Australia to Include SO and exclude GI Questions from 2026 Census

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) House Image Courtesy: Bidgee, Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported | Wikimedia Commons

In lightening fast flip-flops the Australian Federal government went from apologizing for not including the LGBTQI community, to dropping all questions about Sexual Orientation (SO) and Gender identity (GI), to omitting questions about the transgender community from the upcoming 2026 Census.

On August 25, Lucy Martinez, an Australian blogger, wrote on Substack, "The Australian federal government has decided not to include questions on gender identity, sexual orientation, and variations of sex characteristics in the 2026 Census. This decision follows ABS releasing a rare statement of regret in 2023 for excluding non-binary and other LGBTQI+ individuals from being properly counted in the 2021 Census and collaborating with the community to enhance inclusion in future Censuses.

"This is all despite the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) recognizing the increasing need for accurate data representing transgender individuals in Australia. However, today’s decision by the federal government will render those efforts futile."

Just a day after his ministers explained the census change had been scrapped to avoid a "divisive debate", Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced Friday that a question about sexuality would in fact be included in the 2026 survey.

Read more at Transcend Australia.

When questioned about these changes on Friday Prime Minister Albanese told ABC that it was the first time that he had been asked about it and that it was "common sense" to exclude transgender people from the 2026 census and include a new, single question about sexual orientation.

The editor's opinion from learned experience:

Excluding transgender people from the census is paramount to disappearing the gender-diverse community. Transgender people are fighting off attacks daily sometimes dying from a lack of basic human rights. The core reason for this inhumanity is a government's denial that we exist.

It's not "common sense" to cave to TERFs, and Hate Groups, it is androcide, it is femicide, it is gendercide.

As a leader of a major Western country with influence way past your borders, Prime Minister, the world expects that at a bare minimum acknowledge that trans people exist and live in Australia.