Joseph
Chamie is an independent consulting demographer and a former
director of the United Nations Population Division. This
article is reprinted with permission from YaleGlobal
Online www.yaleglobal.yale.edu
With its antecedents brewing for decades, the 21st century
has ushered in a sexual, gender and identity revolution. Increasingly,
members of the LGBTQ community – lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, and queer or questioning – are becoming
more visible and outspoken, consequently gaining recognition
and acceptance. At least 26 nations now allow marriage equality
and 27 others allow civil unions and partnerships.
Traditionally,
societies divided human populations into two sex categories:
male and female, based on reproductive systems. However, some
131 million people, or 1.7 percent of the world’s population,
fall outside of those two categories based on having intersex
conditions.
Ambiguous
genitalia can be attributed to an array of
health issues related to hormones, chromosomes, gene mutations
and more. Still, about 70 nations criminalize homosexuality,
most in Africa and South Asia, with the death penalty possible
in Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, the Sudan
and Yemen. Brunei announced strict interpretation of Sharia
law in April, including death by stoning for homosexuality
and adultery, but has since said that the rules won’t
be enforced.
People
with intersex conditions are those whose anatomy or genes
do not fit typical biological definitions of male or female.
For example, an individual might be born appearing to be female
with mostly male-typical anatomy on the inside. Gender, in
contrast to one’s biological sex, can refer to social
roles based on a person’s sex or personal identification
of one’s own gender, masculine or feminine, based on
internal awareness or gender identity. With many terms and
definitions used for gender identity, sensitivity and uncertainty
may arise regarding the appropriate terminology.
Society
is adjusting to a multitude of categories. Facebook offered
users more than 50 gender options in 2014 and allows custom
pronouns. The dating app Tinder allowed potential daters to
choose among at least 37 options. The Common Application,
used by more than 600 US colleges, also provides applicants
with a free-response box to elaborate on how they self-identify.
Nevertheless,
there is entrenched opposition to gender identity being culturally
defined or individually determined. In the United States,
for example, the federal government is trying to define gender
as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia
at birth. Such a definition would adversely affect an estimated
1.4 million Americans who identify as a gender other than
the one assigned at birth:
The term cisgender describes people, estimated at about
99 percent of the population, whose assigned sex and gender
identity are much the same or in line with each other. A
cisgender person, for example, is male with a masculine
gender identity or female with a feminine gender identity.
Transgender describes people, estimated at about 0.5 percent
of men and women, whose gender identity or expression does
not match the sex they were assigned at birth. A transgender
person, for example, may identify as a woman though born
a male or identify as a man though born a female. Not all
transgender people identify as male or female with some
identifying as more than one gender or no gender at all.
The
World Health Organization and the American Psychiatric Association
recently reclassified transgenderism from a psychiatric disorder
to a condition related to sexual health. According to WHO, gender
incongruence is characterized as a “marked and persistent
incongruence between an individual’s experienced gender
and the assigned sex.”
Individuals
whose gender is not male or female may use a variety of terms
to describe themselves, including non-binary, agender, bigender,
and genderqueer. While some are non-binary, most transgender
persons have a gender identity that is either male or female.
Non-binary people, estimated at about 0.2 percent of men and
women, are usually not intersex. Generally, they are usually
born with bodies that may fit typical definitions of male and
female, but their innate gender identity is something other
than male or female.
Global
statistics on the LGBTQ population are limited, largely by the
fact that most official government records do not include data
on sexual orientation and gender identity. Governments typically
collect demographic data, issue identification documents and
establish policies, laws and programs that distinguish individuals
on the binary basis of sex. Population censuses, civil registration
systems, identity cards, voting rolls and birth, marriage and
death certificates, for example, differentiate people by and
large on the male-female binary classification. Furthermore,
due in large part to discrimination and other negative consequences
in many parts of the world, members of the LGBTQ community are
reluctant to reply accurately to questions about sexual orientation
and gender identity. As a result, such questions typically result
in high non-response rates.
LGBTQ
population estimates are limited and vary depending on a variety
of factors, including how questions are phrased – whether
based on self-identification, physical attraction or sexual
behavior – and how people are interviewed. Consequently,
LGBTQ populations are likely to be undercounted.
Despite
definitional and measurement limitations, disclosure of LGBTQ
status in nationally representative surveys has been consistently
on the rise from one survey round to the next. That upward trend
is likely to continue since disclosure is more frequent among
younger cohorts. In addition, the increasing proportions of
people identifying as homosexuals, bisexuals or transgender
may reflect the general public becoming more accepting.
Based
on data from sample surveys in a handful of countries, some
insight and tentative estimates may be gained on the levels
and trends of sexual orientation and gender identity. In United
States, for example, the proportions of adults identifying as
lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender have been rising in recent
years, reaching approximately 4 and 5 percent of males and females
in 2017, respectively, or no less than 11 million adults. Also,
while females continue to be more likely to identify as LGBT
than males, that difference may be due to more social acceptance
for women.
Among
the 14 OECD countries where survey estimates are available,
lesbians, gays and bisexuals account for close to 3 percent
of the adult population, or no less than 17 million adults.
With considerable variation among those countries, ranging from
a low of about 1 percent in Norway to close to 4 percent in
the United States, the overall estimate of 3 percent should
be viewed as an underestimate.
For
many reasons, including privacy concerns, uncertainty, stigma
and discrimination, determining the distribution of LGBTQ persons
by sexual orientation or gender identity is a challenging undertaking
with considerable uncertainty. One nationally representative
survey in the United States in 2013 reported the estimates of
the community's members: 36 percent gay men, 29 percent bisexual
women, 19 percent lesbian women, 11 percent bisexual men, and
5 percent transgender. Some transgender adults in the survey
described themselves as gay or lesbian.
Time-series
sample surveys concerning sexual orientation have been conducted
in Australia, and as observed in the United States, the proportions
of Australian adults considering themselves homosexuals have
risen since 2006. In addition, the proportions identifying as
homosexuals varied by age with peaks of more than 6 percent
for those in their 20s and lows of nearly 2 percent for those
aged 50 years and over. However, those age differentials, also
observed in other developed countries, may simply reflect a
more accepting social milieu for younger homosexuals to disclose
their sexual orientation.
The
scarcity of accurate and timely statistics and studies on the
LGBTQ population makes it easy to marginalize them, overlook
issues affecting them and delay needed policy reforms. As is
widely acknowledged, not being counted typically means one does
not matter for policy purposes. Official government estimates
of numbers and characteristics of LBGTQ persons are essential
for relevant policy development and evaluation, informed decision-making
and appropriate funding priorities. Without such statistics
and studies, current policies and programs aimed at LGBTQ communities
are likely to be misguided, inefficient and inadequate.
