Expert comments on statistics institute’s appeal following obligation to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” fields in the survey
Brazil’s 2022 Population Census may once again leave out important data concerning an important part of its society: the LGBTQIAP+ population. In early June, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística/IBGE) appealed a decision by the Federal Court of Acre obliging it to include fields on sexual orientation and gender identity in this year's census. According to IBGE, the survey’s questionnaires began to be prepared in 2016, and inclusion of specific questions about the LGBTQIAP+ population would increase costs and cause a new delay. The census was postponed by the pandemic and will now be carried out on August 1st.
To lawyer Lívia Moraes - a Diversity & Inclusion specialist at Barcellos Tucunduva Advogados –, IBGE's refusal has several negative effects. “The lack of information concerning sexual orientation and gender identity in the census’ basic and sample questionnaires makes quality data poorer and directly impacts the development of public policies which could combat violence and discrimination against this population. What is not known cannot be solved," she says.
The request to include data on the LGBTQIAP+ community in the Brazilian Census is nothing new. “This is an old demand by groups belonging to the movement, in an attempt to strengthen the public policies that protect them,” observes Lívia. Data collected in 2019 by the IBGE's National Health Survey (Pesquisa Nacional da Saúde), for example, revealed that only 1.8% of Brazil’s adult population is homosexual or bisexual. This reflects two issues, however: “Data was filled in by the interviewers themselves and not by those who were being interviewed – so obviously only those who felt comfortable doiing so declared their gender identity and sexual orientation.”
Lívia Moraes reiterates that the National Health Survey did not address issues of gender identity, highlighting the invisibility that the trans and transvestite population already suffer. Lívia highlights that Brazil “is the country that kills the most transsexual and transvestite people in the world” – and reiterated that “the lack of information about this part of the LGBTQIAP+ community reflects its historical marginalization.”
There is no other survey in Brazil that is similar in scope to the census and covers the LGBTQIAP+ community’s monitoring needs. “Presently there is no reliable data on this population, on its vulnerabilities and challenges in day to day life – and not just in theory. Other institutions and associations do collect information, but at a reduced and private level,” evaluates Lívia.
According to the lawyer, the Brazilian Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transvestite, Transsexual and Intersex Association (Associação Brasileira de Lésbicas, Gays, Bissexuais, Travestis, Transexuais e Intersexos/ABGLT, the community’s main representative body in Brazil and Latin America) estimates that there are more than 20 million homosexual and bisexual people in Brazil – a totally different number from what the National Health Survey declared.
So, in the absence of official data in Brazil, “ABGLT numbers have been used as reference for many years in the development of public policies, bills and even judicial decisions.”
Source: Lívia Moraes, lawyer, postgraduate student in Intellectual Property and Innovation Law at FGV-SP; specialised in Diversity & Inclusion at Work (University of Virginia and ESSEC Business School), Anti-racism (University of Colorado Boulder), Gender and Sexuality (University of Pittsburgh). She is a lawyer at Barcellos Tucunduva Advogados and a member of the office's Diversity Committee.
Source: Jurid Newspaper
