Dozens of Democrats in the House and Senate introduced legislation on Monday that would require the federal government to continue collecting data on people’s sexual orientation and gender identity.
The bill, from Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., and Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., is aimed at pushing back on what they say is the Trump administration’s attempt to eliminate questions about sexual orientation and gender identity on the American Community Survey and the 2020 census.
They were also reacting to the Department of Health and Human Services’ decision to remove LGBT questions from a survey on aging.
Democrats say failing to collect this data will give federal policymakers an incomplete picture of the U.S. population, which could hurt LGBT people when policy is made.
“The LGBT Data Inclusion Act will ensure that a marginalized population, the LGBT community, is taken into account for the everyday policy decisions our nation’s lawmakers take,” Grijalva said. “The current lack of sound data about sexual orientation and gender identity in many federal surveys means we are ill-prepared to meet the needs of this community.”
“We must develop a credible and confidential understanding of these vulnerable populations we currently know too little about,” he added.
Baldwin said in a separate statement that lawmakers are currently “blindfolded” when it comes to considering federal policies that might affect LGBT people.
“As the LGBT community is specifically targeted by the Trump administration and the like in State houses all across the country, we need robust data so that lawmakers are able to make informed policy decisions about people living and working in their districts,” she said. “Now more than ever, the LGBT community needs to know who has their back.”
The bill would require any agency that collects information about Americans to review its questions to see if sexual orientation and gender identity is included. They must also develop ways to ask these questions to “preserve privacy and confidentiality.”
The bill has 14 Democrat co-sponsors in the Senate and dozens more in the House.
