No IVSC question: the government’s latest decision on the 2026 census

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We have today been advised by the ABS that the government will not include a question on innate variations of sex characteristics in the 2026 census, despite including questions on sex, sexuality and gender.

Quotes attributable to Dr Morgan Carpenter, executive director of Intersex Human Rights Australia:

This is a devastating development, which means that the next census will be out of step with the 2020 ABS Standard, and new standards for health and medical research. It means that we won’t get much needed information on the health and wellbeing of people with innate variations of sex characteristics (intersex/differences of sex development).

In many ways, this is not a surprising decision. Clearly the population of people with innate variations of sex characteristics is poorly understood by media and government, with the persistence of inappropriate ways of understanding who we are. We see this in widespread stigmatising and harmful attitudes. We see this in harmful attempts to count our population in the 2016 and 2021 censuses, and we see this in 2013 national gender recognition guidelines that have wrongly inserted the term intersex into a definition of a third gender.

We see it in media reports that frame the question on innate variations as about gender and sexuality, which may now make incomprehensible the idea that the government is including questions on gender and sexuality into the census – but not the question on variations of sex characteristics.

We don’t have funding to deliver psychosocial support services (we deliver these with funding with other deliverables that we meet), let alone address the stigma and discrimination that people with innate variations of sex characteristics experience.

IHRA and partners look forward to continuing to work with the ABS and the Albanese Government to combat misinformation, ensure data can be best captured on people with innate variations of sex characteristics, and to ensure adequate resourcing for community-controlled services.

Test question for the Australian census 2026

We have been given permission by the ABS to share the question on innate variations of sex characteristics which was proposed for further testing in September 2024:

Has the person been told they were born with a variation of sex characteristics (sometimes called intersex or differences of sex development)
Yes
No
Don’t know
Prefer not to say

This question is consistent with the 2020 ABS Standard on sex, gender, variations of sex characteristics and sexual orientation:

Were you born with a variation of sex characteristics (sometimes called ‘intersex’ or ‘DSD’)?
Yes
No
Don’t know
Prefer not to say

Comparable questions in other jurisdictions

The 2023 Aotearoa NZ census:

Were you born with a variation of sex characteristics (otherwise known as an intersex variation)?
Yes
No
Don’t know
Prefer not to say

The US National Academies of Sciences and Medicine:

Have you ever been diagnosed by a medical doctor or other health professional with an intersex condition or a difference of sex development (DSD) or were you born with (or developed naturally in puberty) genitals, reproductive organs, or chromosomal patterns that do not fit standard definitions of male or female?
Yes
No
(Don’t know)
(Prefer not to answer)

Bad practices and misinformation

Attorney General’s 2013 gender recognition guidelines:

These are still used by a range of Commonwealth government departments.

Where sex and/or gender information is collected and recorded in a personal record, individuals should be given the option to select:
M (male),
F (female) or
X (Indeterminate/Intersex/Unspecified)

This is bad practice because the guidelines:

  • Recognise that intersex people have diverse identities, but then wrongly insert the term intersex into a definition of a third gender category.
  • This yields meaningless data: it does not respect the heterogenous population of people with innate variations of sex characteristics, nor does it respect non-binary people.
  • IHRA and other organisations have been trying to change this definition since 2014 (example letter from 2015), to replace the current text with the term “non-binary”.

The Australian 2016 census question on sex:

For the 2016 Census, the ABS:

  • recognised that individuals may identify as a sex or gender other than the sex they were assigned at birth, or may not identify as exclusively male or female
  • provided methods for all form types so that people could record their sex in the way each thought most appropriate.

Male
Female
Other (free form field)

The Australian 2021 census question on sex:

Male
Female
Non-binary sex

Most media reporting in August/September 2024 has been consistent with these bad practices, for example, framing the question on innate variations of sex characteristics as about gender identity or sexuality.