Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and J.D. Vance (R-OH) wrote a letter to U.S. Census Bureau Director Robert Santos on November 3, 2023, asking him to “rescind polarizing and unscientific questions on gender identity.”
Per their letter, “On September 19, 2023, the U.S. Census Bureau asked the Biden Administration for permission to test questions about gender identity for respondents over the age of 15 on the ACS. The Census Bureau has requested $10 million to study the best way to present such questions with the purported intent of testing out the wording, placement, and response categories to analyze the differences between ‘LGBTQ+ people.’ The Census Bureau’s gender-identity test questions would ask what sex the person was assigned at birth and what they feel is their current gender.”
Rubio and Vance concluded that, “Official government surveys should reflect objective reality.”
(For more background, read this Census Project blog post about the Bureau’s ACS testing plan for SOGI questions, and a note in our September update about the recent Federal Register Notice on adding a SOGI question.)