This Pride Month, the U.S. House of Representatives took the historic step of passing the LGBTQI+ Data Inclusion Act — which requires federal surveys to collect voluntary, self-disclosed demographic data on sexual orientation, gender identity and variations in sex characteristics, including intersex traits, while maintaining necessary privacy and confidentiality standards. Bipartisan House passage of this bill marks important progress and was supported by a broad coalition of over 150 organizations dedicated to improving the well-being of LGBTQI+ communities. These data will help measure the impact of a wide range of policies, enforce nondiscrimination protections, bring visibility to how this growing portion of the U.S. population is faring in many facets of daily life, as well as generate policy solutions that promote greater equity for LGBTQI+ communities. Now, it’s up to the Senate to pass the LGBTQI+ Data Inclusion Act to help ensure the experiences of the LGBTQI+ community are no longer overlooked.
The federal government conducts surveys on a wide variety of topics and populations and then uses those data to develop policy, program and funding priorities that affect millions of people across the country. This also means the federal government is uniquely positioned to engage in data collection about LGBTQI+ people to generate accurate, consistent and representative data at a large enough scale that allows for researchers to analyze the diversity of experiences among LGBTQI+ communities.
The above excerpt was originally published in The Hill.
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