Last month, as people from all over Aotearoa completed the census, for the first time questions about sexuality, gender, and variations of sex characteristics were included and will provide a solid information base to continue to improve services and support for Aotearoa’s Rainbow community in the future.

Having rainbow and intersex communities counted in census data will enable groups and individuals to better advocate for rainbow and intersex communities, and for government decisions to better reflect their needs, says Simon Mason, Deputy Government Statistician. “Policy makers will be able use census data to shape policy, and decisions about the funding, location, and provision of services used by rainbow communities can be better targeted.”

“It’s great that we are being counted, and it’s long overdue,” says Dave Merchant from the Out@PSA committee. “We need real recognition at all levels, and that includes official information sets like the census, to make sure governments and others make provision for our rainbow communities.”

With better information on LGBTQI+ communities comes a responsibility to make good use of it to inform policy. There’s still some way to go in that regard; for example, the Ministry of Health Manatū Houora’s development of new health strategies so far hasn’t included a plan for rainbow communities, despite the inequities in health outcomes that exist for LGBTQI+ groups.

Out@PSA committee member Danielle Marks says, “Each one of us now has had the ability to whakamana (empower) our identities through the census. More work needs to be done to continue this journey, but I am grateful for all the mahi by members of our Rainbow communities in advocating for us finally being counted.”

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