[This article is the third entry in Season 3 of LGBT by the Numbers, which explores the results of the Gender Census, an annual online survey of people whose gender isn’t strictly male or female.
So far, I’ve introduced Season 3 and discussed the results from the 2024 Gender Census. My articles about last year's Gender Census provide a thorough discussion of nonbinary identity terms.]
Between 2013 and 2015, the umbrella term preferred by a majority of people with a gender outside the binary appears to have changed from genderqueer to nonbinary.
Whether you believe that’s true depends on how much you trust the results of the pilot Gender Census from 2013.
Genderqueer refers to someone whose gender identity or expression falls outside the boundaries of what is typically considered male or female.
Nonbinary refers to someone whose gender identity isn’t exclusively male or female.
These terms
are similar, but not identical. Some people with a binary gender identify as
genderqueer because they engage in gender expression in nonconforming way, like tomboys and femboys do.
Eleven years ago, Cassian administered the first Gender Census in 2013.
At the time, Barack Obama was president, and I was studying journalism at Kansas State University.
That year, on this blog, I wrote a series on Julian Assange, discussed revelations from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, and began covering the US military prison at Guantanamo.
In the 2013 Gender Census, 58% of respondents identified as genderqueer.
Genderqueer was the only identity term that received more than 50% that year.
Nonbinary came in second with 39%.
There was no Gender Census in 2014.
Cassian administered the second Gender Census in 2015.
That year, Nonbinary took first place with 64%.
Genderqueer came in second with 41%.
You can click on the graph to view a larger version of it.
Cassian has administered a Gender Census every year since 2015, and Nonbinary has been the top identity term in the Gender Census since 2015.
Therefore, the most popular umbrella term for people with a gender outside the binary appears to have changed around 2014.
This tentative conclusion appears plausible.
Kye Rowan, a nonbinary and intersex person, created the nonbinary flag in 2014.
It would make sense that this event coincided with the rise in popularity of the term.
The Nonbinary Flag
The genderqueer flag was created a few years earlier.
Marilyn Roxie, a genderqueer person, created the genderqueer flag in 2011.
The Genderqueer Flag
Reasons for Caution
There are a few reasons to treat the results of the 2013 survey with caution.
Last year, Cassian described the 2013 survey as, “more of a pilot survey that informed a better survey in 2015.”
Fewer people responded to the survey in 2013 than any of the surveys that followed.
Only 2,061 people took part in the survey, compared to 2,901 in 2015.
The number people who completed each Gender Census is shown in the graph and table below.
That being said, 2,061 respondents is still a good size for a poll, even if it was surpassed by the number of people who completed the survey in subsequent years.
So what can we conclude?
As far as I can tell, the data from the Gender Census appears to show a shift around 2014 when Nonbinary surpassed Genderqueer as the preferred umbrella term for people who don’t identify with a binary gender.
It’s worth noting that even though genderqueer lost its top spot, it remains a popular term among nonbinary people.
Genderqueer received 33% in the 2024 Gender Census, making it the seventh most commonly chosen term in the survey.
Only three identity terms have ever been chosen by more than 50% of respondents in the Gender Census.
Genderqueer received more than 50% in 2013.
Nonbinary has received more than 60% every year, beginning in 2015.
Queer has received more than 50% every year, beginning in 2022.
Going Forward
From here on out, we’ll focus on Gender Census data from 2015 onward.
Graphs in subsequent articles generally won’t include data from the 2013 survey, based on concerns explained above, but discussions in those articles will reference data from 2013 when relevant.
In the next article, we’ll begin our exploration of the top identity terms from the 2024 Gender Census and examine how they have performed over time.
