British LGBTQ+ Perspectives on Surveys: Data from focus group interviews on gender identity and sexuality survey measures

Despite the enormous progress for rights and liberation that LGBTQ+ people have made in the West over the last century, there is surprisingly little political science literature that includes or engages LGBTQ+ people. There are a variety of reasons for the lack of scholarship on LGBTQ+ people’s politics. One often cited problem is that it can be hard for researchers to find participants who are willing to openly identify as queer in research settings, even on anonymous polls and surveys. This problem is best exemplified by Lauman, Michal, Gognon, and Kolata (1994), who, in the 90s, found that while around 8-10% of the U.S. population could be classified as gay or bisexual (meaning they were having sexual or romantic relationships with other people of the same gender), only 1-2.5% of respondents in surveys and polls would openly identify as such. There are a variety of reasons why this non-response bias might exist in the 90s, from safety concerns to shame to the genuine belief that one was straight. This research has not been recently updated. Given the progress that has been made in societal attitudes toward and treatment of queer people, no further research on LGBTQ+ non-response bias is unfortunate because many of the theorized reasons why LGBTQ+ people may not want to self-identify in research settings may no longer be as salient in the 20s as they were in the 90s. Additionally, it is important to note that there has not been research conducted to assess the extent to which non-response bias exists among trans, nonbinary, and gender-non conforming people, both in the 90s and now. One of the systemic contributors to this dearth of research on queer people’s political perspectives and on non-response rates is that most publicly available surveys in the social and political sciences do not include measures that count LGBTQ+ people. There are virtually no publicly available surveys that include a measure of gender identity beyond a dichotomous male/female or man/woman construction. And on the rare occasions that a sexuality measure is included, it is often poorly constructed, leading to serious problems with the data’s quality and usefulness. We ought to be concerned about poor measure construction because many queer people may not answer honestly or continue to participate in research and surveys when they encounter offensive or poorly written measures. This begs the question: how should we construct sexuality and gender identity questions in survey research settings? I answer this question by conducting focus group interviews with dozens of British LGBTQ+ people. In these interviews, I ask about why some queer people may not self-identify in research settings. I also ask them for their reaction and feedback to current measures of sexuality and gender identity. From this qualitative data, I suggest several new possible ways to construct gender identity and sexuality measures that better count LGBTQ+ people on surveys.