Australia Census Adds Optional Questions On Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation For First Time

Australians can, for the first time, disclose their sexual orientation and whether they identify as a gender different from the one recorded at birth as part of new optional questions in the country's five-yearly census.

The 66-question census, held on Tuesday, Aug 11, is the first conducted under a centre-left Labor Party government since 2011. The government had initially dropped the new questions two years ago, describing them as “divisive”, before reversing its decision following criticism.

Both questions are optional and are open to household members aged 16 and above.

Respondents can choose not to answer

For sexual orientation, respondents can select straight, gay or lesbian, bisexual, don't know or prefer not to answer. They can also write a term of their choice in a designated space.

For those whose current gender differs from the gender registered at birth, the options are man, woman, nonbinary, prefer not to answer or another term supplied by the respondent.

The questions on gender and sexual orientation are optional, as is the question on religion, which has been part of the census since the first exercise in 1911.

Labor had promised during its campaign ahead of the 2022 elections to include questions on sexuality and gender in the next census. The election returned the party to power after nine years in opposition.

The Australian government determines the topics included in each census, while the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) decides how the questions are worded.

In 2024, the government initially decided not to depart from the questions used in the 2021 census, citing the need to maintain social cohesion.

“We do not want to open up divisive debates in the community now,” Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said in August 2024.

The government reversed course after almost a week of backlash from LGBTQ+ advocates and criticism from some Labor lawmakers.

Two days after Marles' comments, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who has marched in the annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras twice since taking office in 2022, confirmed in a radio interview that the next census would include a question on sexual orientation.

Public consultations showed ‘substantial level of interest’

ABS Chief Statistician David Gruen said public consultations ahead of the census showed a “substantial level of interest in asking questions on gender and sexual orientation”.

“For a proportion of the population … collecting this information is very important. But for other people, it's information that they simply don't want to share,” Gruen told Australian Broadcasting Corp, referring to the decision to make the questions optional.

Australian National University demographer Liz Allen said Australia had fallen behind some comparable countries in addressing gender and sexual orientation in their censuses. Britain included similar questions in 2021, New Zealand in 2023 and Canada three months ago.

“We've been talking about these questions for some time, but the previous government, it didn't look like they were going to budge on the evidence and enable it to be in the census. So the ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) really didn't put it to them,” Allen said.

Allen said the census should go further on sexuality and gender by asking whether respondents are intersex, a term referring to people born with biological sex characteristics, including chromosomes, hormones or genitals, that do not fit typical definitions of male or female.

The last US census in 2020 provided only two responses to its gender question, male or female, and did not specifically ask about sexual orientation. However, for the first time, respondents could list same-sex relationships in the household relationship field.

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More than 5 million forms submitted

Australians were asked to submit their census forms as soon as they received instructions in the mail if they knew where they would be on census night.

The ABS expects 85% of responses to be submitted online, compared with almost 80% in 2021, when nearly half the population was under pandemic lockdown. Paper forms are also available on request.

Field staff assist homeless people and those living in remote areas in participating in the census. Failure to comply with a direction to complete it can attract a fine of up to 364 Australian dollars ($257) a day.

The ABS said more than 5 million forms had been submitted by Tuesday morning, with almost 11 million forms expected to be completed.