Sex: Male or Female. Sexual orientation: not asked. Intersectionality? Not enough data to analyze and non-normative data sets that don’t fit analysis requirements. We have all filled out demographic information countless times that ignores and erases the existence of people with queer-spectrum gender identities and sexual orientations – defined here as those who do not identify as both cisgender and heterosexual. Because of how demographic information is often collected, it usually relies on a common fallacy that equates sex and gender, and sees both as a mutually exclusive and exhaustive dichotomous variable, erasing the existence of gender diverse people. Assumptions that families are a heterosexual couple or single parent family with associated biological children erases those with queer-spectrum sexual orientations.
While there is a general lack of data on the experiences of queer-spectrum individuals, we do know that queer-spectrum people face many of the challenges common to those with marginalized identities and that those with multiple marginalized identities experience compounded marginalization (i.e. intersectionality). Since queer-spectrum individuals are largely marginalized within society, they are more likely to experience lower socio-economic status, lack of access to appropriate medical care, and a higher likelihood of experiencing homelessness. These marginalization-driven experiences have common environmental justice ramifications for those who experience them. Additionally, in the aftermath of a natural disaster, queer-spectrum people face additional discrimination in shelters, re-settlement, and receiving financial support. For example, shelters are often separated by binary sex, and family support may be limited to heterosexual couples and their biological children. Yet, because queer-spectrum individuals are all but invisible in big data sets, and these identities are neither protected nation-wide in the United States nor considered “minorities” in most initiatives targeting diversity and marginalized groups, queer-spectrum individuals face environmental justice problems from a place of invisibility and erasure.
Results/Conclusions
Through a discussion of queered demographics data collection strategies, including my own ongoing work, and environmental justice case studies I will both problematize current common practices and critically discuss current attempts to move beyond the erasure of queer-spectrum individuals in demographic data collection. I will discuss suggestions for better-practices in data collection and analyses, (e.g. don’t simply include “male, female, other” and then throw out all the “other” data; use nonparametric statistics), as well as a call to action for research that will lead to larger-scale change.