Gender Census, 2024

 

The results of the 2024 Gender Census are similar to the results of last year’s survey.

 

This article focuses on this year’s results and how they compare to last year.

Definitions for identity terms mentioned in this article can be found in previous articles and in the subsequent articles in this series, but they are not my focus today.

 

The Gender Census is an annual global online survey for people whose gender falls outside the binary.

Before entering the survey, participants must check a box that says, “I confirm that I don’t really fit into just one of the two boxes of ‘always, solely, and completely a woman/girl’ or ‘always, solely, and completely a man/boy.”

More people participated in this year’s Gender Census than ever before.

A total of 48,645 people completed the survey, which was conducted from May 13 to June 17, 2024.

 

The countries with the most participants were the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, and Australia.

This year, 55% of respondents were from the United States.

 

Primary Source: Gender Census - 2024

 

 

 

Top Identity Words

 

Gender Census respondents were asked, “Which of the following best describes in English how you think of yourself?”

Respondents could choose as many checkboxes as they wished, as well as write in terms not included on the list.

 

I created a bar graph showing the top 11 identity words from the 2024 Gender Census.

 

 

 

 

Here is a version of the graph without the numbers on each bar.

 

 

The following tables list the percent of participants who identify with each identity term.

Let’s begin with the 11 terms that received more than 20%.

 

1. Nonbinary                                    60.4%

2. Queer                                          53.6%

3. Trans                                           44.7%

 

4. A Person / Human /                     39.1%

[My Name] / “I’m Just Me”

 

5. Transgender                                38.8%

6. Gender Non-Conforming             34.9%

7. Genderqueer                               32.6%

8. Enby                                            29.4%

9. Transmasculine                           26.4%

10. Genderfluid                                24.7%

11. Agender                                     23.1%

 

 

These 11 terms are common enough that I encourage allies and the public to become familiar with them.

I discussed the definitions for these terms in two articles on the results of the 2023 Gender Census.

I will discuss these terms again in subsequent articles that will explore how these terms performed in the Gender Census over the past decade.

 

 

Now let’s look at the terms that received less than 20% in this year’s Gender Census.

 

12. Fag                                          17.1%

13. Questioning or Unknown        13.9%

14. Transfeminine                         11.9%

15. Butch                                        9.8%

16. Demigirl                                    7.1%

17. Demiboy                                   6.0%

18. Bigender                                   5.7%

 

19. None/                                        4.6%

I do not describe myself

 

20. Cisgender                                 3.5%

21. Binary                                       1.6%

 

 

 

 

How ’24 compares to ‘23

 

The top 11 terms are in the same order as they were last year.

Just like last year, these 11 terms were the same ones that cleared my 20% benchmark for notability.

 

Unexpectedly, all of the top 11 terms were chosen by a slightly smaller percentage of respondents than last year.

A total of 17 terms saw a decrease compared to the most recent time they were listed as a checkbox option.

Considering all checkbox responses, the terms that saw the largest declines were Gender Non-Conforming (-3.6% from ’23) and “A Person/Human/ [My Name] / ‘I’m Just Me’” (-3.4% from ’23).

The terms that saw the next biggest declines were Transmasculine (-3.0% from ’23) and Enby (-2.9% from ’23).

 

 

Only 4 checkbox identity terms saw an increase compared to their last appearance, and all four are quite far down the list.

Transfeminine increased 2.0% from 2023, and Butch increased 1.9% from 2022, the last time it appeared as a checkbox.

Cisgender increased 1.0% from 2023, and Bigender increased by 0.2% from 2022, when it last appeared as a checkbox.

 

 

 

What’s Next?

 

Most of this series will examine the identity terms that appeared in this year’s Gender Census and compare how well they performed over the past 10 years of Gender Census surveys.

But our next article will instead take us back to the first Gender Census in 2013, to see what we can learn from how that pilot survey compares to the years that followed.