An invisible demographic: Lack of census data hurts San Jose’s LGBTQ+ community

A Gallup poll found in 2015 that San Jose had one of the lowest LGBTQ+ populations of any large metropolitan area. Six years later, it’s tough to know if that’s changed — such basic information on the local LGBTQ+ population is missing because the U.S. census didn’t ask for it.

In a major first, the 2020 census allowed U.S. residents to indicate same-sex relationships in their households. But there was no way for respondents to specify sexual orientation, and the gender options remained limited to “male” and “female,” meaning the census could not collect critical data on single and transgender/nonbinary members of the LGBTQ+ community.