No sex census please, we’re Kiwi

The 2018 census will not feature any questions on sexual orientation or gender identity, despite a new Green Party Statistics Minister.

But Minister James Shaw is confident a new standard would be implemented long before the following census in 2023.

The census as it stands does not ask about sexual orientation or gender identity - instead simply providing a two-category gender question.

LGBTI activists have long complained about the omission, saying their community is underresearched and as a result funding for rainbow programmes is difficult to allocate.

‘‘We need to know the size and location of our community,’’ RainbowYOUTH executive director Frances Arns said.

‘‘Rainbow organisations are quite underfunded and the statistics would help us highlight to those in control of funding that there is huge need in our community.’’

Shaw said it was already far too late to change anything about the 2018 census - and even if he wanted to that would be inappropriate.

‘‘The Government Statistician is independent of the government, and this is important to ensure we have high quality statistics,’’ Shaw said.

Statistics New Zealand ran a series of tests on a third gender option and found that erroneous or deliberately inaccurate answers made the data unreliable.

Arns rejected this, saying the wider community were much more tolerant of late.

‘‘We don’t see how this is any different to other multifaceted concepts like ethnicity or religion,’’ Arns said.

Statistics New Zealand will be including a question on sexual orientation in the 2018 General Social Survey, a face-to-face survey of 8000 people aged 15 and over.

That question will ask ‘‘which of the following options best describe how you think or yourself?’’

The available answers will be ‘‘Heterosexual or straight, Gay or lesbian’’ and ‘‘Bisexual’’.

An ‘‘other’’ option will be allowed and respondents will be able to refuse to answer.

Statistics New Zealand labour market and household statistics senior manager Diane Ramsay said there was still no agreed-upon international standard for a gender identity question.