In case you missed it (we really hope you didn’t), every Aussie adult was required to fill out the Census last night. That meant we had to put up with a questionnaire which was weird at best and in some cases, pretty problematic.
Some questions felt a tad weird but were still understandable, like asking people how they travelled to work when half the country is in lockdown. Other questions (or lack thereof) just felt plain wrong.
Take, for example, the apparent erasure of queer, trans and enby folks among the multitude of other demographic notes compiled by the survey.
To make things worse, people who selected the non-binary option for the gender question will be randomly assigned to either the female or male categories in the end. That’s literally the opposite of what non-binary means.
Plenty off Aussies took to Twitter to call these issues out.
Did the Aussie census for the first time tonight – its so disappointing that they can ask a whole heap of demographic questions but none on counting LGBTIQ+ people- and the very reason we are not counted is purely discriminatory + a political decision. Makes me so sad 😞
— Dr Ryan Storr (@DrRyanStorr) August 10, 2021
I’m just a non binary human, standing in front of my census, asking it to love me
— Archie Thomas (@archieth0m) August 10, 2021
The Census: “Queer people? Never heard of them. Anyway, how much housework do you do?”
— Rosie Delaney 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈 (@roseadelaney) August 10, 2021
so tonight is census night, when the government mandates i provide a survey of my personal data or be fined but in which i cannot state the name, gender, sexuality or life that i actually lead because of government choosing to bury the existence of LGBTQIA Australians
— let hayley be hayley (@hayleygrows) August 10, 2021
You’d think that after running a “voluntary postal survey” to canvass everyone’s opinions on same-sex couples, the ABS could at least use the universally applicable term “parent” 🙄 pic.twitter.com/ECsm1QlMuu
— Sally Rugg (@sallyrugg) August 10, 2021
The census uses this as their tagline. And they’re going to just…. Not count the non-binary people? So we don’t get to hear their stories? pic.twitter.com/vLSZhu0DYX
— Ally Garrett (@allygarrett) August 9, 2021
AFAC
assigned female after census— scoot (@scoutboxall) August 10, 2021
Some of the questions were also pretty culturally insensitive, including excluding major religions, ancestries and languages as checkbox options.
The Census definitely gave the vibe that the questions were compiled by people who’ve maybe never had to answer such questions beyond pre-prepared responses.
not happy Jan. #Census2021 pic.twitter.com/hepf4A7JPy
— Alex Bhathal (@alexbhathal) August 10, 2021
Being a lil silly, but imagine if on the census they asked colonisers how well they spoke languages from here. Then imagine if it was couched in deficit terms (‘poorly’ etc).
🙃🙃🙃
— Dr JM Field (@JM_Field5) August 9, 2021
https://twitter.com/alyciagawthorne/status/1425022708039917573
The question about how many kids you’ve birthed isn’t inherently problematic, but it sure was worded weirdly.
People couldn’t help but see parallels with their nosy distant relatives, or whatever.
Oh look – the census was written by the same people I serve in my parents’ grocery shop at Christmas and Easter pic.twitter.com/2tVDmBVOIj
— Melanie Tait (@MelanieTait) August 10, 2021
every distant-unknown-relative-at-christmas // the census pic.twitter.com/kygz5DnXnw
— Alice Bishop (@BishopAlice) August 10, 2021
https://twitter.com/GandWalter/status/1425058202836627457
Out of all this mess, at least we got a couple of decent jokes and memes.
https://twitter.com/JamColley/status/1425030878846066690
*NSW government official checking the 2021 census results*
Ah. It seems we no longer need any buses or trains. Or parking structures.
— Matt Bevan (@MatthewBevan) August 10, 2021
https://twitter.com/TravisHDeVries/status/1424922284804886530
So many options on this #Census – fun so far. pic.twitter.com/nkxwfyTGR8
— Dean Nye (@Dean_Nye) August 10, 2021
https://twitter.com/mckinnon_a/status/1425061903936544772
https://twitter.com/Utopiana/status/1425060726733824000
Anyway, at least it’s over and done with now, even if the data collection was pretty shitty at times.
See you all again this time in five years, by which time things will hopefully have improved!
