Those willing to identify themselves as having an LGBT+ identity therefore make up 3.7% of the population. This is lower than the latest church membership figures (c.10%) or church attendance figures at around 4.7%. Of course, the key difference here is that LGBT+ is growing rapidly, whilst church membership and attendance is in decline. Similarly, the LGBT+ lobby is having a disproportionate influence on public policy for its size, whereas the influence of Christianity is declining.

The initial statistics from the census on gender identity and sexual orientation came out last week. These are headline figures which apply only to England and Wales. There will be more to come when we should be able to analyse the ages of people with different identities and other information. For now, the headlines do provide some interesting information that is worth assessing.

LGBT+ is Still a Small Minority

First off, the most obvious takeaway is that LGBT+ identities are still a very small minority. Overall, those identifying as having an LGB+ orientation made up 3.2% of the population, while 7.5% did not answer the question. Only 0.5% of the population said that they did not identify with the same sex as the sex they were registered at birth. Here, 6% did not answer the question, and it was the first time that a question on gender identity was included in the census. It is likely that those refusing to answer the questions were boycotting the questions because they disapproved of them.

Those willing to identify themselves as having an LGBT+ identity therefore make up 3.7% of the population. This is lower than the latest church membership figures (c.10%) or church attendance figures at around 4.7%. Of course, the key difference here is that LGBT+ is growing rapidly, whilst church membership and attendance is in decline. Similarly, the LGBT+ lobby is having a disproportionate influence on public policy for its size, whereas the influence of Christianity is declining.

Only 0.1% Legally Transgender

The headlines are all about 262,000 people who identify with a different gender from their sex registered at birth. This is 0.5% of the population, but is still a lot of people. It’s worth noting that LGBT lobbying organisation Stonewall still says on its website that “the best estimate at the moment is that around 1% of the population might identify as trans.” That’s double the actual number from the census. Of course, it is in their interests to overstate the numbers.

It is important to note that only around 6,000 people in the whole of the UK actually have a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). That’s around 0.1% of the population who are legally transgender. It is also only c.2% of those who said in the census in England and Wales that they are transgender. In other words, there are a lot of people who say they are transgender, but who are not legally transgender. In fact, that’s 98% of those who say they are transgender, but do not have a GRC.

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