Responses to Sexual and Gender Identity Measures in Population-Level Data by Birth Cohort: A Research Note

The mea sure ment of sex ual and gen der iden tity in the United States has been evolv ing to gen er ate more pre cise demo graphic esti ma tes of the pop u la tion and a bet ter under stand ing of health and well-being. Younger cohorts of sex ual- and gen derdiverse adults are endors ing iden ti ties out side of the les bian, gay, bisex ual, and transgen der (LGBT) labels. Current pop u la tion-level sur veys often include a cat e gory such as "some thing else" with out pro vid ing fur ther details, and doing so inad e quately captures these diverse iden ti ties. In this research note, our anal y sis of the most recent federal data source to incor po rate sex ual and gen der iden tity mea sures-the Household Pulse Survey-reveals that youn ger birth cohorts are more likely to select "some thing else" for their sex ual iden tity and "none of these" for their gen der iden tity. The observed sex ual and gen der iden tity response pat terns across birth cohorts under score the importance of devel op ing and apply ing new strat e gies to directly mea sure sex ual- and gen derdiverse adults who iden tify with iden ti ties out side of those explic itly cap tured on surveys. The inte gra tion of sex ual and gen der iden tity mea sures in pop u la tion-level surveys car ries broader impli ca tions for civil rights and for addressing health inequities and there fore must be respon sive to cohort dif fer ences in iden ti fi ca tion.