Behind the Push for a Rainbow Census

In the lead up to the 2021 census, when secular humanist groups sought to maximise the number of Australians who identify with “no religion”, they were obliged to lobby the ABS through the same community engagement facilities that are available to everyone else. They developed and paid for an extensive advertising campaign which encouraged census respondents to consider how they answered this question. They did this because, if fewer Australians identify as religious, secularist lobby groups can use this data to challenge the flow of government money to religious causes.

In the lead up to the 2026 census, by contrast, when the LGBTIQ+ lobby groups wanted to introduce new questions about sexual orientation and gender identity, they were faced with nothing like the same obstacles. They have a dedicated “LGBTIQ+ Expert Advisory Committee … to provide guidance and input into the Census topic review and framing of Census questions, and the way that Census data is processed and disseminated”.[1] The ABS itself had promised to “invest in the … development of educational, promotional and support materials, with advice of the LGBTIQ+ Expert Advisory Committee.”[2]

Why the differential treatment?

The answer lies in the machinery of advocacy for LGBTIQ+ health, which brings together activist groups (presumed to represent the LGBTIQ+ community), Big Pharma, Big Medical and academic research institutes, all of which have a common interest in government funding for LGBTIQ+ Health. While healthcare funding for any vulnerable group might represent a worthy social justice cause, in the competition for resources, LGBTIQ+ health has a definite edge over other patient groups – such as diabetes or cancer sufferers, for example — because sexual minority groups can charge any government that refuses to deliver the goods with identity-based discrimination.

In a recent essay, US writer David Moulton, explained “How Leftists Became Big Pharma’s Shock Troops”, [3] beginning with a 1988 open letter by Larry Kramer (the gay rights activist who would later found ACT UP!), to Anthony Fauci, then Director of the US’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Kramer castigated Fauci for his perceived slowness in testing and approving for sale new drugs to fight AIDS:

“He [Kramer] called NIAID officials ‘monsters,’ ‘idiots,’ and ‘murderers,’ and went on to compare Fauci to Adolf Eichmann. More than just angry, Kramer’s tone was downright apocalyptic … What’s most remarkable about this document, other than its vitriol, is the fact that it turned out to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. After its publication, Kramer and Fauci began to correspond and later got together regularly over the decades. ‘We loved each other,’ Fauci told The New York Times after Kramer died in 2020[4]… Fauci fondly recalled that Kramer would regularly denounce him to the press but then tell him privately he ‘didn’t really mean it. I just wanted to get some attention.’ Beneath their public antagonism, the two men had a shared interest in keeping AIDS in the public eye, since this would increase funding for drug research.”[5]

As the urgency of the AIDS crisis receded from the public consciousness, so too did the justification for maintaining the extraordinary government spending on gay men’s health.

Instead of retrenching staff and down-sizing, around the world organisations established with a “gay rights/gay health” shifted the focus of their advocacy to “LGBTIQ+ rights/LGBTIQ+ health” issues. Lobbying for the health needs of LGBTIQ+ individuals often means lobbying for legal change or government funding decisions that also benefit the medical industrial complex which produces the goods and services required. The machinery of advocacy for LGBTIQ+ health is now a highly sophisticated, internationally coordinated affair.

Gender medicine – “trans health” – promises to be a particularly lucrative market and (possibly not co-incidentally), also features in activist explanations as to why new census questions are needed. In the words of Ghassan Kassisieh, Legal Director of Equality Australia, “the 2021 census could have provided the data needed to ensure services are provided to LGBTIQ+ people where they are most needed.”[6] These calls were supported by eight research institutes that focus on sexual minority health who told the government that census data is needed to “enable precise health interventions that cater to everyone”.[7] Associate Professor Annette Bromdal (she/they) told the ABC:

 “If we don’t have the data, then that means that we’re actually not developing services and policies based on the information that we have,’ they said.

… specifically those trans folk who are seeking gender-affirming healthcare, there’s not enough services or practitioners in the regional, remote or rural settings to serve them if they need gender-affirming medical healthcare.’”[8]

Census data to support these lobbying efforts has been assiduously sought by LGBTIQ+ lobby groups for many years.

Following an abortive attempt to use the 2021 census for these purposes, Equality Australia and the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) supported the complaint of Mx April Long (described as “the non-binary parent of a rainbow family”)[9], against the ABS under s. 26 of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, alleging

“unlawful discrimination against LGBTIQ+ people because of the failure to ask appropriate questions on sexual orientation, gender identity and variations in sex characteristics, and the manner in which census 2021 was conducted.”^[10]

Long’s complaint was settled privately, and the ABS issued a lengthy apology for

“any distress experienced by members of the LGBTIQ+ community when responding to the 2021 census and earlier censuses. The ABS recognises that some members of the LGBTIQ+ community experienced hurt, stress, anguish and other negative reactions to some census questions.”[11]

The ABS committed to work constructively with the LGBTIQ+ community “in the spirit of improving the census going forward” and to “minimise the risk of further harm.”[12]

Documents produced in response to a recent FOI request demonstrate how heavily the ABS had invested in making good this promise. They had tested potential new questions in household surveys and focus groups. They had commissioned an independent consultancy to advise on the relative risks of including versus excluding the desired questions, and on strategies to mitigate these risks. They had advised the government that the public backlash for leaving out a question about intersex status would probably be manageable compared with the fierce response that might be anticipated were the government to omit questions about sexual orientation and gender identity. Consistent with ABS’s prediction that such a decision might “reduce engagement with the census”, activist groups are now threatening a boycott.[13]

The extent of LGBTIQ+ activist influence on the census design is perhaps most strikingly evident in the ABS’s advice to government that the question about “number of children ever born” should be deferred until 2031. Although many respondents felt that there was a need for this data, the ABS had (emphasis added)

“a commitment through the resolution of the AHRC complaint to not ask this question in a way that assumes who can give birth. Changing this question to meet this commitment will require public testing and engagement with LGBTIQ+ stakeholders”.[14]

When the Cabinet directive came through to leave census questions the same as for 2021, it was clear that the ABS did not relish the job of managing the anticipated “strong negative reaction from the LGBTIQ+ community and supportive members of the public.”[15]

Various reasons have been presented for this Cabinet decision. According to one version, the government was “‘razor-focused’ on bringing down the cost of living rather than spending time talking about non-core issues”.[16]  Perhaps it was because Labor was concerned “about the reaction in Labor-held multicultural electorates that had voted strongly against same-sex marriage, especially in Sydney.”[17] In other versions, “the Prime Minister and the government [had indicated they] would prefer the ABS to stick to their job”[18] of delivering the census effectively. Alternatively, senior officials were worried that making the census more complicated could compromise the quality of the survey.[19]

The integrity of the census is not a small consideration. According to a 2019 government report, Australia spends $670 million (over a five-year period) to provide an accurate snap-shot of Australia’s social and economic reality. Uniquely, the census “provides politically independent informational infrastructure that helps safeguard the integrity of our federal system of government and thus the capacity of Australia’s democracy to represent its people fairly.” [20] Since impartiality is so essential to the reliability of the data, it seems important to observe that this is brought into question when activist groups with a financial interest in elevating the number of individuals identified as “trans or gender diverse” in the census, are provided with peculiar influence over the census design.

The Office of National Statistics (ONS) in the UK learned this lesson the hard way in their 2021 census of England and Wales.[21] According to Michael Biggs, an Oxford sociologist who recently published a detailed analysis of these census results,

“…spurious results were produced by a flawed question, which originated with a transgender campaigning organization. The question evidently confused a substantial number of respondents who erroneously declared their gender identity to differ from their natal sex. Confusion is manifested in the overrepresentation of people lacking English proficien cy in the most suspect gender categories.”[22]

The ONS has lately walked back from their formerly “accredited official statistics” of gender variance derived from the 2021 census, by reclassifying these as “official statistics in development”. [23] How embarrassing.

If the Albanese government hoped to appease LGBTIQ+ lobby groups by belatedly offering to test a question about sexual orientation and the half-promise to include this in the census, there are grounds for doubting this strategy will allay their political critics. After manoeuvring for so many years, these activist groups are unlikely to be fobbed off with something less than the real prize which (if the theory of financial drivers is correct) is the question about gender identity.

So-called gender medicine is where the most lucrative stream of public health money is to be found. On this this basis, we can expect political agitation, couched in social justice rhetoric, to continue.

 

[1] Statement of regret: 2021 census | Australian Bureau of Statistics (abs.gov.au)

[2] Ibid.

[3] David Moulton, “How Leftists Became Big Pharma’s Shock Troops”, Compact, 10 May 2023.

[4]  “‘We Loved Each Other’: Fauci Recalls Larry Kramer, Friend and Nemesis”, New York Times, 27 May 2020.

[5] David Moulton, “How Leftists Became Big Pharma’s Shock Troops”, Compact, 10 May 2023.

[6] “ABS admits new recommendations required to count LGBTIQ+ people properly in census” [media release], Equality Australia, 28 September 2022.

[7] “Health research institutes say scrapping LGBTI+ questions from the 2026 census leaves Australia’s ‘invisible’ populations at greater risk of harm”, ABC News, 5 September 2024.

[8] Esther Linder, “After a change of heart, some LGBTQI+ people will be included in the census — but not all”, ABC News, 30 August 2024.

[9] Anna Brown, “Free and Equal”, AHRC Conference, Sydney, 7 June 2024.

[10] “ABS admits new recommendations required to count LGBTIQ+ people properly in census” [media release], Equality Australia, 28 September 2022. NB. S. 26 of the SDA pertains to non-discrimination in the administration of Commonwealth services).

[11] Statement of regret: 2021 census | Australian Bureau of Statistics (abs.gov.au)

[12] Ibid.

[13] Michael James, “Government’s Census Decision Sparks Outrage In The LGBTQIA+ Community”, Star Observer, 25 August 2024.

[14] FOI 3711, Document 3.

[15] FOI 3711, Document 3.

[16] “PM faces call to be banned from Mardi Gras over census”, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 August 2024.

[17] Tom Crowley, “How the census became a political landmine”, ABC News, 31 August 2024.

[18] Ibid.

[19] “PM faces call to be banned from Mardi Gras over census”, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 August 2024.

[20] Valuing the Australian census, Lateral Economics, 27 August 2019, 6.

[21] Michael Biggs, “Gender Identity in the 2021 census of England and Wales: How a Flawed Question Created Spurious Data”, British Sociological Association, 19 April 2024.

[22] Michael Biggs, “Gender Identity in the 2021 census of England and Wales: How a Flawed Question Created Spurious Data”, British Sociological Association, 19 April 2024.

[23] “Review of statistics on gender identity based on data collected as part of the 2021 England and Wales Census: Final report”, ONS, 12 September 2024.