The 2026 Gender Census is now open!
[ survey.gendercensus.com ]
The 13th annual international gender census, collecting information about the language we use to refer to ourselves and each other, is now open until 13th August 2026.
It’s short and easy, for most participants it takes 5 minutes or less.
After the survey is closed I’ll process the results and publish a spreadsheet of the data and a report summarising the main findings. Then anyone can use them for academic or business purposes, self-advocacy, tracking the popularity of language over time, and just feeling like we’re part of a huge and diverse community.
If you think you might have friends and followers who’d be interested, please do reblog this blog post, and share the survey URL by email or at AFK social groups or on other social networks. Every share is extremely helpful!
Survey URL: https://survey.gendercensus.com
The survey is open to anyone anywhere who speaks English and feels that the gender binary doesn’t fully describe their experience of themselves and their gender(s) or lack thereof.
Thank you so much!
[ Link to survey ]
PS: You can see some regularly-updated statistics about incoming data here, with lots of demography and graphs to peruse!
PPS: Image credits, bark and grass.
It's not "hostile" to binary trans people. Binary trans people are just not the target group. They are intentionally not represented at all. It's not a study about binary people.
This is the very first thing on the first page of the survey:
Who can participate? This survey intends to collect information from everyone who ISN'T adequately described by the "gender binary". According to the binary model of gender, everyone fits tidily into just one of these categories: ● Woman/girl - all the time, solely, and completely ↳ (may be cisgender, transgender, intersex, etc. for the purposes of this survey) ● Man/boy - all the time, solely, and completely ↳ (may be cisgender, transgender, intersex, etc. for the purposes of this survey) Anyone who doesn't feel like they fit into one of these two boxes is invited to participate.
Seems like you should call it something else then like the non binary survey
Obviously you are allowed to vent on your own blog, and I didn't realise you didn't want responses that might clarify/clear up confusion and mistakes - sorry about that!
Seems like you should call it something else then like the non binary survey
I've got a thing in the FAQ that kind of relates to this a bit:
I have to avoid words like “binary” and “nonbinary” in the criteria for who is invited to take part, in order to be fully inclusive and avoid bias.
Basically, there are a lot of people who are failed by the binary model of gender, who don't identify as nonbinary. And if you're studying how often people use a particular word, you can't really include that word in the marketing, because it biases the results.
Like, yes, we know that "nonbinary" is a word that a lot of people use to describe themselves, and the reason that data is in any way reliable is because it doesn't call itself "the nonbinary survey". Right?
Imagine:
Make a survey called the nonbinary survey
Have no criteria
Ask participants if they're nonbinary
100% of participants say they're nonbinary because they took part because it was called "the nonbinary survey" and they identify with that
Researcher declares all humans nonbinary
That wouldn't be very science 🧐
Anyway, I do try very hard to lean heavy on the not-binary part in promotional stuff, just because I don't want to waste anyone's time. But I have to do that very carefully because I don't want to bias the results.
Like the image with the boxes with the Mars and Venus symbols on, right? It doesn't say "male" and "female", it implies it. And It refers to the gender binary in simplified ways so that people who aren't familiar with queer theory will understand and jump in. But at the same time, a binary trans woman, for example, would be like, "well I do fit into that Venus box really. So, this is probably not for me." And if she doesn't say that, she is probably invited into the sample anyway!
And this text:
The survey is open to [...] feels that the gender binary doesn’t fully describe their experience of themselves and their gender(s) or lack thereof.
Again, very carefully written to imply "not binary trans people" without saying it outright, because there will always be people in the grey area who do belong in the sample.
