Census Bureau Caught In Political Mess Over LGBT Data

Updated Tuesday, September 5

During the Obama administration, at least four federal agencies, including the Justice Department, asked the Census Bureau to add questions about sexual orientation and gender identity to the American Community Survey, NPR has learned.

Besides the Justice Department, those agencies include the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Still, in March, the bureau concluded there was "no federal data need" to ask about sexual orientation and gender identity on the largest survey in the U.S., which is conducted with about 3.5 million households each year and is used to help distribute more than $400 billion in federal funds.

Many LGBT rights groups say accurate national data about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are critical in making sure their needs are met.

In July, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., reintroduced bills in Congress that would require the American Community Survey, the decennial census and other federal surveys with demographic information to collect data on sexual orientation and gender identity. Under the LGBT Data Inclusion Act, this data would be kept confidential, and survey participants would not be required to provide it.

Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Calif., and Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., have co-sponsored an amendment to a spending bill that would give the Census Bureau more funding the study the need for sexual orientation and gender identity questions.

The U.S. Census Bureau might have started asking Americans about sexual orientation and gender identity if the Department of Justice had not backed off its request for information about LGBT populations, former Census Bureau Director John Thompson told NPR's Code Switch.

The Justice Department laid out the "legal authority supporting the necessity" for collecting that information in a spreadsheet of statutes attached to its letter to the Census Bureau dated Nov. 4, 2016.

NPR obtained copies of those documents through a Freedom of Information Act request to the Justice Department. They were first published online in May by the office of Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del.