Official statisticians do not know if the first census of transgender people in England and Wales underestimates or overestimates the true picture. They admitted respondents without good English might not have understood the survey question concerning gender.
The 2021 census reported there were 262,000 trans people, equivalent to 0.5% of the population. It was the first time the decennial survey had asked if people identified as a gender that was different from their registered birth sex. The move was heralded as a “historic step” by trans rights campaigners.
In an update on Wednesday, the Office for National Statistics said there were “patterns in the data consistent with some respondents not interpreting the question as we had intended”.
The proportion of people who had a different main language than English and who said they were trans was four times higher than the 0.4% of the population with English as their main language (or English or Welsh in Wales).
Overall, 13% of people identifying as trans did not speak English well and the London boroughs of Newham and Brent recorded more than double the average proportion of respondents identifying as trans, more than places such as Brighton and Cambridge.
The ONS admitted “the overall impact on the data of any misinterpretation of the question cannot be determined”.
The count was significant because the data could be used to allocate public funds. It has also fuelled tension between gender critical feminists and trans rights activists, the former saying the question was “couched in obscure genderese” and the latter saying it revealed a “diverse Rainbow Britain”.
The question for the 2021 England and Wales census was: “Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?” A no answer led to a write-in box for “gender identity”.
Results of Scotland’s 2022 census due next year will be based on answers to the question: “Do you consider yourself to be trans, or have a trans history?”
Critics of the ONS included Dr Michael Biggs, a professor of sociology at Oxford University, who said the results were “implausible” and based on a “badly flawed question” that confused respondents.
Adults with no educational qualifications were more likely to identify as trans than university graduates, while black and Asian people were more likely to identify as trans than white people, the findings released this year showed.
The ONS is standing by its overall estimate, released in January, that one in 200 people aged over 16 are trans. Its director of population statistics, Jen Woolford, declared “confidence in our gender identity estimates at a national level”. Woolford said the estimates broadly tallied with surveys by GPs.
The ONS also suggested trans migrants might have chosen the UK because of its civil rights legislation and greater social acceptance than many other countries, an idea backed by Stonewall, the LGBT rights charity.
Prof Alice Sullivan, the head of research at the University College London Social Research Institute, said this confidence was unfounded and accused the ONS of “wriggling” over the data.
“To uphold public confidence the ONS should openly acknowledge its mistakes,” she said. “Failure to acknowledge poor question design doesn’t help trans people, and has real implications for local authorities and others allocating resources or using census data to inform decision making.”
Woolford said “wriggling” was an unfair description. “We are being transparent about the work we have done and we have published additional data allowing users to better understand the census data on gender identity.”
Robbie de Santos, Stonewall’s director of external affairs, said: “The current figures for the trans population are in step with comparable estimates in other nations, such as Canada who included a similar question in their 2021 census.”
