Beth Firipis wrote:

Duncan,

While I appreciate your concerns, this post just muddies the waters rather than engaging with concrete policy issues.

When you accept the census collecting other sensitive personal information, your concerns about privacy feel disingenuous. Gender and sexuality are fundamental demographics that intersect with healthcare, housing, and employment - just like other population characteristics the census already tracks.

Your citation of PL-3's statistics on violence against LGBTQI+ people actually highlights why population-level data is essential. Without comprehensive demographic data, we can't effectively identify or address systemic inequities. While targeted studies like PL-3 are valuable, they don't carry the same weight in policy decisions as census data.

While Foucault raises important questions about power and knowledge, I'd suggest the key issue here isn't surveillance but representation. The goal isn't to intrude into private lives, but to ensure public services and policies reflect and serve our entire population.

- Beth

Hi Beth

I have deleted two rather long responses

Please don;t suggest my concern over this matter is solety related to this one issue. I need to defend myself on that serious ad hom. my points relate to privacy, rights, identity, representation, safety on all matters for everyone

And no many people are not represented accurately in the census on any matter because of the nature of the instrument. What is so important about som many questions about our private lives. And I am not going to let the point go about representation. Not one person in the hstory of the census has had their sexualty represented because it has neverbeen asked. That is not an exclusion

And I really need to defend myself against eh ad hom which I had predicted in earlier posts. Please don't misreprsent me that may. That is disingenuous, not my concerns. This is a public forum and ad hom is highy dangerous - personally and professionally. I am also obliged to defend myself against it. So many people would like to cause harm from public posts. Sadly this forum is one of the most public and prominent in my whole life

the right to represent ourselves as we want applies to all of us. also the right to privacy. there is a long list of human rights that apply to all of us. please don't misreprsent me like that. the specific nature of the census does not respect our human rights in that way at all. Most of us tolerate and respect that some information is relevant and useful to planning in government. it is an intrusion and causes problems all the same as it is. As do other agencies and non-rpivate information requests. People's rights are not respected as individuals. many would live in oppressive homes or even communities. What will happen will happen. Most of us have no power and are policy takers

I apologise for deleting two earlier rambing responses. Not deleted to hide them. They are both saved but are boring and rambling. Not all of us have time, resources, or even career experrience in dealing with such risk communications in a safe way. Government agencies have very few rights to pry into so many parts of our lives. Most of us are not so much happy as prepared to give some of that to aid agencies in their important work. Please dont forget about human rights. All of them. Privacy and self-determination or representation are all very important ones. For everyone. Not some specific community. The specific instrument of the census, and certain other federal information requests does not permit those rights to be protected, with serious threat to some. 'I hate having to use code. I would love to spell everything out but there are immense risks even talking about such matters, and also trying to codify things. people make assumptions - nearly always wrong and ignorant of course. As do agencies that pry rather too much into people's lives. It is about trust. Some do not trust people enough. Dare I insuinuate certain interests that would love such intimate data on people's lives. The types who (I believe) used to think it was ok to spy through people's curtains at night to check they were being honest. Waiting for the lie detector squad to knock on our doors. Our minds are no longer private.Sorry ut federal agencies did it to themselves. They need to respect and trust people. Our scanners suggest that person is acually thinking of someone or something else 

And without being able to prove the specific source of the reason for the attacks, I have reason to believe this forum and issue is a highly lifely cause of some recent ignorant community harassment and bullying. That is sadly the world in which we live. Too many ignorant bullies trying to cause all kinds of harm. Please be careful with ad hom. There are not many public forums with my name attached

Sorry for feeling the need to comment yet again.

I have a few other example issues that would be extremely high value

A few other important questions to add to the census

- do you live in an oppressive home, family

- do you live in an oppressive community, street, neighbouhood

- do you feel safe

- were you able to answer all these questions honestly and freely

etc etc

Are they not important uncollected data items. I am sure we all have many other similar thoughts

In place of an earlier deleted ramble I refer people the PL-3 (Private Lives 3) by Latrobe University and anything by Foucault - not that I understand much of the latter

"One must not suppose that there exists a certain sphere of sexuality that would be the legitimate concern of a free and disinterested scientific inquiry were it not the object of mechanisms of prohibition brought to bear by the economic or ideological requirements of power. If sexuality was constituted as an area of investigation, this was only because relations of power had established it as a possible object; and conversely, if power was able to take it as a target, this was because techniques of knowledge and procedures of discourse were capable of investing it. "

Who knows what it means or if it is at all relevant

From PL-3 from memory approximately 40%(Edit- approximately 40% of the 60% who experinced some violence - there are many stats in and out of the home) of LGBTQI+ etc respondents in a private survey had faced some kind of intimate violence or abuse or other unpleasant treatment in their homes on the basis of sexuality. PL-3 used a methodology that protected people's privacy in some way. I trust all important decisions on such matters in an instrument like the census are well informed. Hopefully better than me, and not playing to politics. And of course weighed up by all the other very serious matters in PL-3 and other surveys, I sincerely hope people understand my motivations too. Also mmaybe my brain works differently to everyone else but those figures in a private instrument raise red flags for an instrument such as the census. I am sure people are well informed and think things through. And the data can always be used to argue both sides of an argument. What is controllable is the instrument. And as has been mentioned, despite the methods used to protect privacy on low frequency items the Census gets down to very small geographic detail. And as credit to the (possibly darker) powerful methods our professions have at their disposal, it is very easy (I believe) for anyone to identify anyone these days

I hope sanctions against those who prefer not to answer honestly are not that punitive. However these days you get more anxious that people could actually find out. It's sad having to be part of professions that have similar considerations and arguments to those who split the atom

My sadly cynical/realist view, totally misinformed by partial understanding of the likes of Foucault (are there any likes?) is that what will happen will happen for whatever reason, and those on the receiving end of whatever oppression they live under will continue to try to live around it. I almost feel like using an inappropriate parallel with unprovable things in formal systems or whatever. You can't change an oppressive structure by using it - sorry rusty on Godel too, and inappropriate parallels. but people abuse Heisenberg all the time too

Final (I promise) thought with further risk of disresespect but there are some very convenient politicised cherry picking of human rights over this matter. How any serious body of any kind can ignore privacy and safety to be comrpomised for other rights is beyond me. To be honest it seems almost all Human Rights are optional these days. I hope the data value is worth it

Actually, they don't.  They've been brow-beaten into asking by groups that feel ignored if they don't.

It seems particularly unkind to characterise the advocacy work and recommendations of many individuals and organisations (and not just those in the LGBTQI space) as brow-beating. Asking the government to measure characteristics of the population according to guidelines that the ABS themselves have written (see here) seems an entirely reasonable thing to do.

You are also welcome to look in the 'Resources and References' section of the webpage for links to more resources if you wanted to do some further reading. The Australian Human Rights Commission's report "Resilient Individuals, Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity & Intersex Rights: National Consultation Report" would be a good place to start. Reading the quotes in the report might help humanise the people we're talking about and convey the discrimination they face - and hopefully lead you reconsider your portrayal of them as 'brow-beating because they feel ignored'.

If concerns about measurement persist despite the extensive testing that the ABS has done then it seems like they are concerns of politics not statistics. The ABS actually state that the data quality for sex (SEXP) would be improved if they asked both sex and gender questions.

Not asking a question does not mean “exclusion” Beth.

When there has been sustained advocacy over many years, asking for gender and sexual orientation to be represented in population statistics via the census, I would argue that the choice to not include these questions, and maintaining the status quo is an active choice, is indeed exclusion. The same would be true if bald people advocated similarly. I don't think baldness is a protected characteristic under Australia's anti-discrimination laws though, unlike gender or sexual orientation - probably one of the reasons why they are relevant for inclusion in the census.

How is transgender – a very, very small population – classified as a “key population” as Beth claims?

It's greatly ironic to claim the transgender population is 'very, very small' when we actually don't know the size because we don't collect population data on this. The ABS estimates the trans and gender diverse population to be around 178,000 (1% of the Australian population). Whether you consider that to be 'very, very small' is a matter of perspective I suppose.

Considering the trend of increasingly more younger Australians identifying as LGBTQI (9.5% for ages 16-24) relative to older generations (~2% for 55+), it seems particularly relevant to measure sexual orientation and gender at a population level to understand how it is changing over time.

I hope this helps folks here understand why measuring these characteristics is important, whether in the census or elsewhere, but I'm not holding my breath given how frequently the gender 'issue' comes up on this forum.

Peter Summers wrote:

Duncan Lowes wrote:

I apologise for seeming so passionate about something but I genuinely am not a big fan of the traditional head of household knowing everything about everyone so ideally keep it simple.

That's fair, but maybe the answer to that is to provide a mechanism for those who want to to enter their own census data.

I did imply that. But why meddle with an instrument at all

It is wonderfully quaint and old fashioned and trusted for a few specific items

Despite not having the data on its usage I have a reasonable knowledge on the few main most useful data items and use cases.

Edit. and one other major point i had was a data one!! Does the construct or constructs mean anything outside of a vague political alliance. And the other data point is talked to by Chris and others. Data quality, data value, trust in an instrument, privacy. Who knows what about our lives. Sorry hard to stop once I start thinking and commenting. But the instrument and its connection with government can be highly oppressive. Ironically those who politically fought some of that oppression are now joining forces with it

And I am irrelevant to such decisions and people still don't need to hear my views. And as I also alluded at high risk to myself people face all manner of misrepresentation and even attack for simply raising some well thought out and highly informed concerns on public forums.

I often wonder who informs such political changes. Sadly my related knowledge of certain other agencies suggests understanding the complexity of people's lives and the risks they face every day is not well understood. I could probably write a book but I am not qualified. I hope someone is

We all know some people believe what they read in the census 

Happy New Year 

PS before I go I am aware of all the alleged or even known psychological issues related to such historical exclusion and even risk of debate. But there are considerable risks to others too. Including those trying to alert those in power to those serious risks. And some people also like to answer all survey items honestly without the stress of having to be dishonest in any way. I just think important instruments are too important to be undermined. People think a "prefer not to answer" option gets around it. I am sure identity is important to all of us - on every single attribute of our magterial body, life,  and spriits. yet many for their own prtection can never even say who they are in oppressive situations. Please don't make anything any harder for them than it already is. And trust the most trustworthy items :) I am not telling anyone their business :)

How is transgender – a very, very small population – classified as a “key population” as Beth claims?

Not asking a question does not mean “exclusion” Beth. There is no question about impotence either. Or baldness. I admit to the latter. Having a biased estimate of pr(transgender) will not allow anyone to measure progress or target funding, notwithstanding that we will not agree on what progress is.

What policy decision would follow from a survey of unverified claims of transgender status? I am sure you know that there are schools in the US where fully 20% of students claim to be transgender or non-binary. If researchers are interested in measuring the true proportion – and what is generating the claim – they can fund their own surveys surely.