the 2020 Census and American Community Survey. LGBTQ people are not counted on the Census—no data is collected on sexual orientation or gender identity.
Information from these surveys helps the government to enforce federal laws like the Violence Against Women Act and the Fair Housing Act and to determine how to allocate resources like housing supports and food stamps.
If the government doesn’t know how many LGBTQ people live in a community, how can it do its job to ensure we’re getting fair and adequate access to the rights, protections and services we need?
We call on President Trump and his Administration to begin collecting sexual orientation and gender identity data on the American Community Survey as soon as possible and urge Congress to conduct oversight hearings to reveal why the Administration made the last-minute decision not to collect data on LGBTQ people.”
The Trump Administration seems to be going backwards. While the rest of Corporate America is trying to gather every last bit of information it can on LGBT persons, particularly couples, for marketing purposes, Mr. Trump and his associates think LGBT folks shouldn't be counted at the Federal level.
Never mind that in 2015, the buying power of LGBT persons was recorded at an all time high of 917 BILLION dollars. And never mind that LGBT persons pay taxes in the United States just like every other American.
